CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Anna

Tonight is to be another party—it seems as though ever since we arrived in Miami, all we do is attend parties. Ever since that tragic night at Marbrisa when Lenora Watson died, I’ve yet to host another one, objecting over Robert’s protestations that we must move past the accident. I can’t imagine enjoying fireworks and champagne on the back lawn; the image of her dead body and the memory of her mother’s grief are still too fresh in my mind.

We’ve heard little from Detective Pierce and his fellow officers. Whatever Robert’s lawyers did to threaten them seems to have worked, because there have been no more impromptu visits, and while I’ve not heard that Lenora’s death was officially ruled an accident, it seems as though they’re finally chasing down other leads. I’ve thought about stopping by the station myself once or twice to see if they made any progress with the sketch of the necklace that I provided to them, but the truth is that even as I’ve insisted to Robert that I’m not ready to move on, for things to go back to normal, I want to put the past behind us and look to a future together that once seemed so bright.

And so, I don another gown—blue, this time, to match the sapphires Robert bought me for our anniversary this year to commemorate our marriage turning another year older.

Tonight’s event is a raucous affair, the party already in full swing by the time we arrive, the drinks flowing fully, makeshift gambling tables set up in the adjoining ballroom. We certainly never drank this much champagne in New York. There’s a whiff of danger in the air, rumored gangsters in attendance tonight, everyone looking to capitalize on all Miami has to offer. It’s a constant hustle here, people trying to pull one over on someone else, to ensure that the attention is on them when they walk into a room.

It’s utterly exhausting.

Robert seems to feed off the energy in the city, this new society giving him a newfound zest for life. For me, it has the opposite effect. I feel older now than I ever have, uncomfortably aware that I could be a mother to many of the guests who attend these parties, the late hours leaving me beyond tired the following day. The more Robert throws himself into our new social circle with gusto, the more I yearn to retreat to a place where I can find peace, away from the loud noise and posturing.

Robert’s different down here—younger somehow. He laughs a bit louder, drinks a bit more. There’s something about this place that lowers one’s inhibitions if you let it, and my husband seems to have embraced this city and all that it has to offer with the hopes that it will remake him into a new man.

Miami is a giant party, filled with people daring enough to come down here and try to make their mark on the world. On the surface, it’s an intriguing proposition, a place far apart from the old guard. But the problem with Miami is that when everyone has come down here bold as brass, ready to take risks, to claw their way to the top, it only becomes more difficult to do so. The competition is steep, the lengths one needs to go to great indeed until I’m not sure it is easier than it is back in New York, that the society is all that different, the hallmarks of success ubiquitous.

It feels like it’s all a giant roulette wheel, fate waiting to intervene at any moment and knock everyone off their pedestal.

What will happen to the glittering crowd, the bright young things, then?

What will happen to us?

As soon as we arrive, we drift apart, Robert throwing himself into the thick of things whereas I like to stand near a wall, sipping on my drink in hand, watching the crowd and all their eccentricities. You learn things at a party like this, watching the guests. You realize who is having an affair, which businessman is nearly bankrupt, which one has sold the same swampy, bug-infested plot of land to five unsuspecting buyers who will eventually leave Florida with their tails tucked between their legs and a story of how they tried to make it in Miami and were swindled instead. It’s like watching a play—a Greek tragedy of sorts—seeing the human condition at its worst. And in these moments, I think of Lenora Watson, who put on her best dress and a dazzling necklace and came all the way to Marbrisa looking for—what?

I wish I could tell her that I saw more honesty in her mother’s grief than I ever have at any one of these parties. I wish she had never come to Marbrisa that night, that our paths had never crossed, that instead of lying in a grave, she was home with her mother who so clearly loved her.

That’s what’s missing here—everyone is chasing something, but I’ve come to realize that if you’re always looking for something better, always waiting for the next thing to happen, for the die to roll, then you don’t appreciate the things you have.

There’s little true happiness here among all these jewels and all this pretense.

I glance around the room. I spy a few acquaintances, people who we’ve seen at parties and the like, a few who were at Marbrisa that infamous night. We have become notorious whether we wished it or not, and now when my gaze connects with someone across the way there is a pause, and then a turn, a bevy of whispers between them and the people surrounding them. Sometimes, I just want to shout, Yes, it was a terrible thing that happened. No, we still don’t know if it was an accident.

Given the right amount of liquid courage, they’ll occasionally approach me themselves with questions that I know will eventually be used as fodder at the next party.

We own one of the most enviable houses in the entire state of Florida.

Most people now believe it to be either haunted or cursed. Staff has fled in droves, leaving Robert perpetually concerned about the estate’s management. The loyal ones who have stayed like Michael Harrison and Mrs. Morrison have become firmly entrenched in my husband’s inner circle because of their fidelity.

My gaze sweeps from the group of people now whispering among themselves, across the room, to—

Michael Harrison stands there, a glass of scotch in hand, staring at me. As our gazes connect, he raises his drink in a toast, a ghost of a smile playing at his lips.

We’ve seen little of him since the night of the party; even though he’s maintained his residence in the guest cottage, our paths rarely cross, his business with my husband. Robert mentioned that the architect was traveling for a spell, but he never told me where he went or that he’d returned.

For a moment, we both look at each other, too far away for words, and it feels as though an understanding passes between us, that we have both been through something difficult that few would comprehend unless they’d been in that position themselves.

I step forward to cross the distance of the ballroom and greet Michael, when out of the corner of my eye I spy Robert.

My husband stands off to the side of the room wearing the new tuxedo I had his tailor send over, a glass of champagne in hand. His hair is a bit overlong, the sides grazing his ears more than he likes, and I make a mental note to let his barber know, otherwise it’ll be weeks before Robert remembers himself to tell the man to cut it.

Love swells inside me like a crescendo.

He is, unquestionably, a handsome man. Perhaps not the stuff of fairy tales, but there is something solid and distinguished about him. I can’t say that marriage has always been easy, but we have been happy more often than not, and for that I am eternally grateful.

I smile, Michael momentarily forgotten, and wait for Robert’s gaze to drift over to me, for us to exchange one of our private smiles as we have done so often throughout the years, capable of conducting an entire conversation without one word spoken between us. I wait for his gaze to meet mine so that I can feel like myself again when I see twenty-three years of marriage reflected in his eyes, his own amusement and discomfort over the fact that we are decades older than most of the crowd here and it is far too late in the evening. I wait for the company of the man who has been my home for twenty-three years.

He turns, and I step forward, only to stop in my tracks.

A woman walks up beside him. Her hand settles on his arm, five perfectly manicured fingers resting on the sleeve of his tuxedo jacket that I ordered for him.

The air leaves my lungs.

I’ve never been a jealous wife, never worried overmuch about Robert straying.

I’ve been a fool.

Her red-lacquered fingernails only graze my husband’s arm for a moment, but there’s something about the gesture that’s so familiar to me. There’s no artifice to it; she does it almost absent-mindedly, as though she’s done it dozens of times, hundreds of times. It’s a gesture a wife would make getting her husband’s attention, one that is innocent in how naturally it comes. I know—I’ve rested my hand in that position myself.

The woman takes a step back, her hand dropping to her side, and Robert smiles at her, the stance of his body mirroring hers.

She’s stunningly beautiful.

She’s young.

Very, very young.

If I had to guess, she’s about the age I was when Robert and I married. She can’t be twenty.

One of the bright young things.

Just like I once was.

He takes her hand—quickly, surreptitiously—and then the crowd shifts, and they’re gone.

It nearly brings me to my knees.

I stagger forward, desiring to call after them, to walk up to her and tell her that whatever she thinks she sees in Robert’s eyes, she can’t trust it. That one day she will be where I am, standing at the edge of the party, wondering how many of the guests know, how long it has been going on, whether he has told the other woman that he loves her, her heart in her throat as she realizes she was played for a fool, traded in for someone younger, twenty-three years of marriage discarded without a care.

Rage fills me nearly as swiftly as the hurt.

That he had the temerity to carry on with a woman at the same party where I am in attendance adds insult to injury. Was Detective Pierce right all along? Was Robert having an affair with Lenora Watson? I wrack my brain, trying to find clues, to pick apart moments in our marriage as if they could shed light on how we’ve gotten to this place. Were there nights when he stayed out late, business trips? Of course. But those things were always present in our marriage. The subtle changes I’ve seen in him since he built Marbrisa I always attributed to our new life in Miami, but now I can’t help but wonder if I was unbearably naïve all along to not realize that he might have been enamored by more than just the raucous parties.

I turn, tears pricking my eyes, and head outside, eager for the night to cloak me in its darkness and to provide some anonymity. Guests mill about outside, but it’s far less crowded than it was inside. Our hosts have left a few lanterns lit, but like me, most people seem to have come outside searching for privacy, couples holding hands and sneaking off together to darkened alcoves.

This whole time, I was convinced that people watched us and whispered because of Lenora’s accident, because Marbrisa is ours, but now I realize the horrible possibility that they watch us and whisper because everyone knows of Robert’s infidelity and my ignorance of it.

“Are you alright?”

I whirl around at the sound of Michael’s voice.

It takes but a glance for me to confirm my suspicions that I just might be the last person in Miami to know my husband is cheating on me.

It’s the compassion in Michael’s expression that does it for me.

“Does everyone know?” I ask, careful to keep my voice low. There’s no one nearby, but I figure the Barnes family has provided Miami with more than enough scandal. There’s no need to add to it.

“I’m so sorry.” He winces. “Would you prefer the truth or a lie?”

“I suppose that answers it, then. How did you find out? Gossip?”

He nods. “I wasn’t sure if it was true or not. You know how people are—they’ll say anything. But I heard it from enough sources that it seemed credible. I didn’t know if it was better to stay silent or to say something to you. I didn’t want to cause you unnecessary pain or create problems between you and Robert if the rumors were merely born of malice. I’m sorry to see that they’re not. I’m sorry that I didn’t say something to you sooner. Houses are easy. People not so much.”

Well.

I’m surprised by how conflicted he sounds, by how much this has clearly been weighing on his mind.

“Do you know how long it has been going on? How long have there been rumors?”

Belatedly, I realize my voice is cracking. Horror fills me as a tear trickles down my cheek, and then another.

Wordlessly, Michael hands a crisp white handkerchief to me, the fabric folded in neat lines and angles like the plans he drafts.

“Awhile, I think.”

Truthfully, it’s hardly as though the timing really matters. Whether it’s been weeks or months or years, the effect is the same.

“When did you start hearing the rumors?”

He hesitates. “When I was working on Marbrisa.”

That long?

“Did you hear rumors about Lenora Watson?”

He doesn’t look as surprised as I would think he would be when I toss out the name, which answers my unspoken question of if he ever considered the possibility that Robert and Lenora were involved.

“No. Not about her specifically. I never heard a name. Just that he had a mistress.”

A mistress.

Somehow the word makes it more real. It’s a role in his life, a tangible connection to him. I am his wife, which makes me responsible for making sure that his clothes are laundered to his satisfaction, for seeing to his needs, and she is his mistress—the inspiration for his passions, the sharer of intimacies, and what—love?

A sob sneaks from my lips, catching me wholly unawares.

“Did you wonder, though, when she drowned if they had been involved?”

He hesitates. “For a moment, maybe. I’m sure the police had the same suspicions.”

“Yes, Detective Pierce certainly intimated as much to me.”

“What do you think?” Michael asks.

“To be honest, I don’t trust my own thinking on much of anything right now.”

“What will you do?” he asks me.

“I don’t know. I need to talk to Robert.”

Part of me wants to leave this place and never look back. Simply pack up and disappear. And at the same time, how do you throw away twenty-three years of marriage in a blink of an eye? I wish I knew.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry you’re hurting. I’m sorry I don’t know what to say in a situation like this one other than that he’s a fool, although I doubt that’s much consolation considering he’s still your husband whether he’s a fool or not.”

He sounds angry, and I welcome it, this indignation on my behalf. I welcome the intensity of the emotion while I just feel numb with grief and shock.

“It’s such a cliché, isn’t it?” I ask. “Wealthy married older man has an affair with a woman young enough to be his daughter—or granddaughter in this case.”

Poor Michael Harrison looks like he wishes the ground would open and swallow him whole. If the situation wasn’t so dire, it would almost be funny how uncomfortable he seems to be. After all, these aren’t the sorts of conversations that people typically subscribe to in polite society, but at the moment, I don’t give a damn.

I’m angry and feeling more than a little bit reckless. And while it may be unfair to paint all men with the same brush as Robert, I don’t really care about that, either, right now, given what has just happened.

“I suppose clichés exist because there’s some truth to them,” Michael replies.

“Touché.” I take a deep breath, feeling as though I’ll either fall apart or scream if I stay at this party another moment. “I’d like to go home. Do you have a car here? Would you mind terribly driving me back to Marbrisa?”

“Of course not. I would be happy to drive you.”

“Thank you.”

He hesitates. “And Robert—”

I might have come here with my husband, but I have no intention of leaving with him. Not after tonight.

“At the moment, he can hang for all I care.”

---

This time, when I wait for my husband to come home, I welcome the delay, running through all the things I want to say to him in my mind. I have a dozen fictional conversations with Robert in the time it takes him to return to Marbrisa, some rational, others not. In some of them, I tell him that I am leaving him, that I will not suffer this indignity a moment longer. In others, I am prepared to fight for our marriage, to ask him to give this other woman up. It’s a sobering thought to realize that she has aided in tearing my life apart and I don’t even know her name.

I can’t help but wonder about her, too, trying to guess what she thinks about this whole business, if she even thinks of me at all. Is it love? Or merely a physical connection between them? I’m not sure it matters, really, but I still feel as though I must know all the details—sordid or not. Maybe then I can understand and decide what I’m going to do next.

I sit on the settee in Robert’s room, watching the hours tick by, wondering when he realized that I’d left the party, whether he’d worried, or if he even cared. Maybe I should have told him I was leaving with Michael, but considering the circumstances, I was hardly feeling charitable.

My heart pounds as I hear footsteps coming up the front staircase, getting louder and louder, until finally the doorknob turns, the door swinging open.

Robert strides through looking no worse for wear.

His gaze settles on me, and he exhales. “I was worried when I couldn’t find you at the Sheffields’. I spent nearly an hour looking for you before someone told me that they saw you leaving the party with Michael. What happened? Are you feeling alright?”

“I saw you with that woman tonight.”

An emotion flashes in his eyes, too quickly for me to catch it—surprise, panic—and then it’s gone.

“What are you talking about?” he replies smoothly.

“Don’t. Don’t lie to me. Don’t make more of a fool of me than you already have. I know what I saw, and I know what’s being said. I need to hear it from you now.”

He’s silent, not meeting my gaze.

“Please.”

It’s humiliating to have to beg him for the truth like this, insulting to our marriage and the trust I thought we had built between us to be reduced to this. How did we get here? How is it possible that in the span of an evening, my life and everything I thought I knew about it with certainty has been so upended? This morning I was a happily married woman with a husband I respected and trusted.

Now I’m living a lie.

For a moment, I think Robert is going to tell me that I’m mistaken, that I’m worrying over nothing. For a moment, I think he’s going to deny it.

Instead, he sinks down on the enormous bed we’ve made love on countless times since we came to Marbrisa, holding his head between his hands.

“I’m sorry. So sorry. I never meant for you to find out like this. I never meant to hurt you. I kept telling myself that I was going to end things, that I was going to stop.”

“Why didn’t you?”

He glances up at me, and it feels as though I’m looking at a stranger. “I don’t know. I don’t have a good explanation for why I did what I did. It was easy with her. With you—”

It feels like a knife thrust into my heart to hear him string our two relationships together in the same breath, as if he can equate this dalliance with twenty-three years of marriage. Did he compare us in other ways, too? When he kissed me, did he think about what it was like kissing her, and vice versa? When we made love did he think about her?

“I worried all the time about disappointing you,” Robert adds. “I knew how much you hated the house. When I bought it, I wanted to surprise you. I thought you would love it as much as I did. And when it became clear that you didn’t, it felt like I had ruined everything between us. And then that woman drowning.” He grimaces. “It was horrible. I saw how upset you were that night. It felt like I had built this house for us, it was supposed to be our dream, and then there was this dark cloud hanging over it with the police sniffing around and the memory of that woman’s death.”

“Did you have an affair with Lenora Watson?”

Shock flashes across his face. “No—God, no. Of course not. I told you—I’d never met that woman until that night. This thing with Julie—”

Her name is Julie.

“It started recently. A few weeks ago. I’ve been so stressed. I just wanted an escape, to forget about everything. And still, I knew I needed to end it as soon as it started. I wanted to end it.”

“Were there others? Have there been other women throughout our marriage? Have I been a fool this whole time? There have been rumors.”

“No, of course not. I swear it. You know me, Anna. Better than anyone. Do you really think I would lie to you for so long? That I could be successful in such a deception?”

I don’t know what I believe anymore, and maybe that’s the worst part of this. Robert’s infidelity doesn’t just make me question him; it makes me question myself. I don’t feel like I can trust any of my memories now, can trust my own opinion on things. I always considered myself to be sensible, to be a good judge of character, but to have missed something so glaring that was going on under my own roof—

What else was I wrong about?

Robert takes a deep breath. “I need to tell you something. Something I’ve been keeping from you for a while now.”

What else am I to learn tonight? How many lies exist in our marriage? I’m not sure I can bear any more revelations like the one he just shared with me.

Robert rises from the bed, walking over to the bar cart in the corner of the room. He uncorks a decanter of scotch and pours himself two fingers. He downs it quickly before pouring himself another.

“We’re ruined.”

The syllables in the word crack like gunshots echoing through the cavernous space.

Robert drains the glass in another fell swoop, his face shockingly pale. There’s a tremor in his fingers.

For a moment, I can’t comprehend his words.

“The money—it’s gone. All of it.”

“What money? Surely not—”

He’s silent.

“How is that possible?”

Robert has never presented me with a full accounting of the status of our bank accounts, and I never had the temerity—or inclination—to ask, but this—

How is it possible that we’ve gone from building a house such as this one to nothing in just over a year?

“Where did it go?”

He opens his mouth as though he is going to answer me, crystal glass in hand, and then he turns and chucks it at the wood-paneled wall, liquid exploding and dripping down on the marble floors Michael chose for the master bedroom.

I freeze, my gaze trained to the broken glass, the dark liquid running down the wall like rivulets of blood.

“Where do you think it went?” he spits out, misery etched all over his face, and of course, there’s no need to voice the answer aloud, to rub his nose in his mistakes. It’s visible in the antique desk, in the gold that covers every inch of this palatial estate. Perhaps Marbrisa didn’t ruin us on its own, but it’s impossible not to see it as the beginning of our downfall.

“The house must be worth something,” I add. “Why, look at all this art, the antiques.”

I’m so tired. My body feels as though it will collapse under the weight of this devolving lifestyle, this decaying marriage. I am tired of pretending that everything will be okay, that I am able to play this role in which I have been cast. I am tired of this town that makes you fight for every inch.

I’m tired. I’m tired of trying so hard, tired of trying to be this version of myself that Robert seems to want here.

“I can’t sell the house. Marbrisa is all I have.”

You used to have me.

“I stretched us building the house,” he continues. “When we first came up with the plan, it seemed affordable. Manageable. Everything was cheaper down here, or so everyone told me. I got the land for a song. But then problems started creeping up. And fixing them cost money. So much money. And the bigger this house became, the grander it became as well. I thought that if we had the grandest house in Miami, it would open opportunities for us, that if we could leverage the expense of the house to bigger and better things, then our fortune would be made.”

I remember how nervous he was on the night of our party; I remember how desperate he was to receive praise. I had no idea these were the stakes he was betting on.

“But the house was a success. Everyone raved about it. It was all anyone talked about.”

At least, until Lenora Watson drowned.

“I know. Some men came to me with a proposition. I met with them months ago in Miami Beach.”

I remember the night he came back home late, the night I told him about Detective Pierce’s theories about Lenora Watson. Perhaps Robert had been telling the truth when he said it was a business meeting.

“They wanted to build a hotel along the bay. Asked me to invest some money. It seemed like a good investment; after all, look how Marbrisa turned out.”

Dread fills me. I’ve heard the same rumors he has about unscrupulous people who have come to Miami to steal their fortunes. Everyone knows someone who has been defrauded here.

He must read my expression because he nods. “An acquaintance vouched for them, but it turns out he was fooled, too. They ran off with everything.”

“Robert.”

He looks as though he has aged a decade, and as angry as I am with him for his infidelity, a part of me can’t help but feel sorry for him.

“It hasn’t gotten out yet, but when it does—I used credit for much of the construction of the house. The money I lost was going to pay those debts off. The lenders are going to start calling in my loans.”

I close my eyes.

“I thought my investment would make up for how much I’d sunk into Marbrisa. I didn’t see how we could lose.”

He sounds like a gambler, betting everything on a town that can be cutthroat and unforgiving.

“I haven’t known how to tell you. I wanted to. I started to, hundreds of times, but each time, I was just afraid that you would leave me. With Julie, I didn’t have to worry about any of that, didn’t have to fear that I’d ruined her future. I could forget about everything with her. I was so ashamed, Anna. I’m so ashamed. I know that I’ve let you down.”

I can’t speak. I don’t even know what to say.

He rises from his position on the bed and comes to kneel before me, his legs brushing against the hem of my robe.

“Forgive me. Please. I understand if you don’t want to stay married. If you want to leave me and go back to New York. I wouldn’t want to be married to a man like me, either. Especially now that our financial straits are dire.

“The thing with Julie—”

An affair. It was an affair.

“It’s nothing. It’s over. I’ll never see her again. I promise. I’ll do anything to earn back your trust, Anna. Please. Please don’t leave me. I love you. I’ve only ever loved you. I can’t make it through this life without you.”

I’ve never seen Robert like this, never witnessed such vulnerability in him. When he asked me to marry him, he did it as equals without getting down on bended knee. Now it’s like he’s lowering himself before me, and as angry as I am, I have never been cruel.

It would be easier if I had fallen out of love with him the moment I learned about his affair, but I’ve spent twenty-three years loving him. It’s hard to unlearn something like that, for one mistake to erase the life we’ve built together.

I want to believe him when he says he will end things with her, that it didn’t mean anything. I want to understand, but right now I’m too numb for anything.

“How have we gotten here?” I ask him.

“I don’t know.”

“I thought we were happy. I thought we loved each other.”

“I did—I do love you. Always, Anna.”

I don’t know what I want anymore. I want to be left alone. I want to weep. I want to rage. I want to travel back in time and pretend none of this ever happened, that I am the same person I was before we came to Miami, that somehow our marriage can be salvaged.

“Even if I could forgive you, how could I forget? Everyone knows. I saw you with her with my own two eyes. I can’t just move past all of that, pretend it never happened no matter how much I wish I could.”

“I’m not asking you to forget. Just to stay. If you can’t, what are you saying, then? That our marriage is over? That you’re going to throw away everything we had together, the decades together because I had a fling?”

“What choice have you left me? You’ve broken us.”

“I broke us? What about you? You don’t think I knew how much you hated it here? How much you despised this house?”

“You never asked me. This house was your dream, not mine. You never even gave me a choice. We were happy in New York.”

“You were happy in New York. I was stuck.”

“You never told me.”

“You never asked.”

I stare at him wordlessly, unsure of how we’ve gotten to this place, how two people who professed to love each other so much and should have known each other so well got so lost along the way. Before I saw Robert go off with that girl, I would have said that we had a good marriage, that we were happy.

Now look at us.