My Husband Chose My Best Friend Over Me, So I Took Everything Back novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Closet
Meredith and Clark have just finished when Bree steps out of the closet filming. They demand she quit Friday's vote and sign the house over. Clark says he chose Bree, and Bree moves the vote to tomorrow morning.
Clark and I had just finished when I got up to wash.
The door of our walk-in closet opened from the inside.
Bree stepped out with her phone held up and her usual easy smile, the one she wore when she brought dessert.
"Oh my God, Mer. Look at you."
I had the bedsheet in my fist and nothing else on.
The red recording dot was lit on her screen.
Bree Rowan had been my best friend for twelve years. She had a key to this house and her own drawer in my kitchen.
"The ice queen of the courtroom," she said. "Wait until the partners see what you sound like in bed."
I turned to my husband.
Clark sat on the edge of the bed, pulling on his shorts.
He was not looking at the closet. He was not surprised.
"Clark."
"Mer, relax," he said. "It's a joke. Bree thought it'd be funny. She'll delete it."
Bree lifted the phone higher with her right hand.
A thin gold ring sat on her finger, the one she wore everywhere.
She had told me once she'd bought it herself at a flea market.
"Sure," she said. "Eventually."
I held out my palm. "Phone."
"Not yet."
"Clark, take it from her."
He did not move.
In nine years I had never asked him for anything and watched him stay seated.
"How long was she in there?"
Clark rubbed the back of his neck. "Since before you got home."
"Three o'clock," Bree said. "I had a very good view."
"How long have you two been doing this?"
Clark looked at Bree. She answered for him.
"Eight months. Since the Hargrove dinner."
"You sat next to me at the Hargrove dinner."
"I know." She smiled. "You told me my dress was pretty."
His wedding ring was in the dish on the dresser. He had taken it off before I got home.
"Why?"
"Because Friday is the vote," Clark said. He stood up. "Equity partner. Your name on the door, and mine nowhere. Nine years I've carried your coat, Mer."
"You never carried my coat."
"I'm the husband of Meredith Lang. That's the whole job." His voice shook. "Bree asks me what I want."
Bree laid her free hand on his arm. She did it easily. She had done it before.
"So here's the plan," she said. "By Friday you withdraw from the vote. Then you sign the townhouse over to Clark. His name alone on the deed."
"It's my house."
"Your bonuses, your grandmother's down payment, yes, I know." She sounded kind. "Do both, and the video dies. Don't, and every partner gets it at nine on Friday."
"It's insurance, babe," she added. "Nobody has to get hurt."
She turned the screen to me.
The recipient line was already filled in. Every partner at the firm, and Howard Finch at the top.
Her thumb rested beside the send button.
"See? Easy."
I felt sick, and under the sick I felt very clear.
I looked at my husband.
"Say it plainly," I said. "Did you pick her?"
Clark held my eyes for the first time that night.
"I chose her, Mer. I'm sorry it's like this."
"It's only a house," Bree said. "Just sign."
I thought about lunging for the phone. She would hit send before my hand closed on it.
So I did what I do in court when the other side thinks it has me.
I went quiet.
I dropped the sheet and put on my robe. I took my laptop bag from the chair, my father's watch from the dresser and my keys from the bowl.
"Mer?" Clark said. "Where are you going?"
"To my grandmother's."
"You can't just leave."
"You're right." I stopped in the doorway. "I'll be back for the rest."
Bree laughed. She was still recording.
So I walked out of my own bedroom, down my own stairs and out my own front door.
I sat in the car with the engine off and my hands on the wheel.
The house was lit upstairs. Two shadows crossed the curtain, and one of them put an arm around the other.
My phone buzzed on the seat.
Bree.
*Love you. Don't be dramatic. Small update: I moved the vote up to tomorrow at nine. Sign and withdraw by eight, or it all goes out.*
She ran the partners' calendar.
She had run it for years, and I had never once checked it.
I screenshotted the text and emailed it to myself, then to my grandmother.
Then I opened the voice memo app.
I said the date, the time and every demand out loud, word for word.
I did not cry. I started the car.
My grandmother's porch light in Queens would be on, because it was always on.
Bree had one night to scare me into signing, and I had one night to find out how long they had planned this.
I had until eight in the morning.
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