There’s no talking to him. He’s so hung up on the jewelry, like that’s the sole problem between us. Old bitterness boils over. “Just the way you encourage Madison by brushing away my concerns!”
“I didn’t encourage her!” he shoots back. “I spoke to her more than once, and she promised to address your concerns.”
Is he kidding me?“Then why does she insist on being rude to me? Or challenging me? Or implying that she’s having an inappropriate relationship with you?”
“What?” He just looks dumbfounded. How ridiculous. If he’d spoken to her, he would know the big parts of her transgressions. Him playing dumb only stokes my anger.
If he’s going to act innocent, I’m going to list everything she’s done that’s pissed me off, including the ones I never told him about because they seemed so small and petty. Maybe one of them will jostle his memory or make him realize how horrible his vaunted assistant is.
“When she insisted you wanted ‘Amazing Grace’ to be the theme of our wedding—”
“Shetoldyou?”
I ignore his outburst and continue, “—I thought,Okay, he’s upset over the situation, so I’ll just go along with it. When she told me it wasyourwish to have white chrysanthemums rather than the roses I wanted because chrysanthemums symbolize the Emperor of Japan, I also went along because you said you were busy in London and I didn’t want to argue.”
He looks at me like I just sprouted a cucumber out of my forehead. “Iwasbusy, but why would I want anything to do with the Emperor of Japan?”
I shrug. “Beats me. Maybe because your aunt is Asian? You would have to ask your precious, perfect Madison.”
His eyes narrow at my sarcastic tone, but I’m past caring. The rational, calm speeches I’ve prepared are mentally ripped into pieces and thrown up in the air. All that’s left behind is seething resentment and fury at the utter disrespect I’ve received.
“Then she wanted to advise me on what to wear to the wedding. So I told her to stay the hell away because no way in hell I was letting her put me in a literal potato sack, saying it was whatyoureally wanted. Then I picked a black dress because it seemed fitting, given how you wanted to rub it in my face that this marriage wasn’t going to last.”
“Grace—”
I lift a finger. “I’m not finished. That isn’t all that she did. She then refused to let me see you when I went over around lunch break on the day you sent me daisies. She said you were too busy and important, and a mere wife wasn’t entitled to your time, unless I made an appointment first.”
“What the fuck?”
“Then she made sure I would smell her perfume, and you came home that night wearing the same scent. Tell me: what was I supposed to think at that point?”
Chapter Forty-Six
Huxley
The question slaps me.I smelled like what?
My instinct kicks in, saying that isn’t the important part. “I didn’t cheat on you.”
“What would you think if I came home from work smelling like another man?” Grace’s voice shakes with pent-up anger and frustration.
I’d lose it.Demand to know why she has another man’s scent all over her. Suspect that even if she hadn’t slept with him, she probably did something she shouldn’t have. But nothing happened with Madison. I worked, then came home. End of story. “I didn’t sleep with Madison,” I say firmly, a hint of plea in my tone, needing her to believe me. “The only woman in my life since that night at the Aylster has been you.”
Grace makes a neutral sound in her throat. “On the day when you had to rush back to the office because she interrupted our time at Sebastian Jewelry, she got a call from someone. She said to the caller that she understood expecting a child he never wanted could make things difficult and that she would take care of everything.”
Does Grace thinkIcalled Madison to say shit about her and our baby? I’m both sad and pissed off that I haven’t done enough to earn her trust and she jumped to the worst conclusion possible. “I didn’t call her after I left Sebastian Jewelry.”
“Maybe so. But she called the person ‘H.’ Like Huxley.”
“It could’ve been Harold or Henry.” I toss out two of the clients we’ve worked with, but my explanation sounds feeble, even to my own ears.
“Then she offered to send me a bottle of her perfume. Her favorite, she said. And yours, too.”
Just what the hell has Madison been doing behind my back?She doesn’t even wear perfume! “I don’t give a shit about women’s perfume, unless it’s on you.”
Grace continues as though she hasn’t heard me. “I told her it wasn’t necessary, since the scent rubs on me when you take me to bed. You should’ve seen her face.”
Under any other circumstances, I might laugh at her comeback. But I’ve been set up by the one person I never thought would betray me.
