My Husband Called Me His Mistress on Livestream novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Say the Word

Nick drives her out of the cameras, her father meets them at the hotel, and a stranger posts a county record that makes the stream true on paper.

"Both of us," I said. "He's the one who's lying more."

Nick Garland looked at the paint on my face, and then at the ring light an inch from his ear.

"Turn that off," he told the redhead.

"We're live, sir."

"Then you can tell three hundred thousand people that you filmed a woman being dragged out of her building, and the buyer of Pruden Cold Chain watched you do it."

The redhead lowered the light.

She did not turn it off. But she lowered it.

He took off his coat and put it around my shoulders, over the paint.

He did it without a word.

"My car's at the curb," he said.

I went with him.

The crew followed to the sidewalk and stopped there, because a black sedan was idling with its door already open and a driver standing beside it.

Nick shut the door on the street.

The car smelled of leather and cold air.

"Your cheek," he said.

"It's paint."

"There's a cut under it. She had a ring."

He took a handkerchief out of his breast pocket. He did not hand it to me.

He turned my face toward the window light and wiped under my eye with the corner of it.

His thumb rested on my jaw while he worked.

It was warm and steady, and it was the first kind thing anyone had done for me that day.

I let him.

"Who are you to Pruden?" he asked.

"His wife."

"For how long?"

"Eight years."

"Then explain why your husband's lawyer sent me a form on Friday." His voice stayed even. "It says his spouse is Shelby Dray Pruden. Her date of birth. Her address. Her signature, notarized."

"I can't explain it yet."

"You said he lies more."

"He does."

"I'm closing a two-hundred-million-dollar purchase in four days," Nick said. "I need a better answer than yet."

I looked at him.

He did not look away.

"The closing papers say no spouse can claim any part of the proceeds," I said. "Is that true?"

His eyes sharpened.

"It's a standard warranty. The seller swears there's no spouse with a claim."

"And he gave you the name of a wife who will sign it."

"Yes."

"A wife who just announced on camera that she will take the apartment, the paintings and everything in it."

"Yes."

"Does a man who plans to share the money do that?"

Nick said nothing for a moment.

Then he put the handkerchief away.

"No," he said. "A man who plans to keep it all makes one wife public and the other one disappear."

The car turned onto Michigan Avenue.

"Where am I taking you?"

"A hotel," I said. "Any hotel."

"Not your family's?"

"My father lives forty minutes away. I'm not calling him while Brent is winning."

He frowned, but he told the driver a hotel's name.

"Why did you put your coat on me?" I asked.

"Because three hundred thousand strangers are looking at your blouse."

"That's the only reason?"

"No," Nick said. "I'm not sure of the other one yet."

The car stopped under a hotel awning.

I gave him back his coat and he did not take it.

"Keep it. Bring it Friday."

"I might not be at your closing."

"Then I'll come find you for it," he said.

The doorman took one look at me and opened the door very fast.

At the front desk, I asked for a room and put my card on the counter.

The clerk read the name, then glanced at her phone, and her face went soft with pity.

"Of course, Mrs. Pruden," she said. "We'll give you a quiet one."

In the room, I stood under the shower until the water ran clear.

The paint came off my skin in streaks. It would not come out of my hair.

I sat on the bed in a robe with my phone in my hand and looked at my father's name.

I pressed it.

He answered on the first ring.

"Is it you?" he said. He was already out of breath. "Is it really you? Tell me where you are."

"Dad."

"I saw it an hour ago. I've been in the car since."

"You're driving?"

"I'm in your hotel lobby," my father said. "I'll be up in two minutes. Open the door."

He arrived in a rumpled overcoat with his reading glasses still on their cord, and he put his arms around me without a word.

He smelled of boat fuel and lake water.

Over my shoulder he said, in the voice he used for board meetings, "Say the word."

"Not yet."

"Leigh."

"I want him to say it first. In front of everyone. I want to hear him say who I am."

My father held me away from him.

He looked at my hair. He looked at the cut on my cheek.

"He's going to get a very short sentence out of me," he said, "and it isn't going to be a kind one."

"Dad."

"Fine." He sat on the edge of the bed and sighed. "Then I'll say nothing until Friday. I'll say it twice as loud on Friday."

My phone buzzed against the sheet.

Then it buzzed again.

It was a message from a number I did not know.

It had a link, and one line.

You should look at what Cook County has on your husband.

I opened it.

It was the public registry's page, in plain gray type.

Pruden, Brent Allen. Spouse: Dray, Shelby Marie. Date of marriage: eleven years ago.

Status: no dissolution on file.

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