Part 2
For several seconds, the only sound in the motel room was the distant rush of traffic beyond the thin curtains.
A private jet.
The words did not belong beside my name. They belonged to glossy magazine profiles and people like Victor, men who crossed oceans because a meeting bored them less in Paris. I looked down at my bare feet on the faded carpet, at the divorce folder lying open on the bed, at the laptop still glowing with job applications for assistant manager positions and contract consulting work.
“Ms. Bellamy?” Abigail Pierce said gently. “Are you still there?”
“Yes,” I said, though I did not feel fully present in my own body.
“Mr. Kane understands this is sudden. He asked me to say that you are under no obligation. But he believes the matter is urgent, and he would prefer to speak in person.”
I swallowed. “What matter?”
Another pause.
“The Langford acquisition.”
Victor’s name landed like cold water.
My fingers tightened around the phone. “I’m sorry. I don’t work for Victor’s company.”
“No,” Abigail said. “But according to Mr. Kane, you may understand it better than anyone who does.”
I turned toward the mirror above the cheap dresser. A tired woman stared back at me, mascara faintly smudged beneath her eyes, hair pinned too tightly, shoulders held stiff from years of pretending not to be exhausted.
Victor had spent fourteen years telling me I was ornamental. He said I did not understand markets, contracts, leverage, timing. He said my instincts were charming but impractical. Yet his business dinners had always ended with him repeating something I had whispered to him in the car. His speeches carried phrases I had written on napkins. His “sudden insights” often arrived after midnight, after he had woken me to complain through a problem until I quietly solved it for him.
I had called it partnership once.
Later, I called it marriage.
Now I did not know what to call it.
“Why tonight?” I asked.
“Because by morning,” Abigail said, “Victor Langford may sign a deal that affects thousands of employees, including people who have no idea what is hidden inside it.”
My heart began to beat harder.
Hidden.
That was the word that made me sit down on the edge of the bed.
Victor was many things, but careless was not one of them. He liked clean surfaces, sealed folders, polished shoes, silent staff, loyalty bought before it was tested. If something was hidden, he had hidden it for a reason.
“I have nothing with me,” I said. “My clothes, my files, everything was sent to storage.”
“You only need yourself,” Abigail replied. “A car is outside.”
I moved to the curtain and parted it with two fingers.
A black sedan waited under the flickering motel sign. Not a limousine. Not flashy. Its headlights were off, and rain glistened on its hood. Beside it stood a woman in a navy coat holding an umbrella, her posture straight as a drawn line.
I should have been frightened.
Instead, for the first time since Victor slid the divorce papers toward me, I felt something like direction.
“I’ll come,” I said.