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I blink, digesting the offhanded way in which he broached this personal subject. I don’t know if I should be outraged or amused.
“How is that your business?” I ask.
“It’s not.” He approaches the credenza and sifts through items like it’s a crime scene. “But I’m a problem solver, and when presented with one, I usually find a solution.”
“And then what? Get a surrogate? They cost a fortune.”
“In North America, yes. But there are agencies—”
“Well, we didn’t freeze anything,” I answer shortly.
And even if we had, I wouldn’t want to use it, knowing everything I know.
“Too bad.” Arsène puts a vase back in its place and pivots in my direction. “Now, where’s the key?”
I withdraw the small thing from my dress’s pocket and dangle it between us.
“Do you think we’re going to hate whatever we find out?” I swallow hard.
“I hope so,” he says. “Makes it easier to let go.”
And then we’re right there. In front of the door I’ve been staring at for months like it was the open mouth of a lion. Before I turn the key in its hole, I take a deep breath.
“God, you’re still in love with him. That’s pathetic.” The words crawl over my back from behind, like claws.
“Pot, meet kettle,” I murmur.
A chuckle escapes him. “Oh, Winnifred.”
What?I want to lash out.What am I missing? How are you and I different?But it doesn’t matter, and it wouldn’t bring me closer to inner peace.
I turn the key and push the door open.
Paul’s office is a vision of averageness. Files tidily stacked on his desk. A row of three screens adorned with Post-it Notes. There are filing cabinets, dusty pictures of us on his desk, and a stress ball. Nothing stands out. Nothing screams scandal. Adulterer. Cheater.
Arsène moves swiftly to one side of the room. “I’ll take the filing cabinets, you check his desk drawers.”
He pulls every single file out of them, then each filing cubby, turning them upside down and patting them from all angles to see nothing is hidden inside.
“Be careful. There’s no need to destroy his things,” I grind out.
“Bumpkin,” he answers, already sitting on the floor, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. “You have to stop being loyal to people who haven’t been loyal to you. It’s not a gracious trait. In fact, it’s a little off putting.”
“This is not about Paul.” I shove my hands into drawers, rummaging through notes, pens, a calculator, and some highlighters. “It’s about your hunger for distraction.”
“At least I’m hungry for something.” His words cut straight into me. “When you’re done with the drawers, power up that PC and let me know if it requires a login code, will you?”
For the next hour, we work silently. The PC doesn’t require a code. At the same time, we don’t find anything of interest on it. The filing cabinets turn out to be duds too. We go through letters, flip open the pictures, roll the carpets, seeking hideout spots where Paul could’ve kept something secretive, but it’s one disappointment after the other. There’snothing in the office to suggest Paul had ever been anything more than a boring, married hedge fund manager.
At some point, I start feeling foolish and actually—bizarrely—become mad at Paul. I’ve built up this office to be the holy grail of all secrets, and nothing is coming out of it. I feel like I’m disappointing Arsène.
Why I care about disappointing this man is beyond me, but I do.
Another hour ticks by. We recheck everything we looked into before. Our nerves are shot, and the silence piles up on us, like deadweight. No stone is left unturned. But we’re no longer friendly, or hot for each other, or even mildly civilized. The tension is everywhere, tangling around our limbs like ivy.
“Stop.” Arsène’s voice slices through the silence. It is sudden and makes me gasp as I browse through another one of Paul’s clients’ files. “You and I both know we’re not going to find anything here. It’s a waste of time.”
“That can’t be.” I clutch the file closer to my chest. “Paul was so uptight about his office. So secretive—”
