Page 76 of Manhattan Bossholes

“Why are we meeting at your fancy CEO club?”

“It’s not just CEOs,” I argued. And I needed a drink…and maybe to not be at home. I didn’t think I could face the memories of Piper just yet. We could see how I felt after I was nearing a blackout.

We walked into the sleek lobby, where the highly efficient receptionist recognized me and buzzed me through to the elevator. We rode up to the rooftop terrace bar in silence while Paul stared down at his shoes.

The terrace was fairly vacant when we stepped outside. “Drink?” I asked, gesturing towards the bar.

“You have to ask?” he chuckled. “Bring a bottle. I’ll find us a table.”

Paul headed for the row of tables along the balcony while I ordered us a bottle of Elixir—always our go-to, out of loyalty to Aiden—and two tumblers. When I found him, he was hunched forward in a chair, head bowed. I wordlessly poured him a glass and nudged it against his shoulder.

I dropped into the chair opposite him. “Talk.”

Paul took a long draw of scotch, closed his eyes, then sighed. “That helps a little.”

“Give it two more glasses, and you’ll be feeling no pain.” I was looking forward to the same sensation.

We drank in silence for a few minutes. I wasn’t about to push Paul to unleash what he was dealing with. Sometimes just being there for each other was enough. Finally, he started talking.

“Things aren’t good with Chloe,” he admitted quietly. “They’re actually pretty shitty.”

I frowned at him. “What do you mean? You’re newlyweds. Commence happily ever after. The bad stuff isn’t supposed to come for years.”

Paul leaned back and looked up at the starry sky. “Yeah, that’s what I thought too. Turns out Chloe has been hiding a lot of shit from me.”

“Hold on.” I leaned forward abruptly. “She hasn’t been⁠—”

“No, no cheating, but she’s still been keeping secrets from me,” Paul cut me off. “I thought we were back to normal after all the drama on the way to the altar. She was acting totally fine. Happy, even! Then out of nowhere, she realizes she’s missing one of the antique earrings her grandmother had left her. It was her ‘something old’ in the wedding. She knew she took them off in the suite after the reception, but after that, we got tied up in getting ready to leave for the honeymoon. We had to pack in a hurry after the brunch in order to make our flight the next morning, so she didn’t even notice it wasn’t with the rest of her things. But a couple of nights ago, she was going through her stuff and couldn’t find it.”

I wasn’t following how a missing earring could blow up enough to require a middle-of-the-night visit. “Did you call the hotel?”

He nodded. “Immediately. They tore the room apart looking for it, but it didn’t turn up. And Chloe had a total meltdown. Like, I didn’t recognize her she was so upset. At one point she was crying so hard she was hyperventilating.” Paul’s expression went sheepish. “And that was when I said the worst thing you can say to an unhappy woman.”

“Paul, you didn’t,” I sighed.

“Oh, I did,” he replied ruefully and took a long draw of scotch. “I said, ‘Calm down, it’s just an earring.’”

Now his text was starting to make sense.

“It was like I kicked through a dam. She just…unleashed right in front of me. Fell down to her knees. I ran over to try to comfort her, to just hug her through the pain, you know? She pushed me away.” Paul looked haunted by the memory of it. “And once she caught her breath, she started talking. She said she wasn’t happy, and she hasn’t been for months. That she felt like I didn’t take her concerns about the run-up to the wedding seriously enough. That I never carried my weight when things got rough.”

“Paul, come on,” I cut in. “How much more could you do? You got us all assembled Avengers-style for her a few times. I don’t get it, what more does she need?”

“She said there were a bunch of times when she felt like she was drowning, and I wasn’t there for her. But I’m not a mind reader! She’d have a flare-up when things got dicey—totally understandable—then she’d go back to business as usual. But she wasn’t being honest with how tough everything was for her. How is that fair? I can only help if I know help is needed!”

He drained his glass and thumped it on the patio table next to him. I immediately leaned over to refill it.

“It’s not fair,” I agreed. “She should’ve shared how she was really feeling.”

“Thank you,” he said angrily.

“But,” I continued, “are you really telling me she’s that good of an actress that you couldn’t tell things were off? I mean, there were signs, right? She was a pendulum swinging from stable to inconsolable every other day—maybe that’s something you both needed to talk through.”

I reflected on my own feelings about how things had been going with Piper. I’d suspected that she wasn’t being honest with me about how she was feeling, yet I’d done nothing about it. And like what happened between Paul and Chloe, everything had exploded.

He shot me an angry look. “Are you suggesting I was ignoring how she felt?”

I didn’t answer him, and he looked down to pick at his nails.