He Chose His Ex, So I Chose My Empire novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Table for Three

Laurel sits down at her husband's dinner with Sabrina and asks who the money is for; he won't say, and by morning a cropped photo of him and his ex is on the staff channel with a heart.

I didn't text back.

I found my husband's location instead.

We had shared it since our honeymoon, back when it felt romantic to know where the other one was.

Hugh was at a little French place on Fillmore Street, six blocks from our home.

He had told me once it was where he'd taken clients he wanted to impress.

I took a cab.

I didn't fix my makeup.

The hostess asked if I had a reservation.

"My husband does," I said, and walked past her.

They had the corner table by the window.

Candles. A bottle of white in a silver bucket. Sabrina's slides open on a tablet between the bread plates.

Sabrina saw me first.

Her face did something quick and pleased before it went soft and sorry.

Hugh looked up.

For one second he looked caught.

Then he looked like Hugh again, calm and unreadable, and he stood up.

"Laurel."

"You said you were working late."

"I am working."

I pulled out the third chair and sat down.

The couple at the next table stopped talking.

"Then I'll work too," I said. "Walk me through it, Sabrina. I've heard the office version. I'd love to hear the one you give my husband."

Sabrina laughed, light as a napkin falling.

"Laurel, it's not like that. Hugh asked to see where his money might go. Due diligence."

"He's never asked to see mine."

Hugh sat back down slowly.

"I didn't want to be seen favoring my wife."

"So you're favoring her instead. In a restaurant. At nine at night."

"That's not what this is."

The waiter came with a third glass.

I put my hand over it.

"Hugh," I said, "I have a team of six who'll be handed to her like furniture if this goes the way the building thinks it's going."

Sabrina touched her pearl earring.

"People do love a story," she said.

"So tell them it isn't true," I said to Hugh. "One sentence. Tomorrow morning. 'The gift isn't for Sabrina.' That's all."

He looked at me for a long moment.

"I'm not putting my thumb on the scale."

"Your whole hand is on the scale. It's ten million dollars."

"If I say a word for you, the first thing anyone says when you win is that you bought it. With my money. You'd never shake that off."

"And if you say nothing, I lose."

"Then you lose fair."

Sabrina lowered her eyes to her glass.

She was trying not to smile.

She didn't try very hard.

I stood up.

"Enjoy your due diligence," I said.

I made it to the sidewalk before my hands started shaking.

He caught up with me at the corner.

"Get in the car, Laurel."

"I'll walk."

"It's ten blocks uphill in heels."

"Then I'll be very fit."

He opened the back door of the car anyway and waited.

I got in, because my feet hurt, not because he said so.

We didn't speak in the car.

We didn't speak in the elevator.

The penthouse was dark except for the lights under the kitchen cabinets.

I dropped my bag on the grey stone island.

"Did she ask for that dinner, or did you?"

"She did."

"And you went."

"I go to a lot of dinners."

"Did you know what they were saying about you two? Before today?"

He took off his watch, his grandfather's watch, and set it down on the stone.

That was his tell.

He took off the watch when he didn't want to answer.

"I heard something," he said.

"When?"

"A week ago."

I laughed.

It didn't sound like me.

"A week. You let me walk into that building every day for a week."

"It's gossip. It burns out."

"It doesn't burn out when you keep feeding it fancy dinners."

He came around the island.

"Laurel."

"Don't."

"I'm on your side. I've always been on your side."

"Then stand on it where people can see you."

He put his hands flat on the stone on either side of me.

He was close enough that I could smell the wine and the cold air on him.

I hated that my body still leaned toward him.

"Look at me," he said.

I looked.

He kissed me hard.

I kissed him back harder, because I was furious, and because some stupid part of me wanted to win something tonight.

His hand went into my hair.

My back hit the edge of the island.

He lifted me onto it, and the cold stone went right through my skirt.

I pulled his shirt out of his trousers.

He made a low sound against my mouth that I knew better than my own name.

His hand slid up the inside of my thigh.

Then I thought of the candle on that table, and Sabrina's eyes on her glass.

I bit his lower lip.

Not hard.

Hard enough.

He stopped.

I put my palm on his chest and pushed him back one step.

"No," I said. "You don't get to settle this in here."

I slid off the island and fixed my skirt.

I slept in the guest room with the door locked.

He didn't knock.

In the morning, Jo's text was waiting at 6:12.

"Don't open the staff channel. Actually, do. I need you to see it so I'm not alone."

I opened it.

A society site had run a photo from Fillmore Street.

Hugh and Sabrina at the window table, candlelight, her hand on his arm, her head tipped toward his shoulder.

I had been sitting eighteen inches to her left.

The frame stopped exactly at my shoulder.

"Stanford's golden couple, together again over $10 million?"

Sabrina had shared it to the whole staff channel at 5:58 a.m.

She'd added one little heart.

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