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“Ma’am? Is that everything?” The cabdriver was standing beside her Louis Vuitton luggage.
“Yes, thank you. ” She flipped her purse open and retrieved the fare from her wallet, plus a healthy tip. “Here you go. ”
He snatched the money and pocketed it. “You call me if you need to go to the airport again,” he said.
The airport.
“Thanks. I will. ”
When he was gone, she turned back to the house. For a second, she thought she couldn’t do it, couldn’t walk down to the hand-carved mahogany door, push it open, and go inside. But then, she was moving, walking beneath the arched entrance that smelled of jasmine, pulling the jangle of keys from her pocketbook.
The key slid in; what had she expected? That it would no longer fit here because she didn’t? The door whooshed open, and the smell of stale air greeted her.
She walked through the house, room by room, waiting to feel something . . . sad, happy, depressed . . . something. The floor-to-ceiling windows framed the brilliant blues of the sea and sky.
She felt as if she were walking through a stranger’s house. Thoughts of Nick and Izzy crowded in on her, begging to be replayed and picked over, but she didn’t dare. Instead she focused on the little things: the grand piano she’d purchased at a Sotheby’s auction, the chandelier she’d rescued from an old San Francisco hotel, the Lladró statue collection she’d begun when Natalie started junior high.
Things.
She went up to her bedroom. Their bedroom.
There, certainly she would feel something. But again, there was only that odd sensation that she was viewing the remains of a long-dead civilization. This was Annie Colwater’s room, and it was all that remained of her.
Her closet was full of expensive silks and woolens and cashmeres, skirts in every color and length, shoes in boxes still marked with exorbitant price tags.
At the bedside table, she picked up the phone and listened for a long time to the dial tone. She wanted to call Nick and Izzy, but she didn’t. Instead, she carefully dialed Blake’s office number. Without waiting to speak to him, she left a message that she was home.
Then she replaced the receiver and sat heavily on the end of her bed.
Soon, she’d see Blake again. In the old days, she would have obsessed over what to wear, but now, she couldn’t have cared less. There was nothing in that vast, expensive closet that mattered to her anymore, nothing that felt like hers. It was nothing but acres and acres of another woman’s clothes.
The office was like the man, understated, expensive, and seething with power. Years before Blake could afford this corner office in Century City, with its expansive views of glass and concrete skyscrapers, he’d imagined it. He always kne
w it would be stark and unrelieved, that there would be nothing in the room that said, Come on in, sit down, tell me your troubles. He’d never wanted to be that kind of lawyer, and he wasn’t. It was the kind of office that made a client squirm and reminded him with every silent tick of the desk clock how much it was costing to sit here.
In truth, of course, it was Annie who’d given him this office. She’d spent hours choosing the drapes and the upholstery. She had designed and commissioned the ornate African mahogany desk and each hand-stained leather accessory.
Everywhere he looked now, he saw her.
He sighed and leaned back in his chair. The pile of paperwork on his desk blurred in front of him. He shoved the papers aside, watched as the Beaman deposition fluttered to the marble floor.
He felt odd and out of sorts, and he’d felt this way since his impromptu trip to that shithole diner in Mystic.
He’d thought he could apologize to Annie and step back into the comfortable shoes of his old life. Except that Annie wasn’t Annie anymore, and he didn’t know what to say or do to get her back.
On his desk, the intercom buzzed. He flicked the button impatiently. “Yes, Mildred?”
“Your wife called—”
“Put her through. ”
“She left a message, sir. She wanted you to know that she was home. ”
Blake couldn’t believe it. “Clear my schedule, Mildred. I’m gone for the rest of the day. ”
He sprinted out of the building and jumped into his Ferrari, speeding out of the parking lot and onto the freeway.
At home, he raced up the front steps and jammed the key in the lock, swinging the door open. There was a pile of luggage at the base of the stairs. “Annie?”
