Her name on Adrian’s phone should not have frightened me.
The message did.
I picked up his phone.
“I’m downstairs. Is Caroline gone yet?”
Not Are you free?
Not Can we talk?
Gone.
She expected me not to be there.
I typed two words.
“Yes. Come.”
Then I returned the phone to the charger.
The shower continued running.
I looked at the clock.
10:14 p.m.
At 10:19, the buzzer sounded.
Five minutes.
Vanessa lived almost twenty minutes away.
Which meant she had already been nearby.
Or waiting.
I opened the door.
She stood in the corridor wearing a fitted navy dress, heels, perfume, and the diamond earrings I had helped her choose the previous Christmas.
Her smile vanished.
“Caroline?”
I leaned against the doorframe.
“Hello, Vanessa.”
She looked behind me.
“What are you doing here?”
I almost laughed.
“I live here.”
Her face changed.
“I meant… I thought you were out.”
“I know.”
Silence stretched between us.
Then the bathroom door opened.
Adrian walked into the hallway with wet hair and a towel around his waist.
He saw Vanessa.
Then me.
His face went white.
“What is she doing here?”
The question came too quickly.
I walked to the counter, lifted his phone, and showed him the message.
“I invited her.”
His expression hardened instantly.
“You went through my phone?”
I stared at him.
“My best friend just asked my husband whether I was gone, and somehow your concern is privacy?”
“Caroline—”
“How long?”
Vanessa started crying.
Adrian looked at her.
Not at me.
At her.
That was when I understood the emotional arrangement before either of them admitted the physical one.
He stepped slightly toward Vanessa.
“Don’t make this worse.”
I looked at my husband.
“You’re protecting her.”
“No.”
“You moved toward her.”
“I’m trying to keep everyone calm.”
“How long?”
He exhaled.
“Four months.”
Vanessa lowered her head.
I looked at her.
“Is that true?”
She didn’t answer.
