Chapter 5

"Did you enjoy that?" Quentin asked.

"Your mother's roast beef? It was dry."

"Watching her undermine me."

I placed my earrings in the small dish beside the mirror.

"I told you I didn't speak to her."

"She knew about the restaurant. She knew about the car."

"You employ hundreds of people. We were standing outside Voss Spire. Half your family lives on gossip. Pick whatever source you want. It wasn't me."

He followed me into the kitchen.

"You humiliated Nora, and then my mother fired her. You expect me to believe you had nothing to do with it?"

"I expect my husband to believe me when I tell him the truth."

"And I expected my wife to show some compassion. Nora is young. She came here from a small town. She worked hard to get that position."

"Then she should have focused on doing her job instead of testing how much access to you she could get."

"She asked me for a ride."

"She took my seat."

"You keep saying that as if she took your place in my bed."

"And you keep moving the bar until your behavior clears it."

He planted both hands on the kitchen island.

"You've treated her like dirt since the day you met. You handed her money in front of your employees. You made her look cheap. Then you hid behind my mother."

"I didn't make Nora look cheap. I offered her a way home that didn't involve my husband. She decided that wasn't good enough."

"You always have to win."

"This isn't a contest."

"Everything is a contest with you. Everyone in the room has to know you're richer, smarter, and more powerful. God forbid anyone forgets that Zora Voss owns the building."

His words hit hard.

Not just because they hurt, but because they showed me what he'd been hiding.

My independence had once impressed him.

Now it seemed to offend him.

"Are you angry because your mother interfered with your company," I asked, "or because she took Nora away from you?"

"I'm angry because my wife is jealous, vindictive, and too proud to admit when she's wrong."

"You defended an employee who insulted me twice and deliberately crossed a boundary I'd already explained to you."

"I defended my authority."

"Against whom? Your mother? Me?"

"Against everyone who thinks they can order me around."

I nodded once.

"Now I understand."

His eyes narrowed.

"Understand what?"

"Strike three."

He stared at me.

"Dinner was your first chance. The car was your second. Tonight, you chose to call me cruel and jealous because I wouldn't let your assistant push her way into our marriage. You don't think the boundary matters. You think my refusal to move it is an attack on you."

"You don't get to hand down a verdict in your own marriage."

"I told you how I expected this marriage to work before we got married. Three chances. After that, I believe what someone's actions have shown me."

He let out a humorless laugh.

"And what have I shown you?"

"That the equality in this marriage only lasts as long as I don't challenge your convenience."

He pushed away from the island.

"No one can live under your standards, Zora. No one can breathe around you without being judged."

"You managed for three years."

"Maybe I got tired of it."

The house fell silent.

I remembered the night we moved in.

A designer had filled the rooms with expensive decorations neither of us liked. Quentin and I spent until two in the morning carrying half of them into storage.

He'd held up a gold ceramic horse and asked whether marriage meant we had to keep gifts we hated.

I'd told him no.

We'd laughed on the empty living-room floor, eating takeout straight from the cartons.

For three years, I'd believed we agreed that a shared life should contain only what both people wanted.

Now he was telling me my standards were just another piece of furniture he wanted gone.

He seemed surprised by his own words, but he didn't take them back.

"Then you should go somewhere you can breathe," I said.

He grabbed his keys from the counter.

"Gladly."

The front door slammed so hard that the glass in the cabinets rattled.

He didn't come home that night. He didn't call the next morning, either.

By noon, his office had informed mine that he'd attend the joint-venture review by video.

I ran the meeting without him.

Work steadied me. It required decisions, not emotional reactions.

The target company for our Portlyn expansion had lost a major client that morning.

The acquisition team wanted to cut the price immediately. I rejected the proposal, called the founder myself, and learned that the client had left because of a service issue the founder was already fixing.

We rewrote the retention terms before lunch.

By the end of the meeting, the deal was in better shape than it had been when Quentin walked out of our house.

I didn't need to neglect my marriage to prove I could do my job.

I needed a husband who didn't mistake my ability to lead for a lack of commitment to him.

Voss Group was preparing to acquire a transportation-dispatch platform in Portlyn, and our consumer division's biggest product launch in five years was only twelve days away.

I had no intention of wasting those days tracking my husband's moods.

On Monday, Cole Group announced that Nora had been reinstated by direct order of its CEO.

Quentin copied me on the personnel notice.

There was no message attached.

He didn't need to send one.