I Sent My Husband Fake Cheating Proof, He Flew Home Overnight novel · Chapter 3 of 16

Chapter 3: Sunday Lunch

Christian moves into Hazel's life, but at family lunch Portia and Deirdre show everyone the photos, and his grandfather orders a divorce by Friday.

"What does a real wife mean?" I asked.

"Breakfast together. Dinner together. You tell me where you're going." He paused. "And you sleep in my room."

"Absolutely not."

"Then I'll sleep in yours."

"Christian."

"I'll take the chair," he said. "I won't touch you unless you ask me to."

He said it like a vow.

I didn't understand then why it sounded like one.

"Fine," I said. "Thirty days. Then you sign."

"Then I sign."

He held out his hand.

I shook it.

His palm was warm and dry, and he held on one second longer than he needed to.

That night he carried the leather armchair from his study up two flights of stairs by himself.

He set it next to my bed.

He sat in it with a paperback and a reading lamp.

I lay under the covers with my back to him and listened to him turn pages until two in the morning.

At seven he was downstairs in an apron.

"Eggs or pancakes?"

"You don't have to do this."

"Eggs," he decided, and put honey in my coffee without asking.

For three years I had taken my coffee with honey.

For three years I thought he hadn't noticed I drank coffee at all.

He drove me to my studio in the West Village.

He carried my portfolio up the stairs.

He looked at the drawings pinned to the wall, a family of badgers building a boat.

"This one's new," he said, pointing at the smallest badger.

"You don't know what's new."

"The last book was otters."

I stared at him.

He kissed my forehead, fast and light, and left before I could say anything.

I didn't draw a single line that day.

Pippa called at noon.

"Henrik's freaking out. He says your husband threatened to end his career."

"He did."

"Is it working? Is he going to sign?"

I looked out the window at the black car idling at the curb.

Christian had left his driver outside all day, in case I wanted to go somewhere.

"I don't know," I said.

On Sunday we drove up to Westchester for lunch at his grandfather's house.

Walter Kane was turning eighty next Sunday and acted like he was ninety.

The house had a gravel drive and a portrait of every Kane since 1890.

None of them were smiling.

Christian held my hand from the car to the front door.

When we walked into the dining room, I saw why.

Portia Vanderpoel was sitting at the table.

She wore white, like she always did.

Her platinum bob was so sharp it could have sliced bread.

Next to her sat Christian's stepmother, Deirdre, in pearls and powder-blue tweed.

"Hazel, sweetheart," Deirdre sang. "You look tired. Is everything all right at home?"

"Why is she here?" Christian asked.

"Portia's handling our press for the gala," Deirdre said. "I invited her. Sit, sit."

We sat.

The soup came.

Portia waited until Walter had lifted his spoon.

Then she took out her phone.

"Mr. Kane, I'm so sorry to do this at lunch," she said. "But as the family's press adviser, I can't sit on it."

She turned the screen toward Walter.

My stomach dropped.

It was my photo.

Me in Henrik's shirt, laughing at a stove.

"Where did you get that?" I said.

"It's being shopped to three gossip sites," Portia said sweetly. "A little bird sent it to me first."

She swiped.

The arm on my waist.

The pillow.

Deirdre pressed her napkin to her mouth.

"Oh, Hazel. Oh, you poor foolish girl."

Christian's cousin Lydia leaned over to look and gasped loudly enough for the staff to hear.

Walter put his spoon down.

He looked at the photos for a long time.

Then he looked at me.

"Is that you?"

Everyone waited.

I had wanted this.

I had wanted Christian to believe it.

I had never pictured his grandfather holding my shame up at lunch.

"Yes," I said.

Portia smiled at her soup.

Deirdre sighed.

"I told you, Walter. A printer's daughter. What did we expect?"

"My father's name was Martin Wrentham," I said. "You can say it."

"I could," Deirdre said. "But why would I bother?"

Walter turned to Christian.

"The Kane Air board meets Friday," he said.

"The shareholders will see these by Tuesday. I will not have the company run by a man whose wife is sleeping with a waiter."

"He's an actor," I said, before I could stop myself.

Lydia laughed out loud.

Walter ignored me.

"You'll file for divorce by Friday, Christian," he said. "Or you will step down as CEO."

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