Cold Marriage, Burning Regret novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Anniversary Seat
At the Ellery Foundation gala on her third anniversary, Marcella watches her husband arrive with his first love and give her chair away, and she walks out. At the coat check the woman tells her she is eight weeks pregnant.
On our third anniversary, three hundred people watched my husband walk into the Ellery Foundation gala with another woman.
I was standing at table one in the green dress he had picked for me.
His grandmother stood beside me with her cane hooked over her wrist.
"He texted me," she said. "A board call ran over. He wouldn't miss tonight, Marcella."
I had the same text on my phone, sent at six: Running late. Don't wait for me.
I had married him on his terms: Ellery money for my lab, and a child before his thirty-fourth birthday.
Three years later there was still no child.
He came to my bed on the first and the fifteenth of every month, with the lights off, and he was gone before midnight.
Tonight was the fifteenth.
I had gone to the fertility clinic alone for two years.
Scott never came to a single appointment.
His assistant had sent one form saying he had been cleared by his grandmother's doctor, and that was the end of it.
The ballroom doors opened.
Scott came in wearing the black tuxedo I had laid out for him that morning.
A woman in cream silk had her hand tucked through his arm.
She had honey-blonde hair in a low twist and a face that people liked on sight.
Cameras went off along the rope line.
Scott did not look at me until they were halfway across the floor.
The woman reached me first.
"You're Marcella," she said, and she took both my hands. "You're the doctor who fixed Eleanor's heart. I'm Lydia Penrose. I've wanted to thank you for years."
Her hands were warm and her voice was kind.
"Thank you," I said. "Have we met?"
"Scott and I were close a long time ago," Lydia said. "I only landed from London this afternoon. He wouldn't let me take a car alone."
Scott stopped beside her.
"Marcella," he said. "Lydia is an old friend. She'll sit with us."
I looked at the place cards on table one.
Eleanor Ellery. Scott Ellery. Dr. Marcella Sherman.
A waiter was already sliding my card to the end of the table, next to a stranger from the donor list.
Lydia's name had been written in gold ink and placed in my chair.
"Scott," Eleanor said quietly.
"It's one dinner, Grandmother," he said. "Marcella can take the seat at table nine."
Eleanor looked at me.
Her mouth was tight, and her hand pressed mine.
"Humor him tonight, dear," she said. "I'll talk to him in the morning."
It was a smooth thing to say, and it was the third time that night someone had told me to wait.
Lydia touched my arm. "Please don't be upset. I'll move, I really will."
"No, stay," Scott said, without looking at her.
I took my wedding ring off.
It came off easily, because it had never fit right.
Every table around us had gone silent.
"Tonight is our anniversary," I said. "Everyone in this room knows whose chair that is, and you just gave it away in front of them."
"Marcella," Scott said, low. "Not here."
"You picked here."
I set the ring on his dinner plate.
It made a small sound against the china.
A photographer lowered his camera and then raised it again.
"I'll have my lawyer send the papers Monday," I said.
So I stepped out.
I walked the length of the ballroom with my back straight and my phone in my hand.
Nobody stopped me, and Scott did not follow.
At the coat check the attendant went to find my wrap.
My hands were still shaking when I heard heels behind me.
Lydia came through the doors alone, her cheeks pink.
"Marcella, wait. Please. I'm so sorry."
She stopped an arm's length away.
"I didn't come to take anything from you," she said. "But you should hear it from me before it's in the papers tomorrow."
I said nothing.
"I'm eight weeks pregnant," Lydia said gently. "It's Scott's."
The attendant set my wrap on the counter.
I picked it up and could not feel it.
For the last two months Scott had come to my bed on the first and the fifteenth, every time, with the lights off, and left before midnight.
I had never once asked him where he went afterward.
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