Stop. Breathe.
I didn’t have to experience all my freedom all at once. I wanted a hot dog. I could start there.
The Constantines owned a giant high-rise office building in Manhattan where Winston ran Halcyon. But Caroline owned a brownstone on the Upper East Side across from the park. And that was where I’d been summoned.
The car pulled up to the curb, and Theo got out in the rain, popped open the umbrella and opened my door.
The memory came out with the cool fresh air. Like a missile hiding underwater.
“Stop,” Jim said, grabbing my wrist. “Wait.”
“I don’t need someone to open the door for me,” I said, pulling away, but his grip was unbreakable, and he got that look on his face that he was getting more and more. That half smile. That blank stare. I stopped fighting him, and he squeezed my wrist harder.
“You’re hurting me,” I whispered.
“Am I?” he asked, suddenly and completely unfamiliar to me. His handsome face was simply a mask over the reality of him. The awful snakey-ness of him.
“Jim—” I breathed.
“You wait for the driver to open the door,” he said like I was a child. Like he needed to teach me. He dropped my wrist just as the driver opened the door. His face his own again. His smile the lie everyone believed.
“Ma’am?” Theo stood outside the door, his head framed by the umbrella behind him.
“Yes,” I said, fighting the urge to rub away the phantom pain in my wrist. “Just a second.”
Theo stood back. He was just a man. An employee. But he was also a reminder of what I’d been. A possession. If I wanted real independence, I did need to learn how to drive.
Perhaps this was too soon? Coming into the city? I hadn’t been back here without Jim or without trying to hide what he did to me for over two years. But if I gave into this fear and went home, I knew there would never be a day when I was brave enough. It was now or never.
I had to get out of the car. I did. Caroline was expecting me, and I loved Caroline, and I wanted a hot dog, and so I forced myself to get out of the car and stand in the drizzly rain. Theo didn’t smile at me. He didn’t seem like the smiling type, but I could tell he was proud of me.
I was proud of me. This was clearly a baby-steps situation.
“Mrs. Maywell,” a serious man with a smart suit stood up from behind his desk when I walked in. “It’s good to see you.”
“You too.” The banalities came so easy.
“We’re all so sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“Mrs. Constantine is waiting for you in her office,” he said and led me to the elevator. I was embarrassed by this attention. By his kindness. I wanted him to sit down and ignore me. He pushed the button for the carriage. “Justin will meet you by the elevators.”
I smiled and thanked him. The elevator whisked me to the eighth floor and Justin, Caroline’s assistant, greeted me at the door. It was like I couldn’t be alone, even for a minute. Was that standard, I wondered? Or was everyone just so convinced I was helpless.
“Hello, Mrs. Maywell—”
“Poppy,” I all but snapped. I couldn’t stand that name. It made me feel owned. I smiled. “Please, call me Poppy.”
“Of course. Caroline will be two minutes. Can I get you some coffee?”
“No. I’m fine.”
Justin led me across the waiting room to Caroline’s office. The rugs were burgundy Turkish silk. There were leather couches and chairs for people to wait in. He led me right past them to the double wooden doors with beautiful lion’s head doorknobs in the middle of them. There was another door leading off from this room. An office for one of her children, I imagined. Which one of them had the honor of sharing space with her I didn’t know.
“Mrs. Constantine said you should wait in here,” Justin said and opened the door to Caroline’s inner sanctum.
I sat and waited to see what was in store for me now. Waiting, always waiting to see what was going to happen to me next.
“Did anyone offer you a drink?” Caroline said as she swept in.
I jumped. “Everyone,” I said. “You have very thorough staff.”
“Well, don’t let them know that or I might have to give them a raise. Now,” Caroline sat down on her side of the desk and shot me a level look. “How are you doing?”
“Good!” I said, too brightly. “Fine. I’m fine.”
“Zilla headed home?”
How did she know that?
“Yesterday. And, before you ask, I’m fine with it.”
Caroline gave me a long look that seemed doubtful. And I felt a strange and sudden spark of anger. I’d been watched for months now. Years. I didn’t like it. Never liked it.
“You summoned me,” I said. “Why am I here, Caroline?”
Caroline blinked at my tone and then flipped open a file.
“We’re doing a charity fundraiser in two weeks, and we’re going to give a posthumous award to the senator,” Caroline said.
“All right,” I said. Those sorts of things happened all the time. In Jim’s office were stacks of framed letters and plaques from different charities honoring him as some kind of hero. “What do you need me for?”
“We need you there so we can present you with the award.”
I started to shake my head. No. Nope. I didn’t need to do that anymore. Jim was gone. My life as the smiling clapping wife in Vera Wang was over. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen next, but it wasn’t going to be that anymore.
“It’s been months,” Caroline said.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“You are the face of his legacy. He had business ventures and legal obligations, and they’re yours now.”
“No.” I shook my head again. “They’re not. I’m his widow. That’s all.”
She tilted her head, and I sighed, sensing what was coming. “What do you want, Poppy?”
A hot dog. I just want a hot dog.
“Not . . . business ventures and legal obligations,” I said. I didn’t want to be the face of his legacy. I wanted a million miles between myself and him. I was going to change my name back to my maiden name. Dye my hair.
“What about the foundation?” She lifted her eyebrows, and I felt a tug. Old dreams that had been squished and pushed aside and forgotten. But I had no idea if I wanted those dreams anymore. I’d been so young. Twenty years old, fresh-faced and convinced I could help. Fresh-faced and hopeful.
God, I’d been so hopeful. The kind of hopeful that was just hollow now.
“There will be press at the fundraiser. It will be good for our company and good for the senator’s foundation . . . which, I will remind you, is yours now. And you can do what you want with it. But the fundraiser will give you options. And I would think . . . options might appeal to you.”
I stiffened, unable to look at her, but terribly aware of her looking at me. Was she saying the thing we never said? That I want options now because the senator stripped me of them?
Was she pitying me? Manipulating me?
Was I being distrustful because that was all I knew how to be now?
I shook off the thoughts and smiled.