Chapter 3 - What He Asked the Nurse
I did not sleep much that night.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Vincent standing beside my hospital bed with the pen in his hand.
Just sign where the tabs are.
By dawn, Lucas's bilirubin level had improved enough that the nurses let me hold him for nearly twenty minutes.
He fit against my chest like something the world had no right to touch.
His fingers opened and closed against my gown.
I watched him breathe and tried to imagine how I had ever believed keeping my marriage intact mattered more than keeping myself whole.
Mom returned with breakfast and found me staring at the florist card.
"What is that?"
I handed it to her.
"The lilies came from Mercer & Bloom."
"Should that mean something?"
"I don't know yet."
I picked up the prepaid phone.
Eleanor had texted me at six fifteen.
She had asked for photographs of the front and back of the card, the name of the florist, and any names connected to Vincent's companies that I remembered seeing with the word Mercer.
I knew one immediately.
Camille Mercer.
I had met her three times.
The first time had been at a charity dinner two years earlier.
She was tall, elegant, and impossible not to notice.
She wore a silver dress, spoke to Vincent as if they had known each other for years, and introduced herself to me with both hands around mine.
"I've heard so much about you."
At the time, I had been flattered.
The second time was at a Carter Holdings holiday party.
Camille had spent almost the entire evening with Vincent and a group of investors.
When I teased him about having a work wife, he had laughed.
"Camille is useful, not interesting."
The third time had been six weeks before Lucas was born.
I had walked into Vincent's office at home and found Camille standing near his desk.
She had been wearing a cream coat and the same kind of sweet floral perfume that had clung to Vincent after I nearly died.
I remembered it now because pregnancy had made certain smells almost painfully sharp.
That day, Camille had smiled and touched my belly.
"You must be so excited."
I had wanted to step away from her hand, but I had told myself I was being rude.
I had spent an extraordinary amount of my marriage telling myself not to trust my own instincts.
I texted Eleanor the name.
She answered three minutes later.
"Do not contact her."
I had not planned to.
Still, the warning told me Eleanor had found something.
I called her.
"What do you know?"
"Very little that I can verify yet."
"Tell me the little."
I heard papers moving on her desk.
"Camille Mercer owns an advisory company called Mercer Strategic Partners."
"I've heard Vincent mention it."
"Her company has received consulting payments from at least two entities affiliated with Carter Holdings."
My throat tightened.
"How much?"
"I don't know yet."
"Is that normal?"
"It can be."
Eleanor's voice became firmer.
"Do not jump from a business payment to an affair."
"I smelled her perfume on him."
"That is evidence that he was around a perfume you associate with her."
I almost snapped at her.
Then I understood what she was doing.
Eleanor was forcing me to separate what I knew from what I felt.
That was exactly what Vincent never wanted me to do.
"Okay."
I took a breath.
"What do we know?"
"We know he left the hospital during your labor."
"Yes."
"We know he did not return until after sunrise."
"Yes."
"We know he tried to get information about whether medication could make you confused or unable to make decisions."
"Yes."
"We know he presented legal documents while you were recovering from emergency surgery and urged you to sign without reading them."
"Yes."
"And we know there is a person named Camille Mercer who has a documented business connection to his companies and whose perfume you recognize."
The list sounded worse spoken aloud.
"What do I do now?"
"You recover."
I nearly laughed again.
"That doesn't feel like enough."
"Then while you recover, you observe."
She paused.
"And you let me be suspicious for you."
I liked her for that.
At nine thirty, Vincent arrived wearing a navy suit and a pale blue tie.
He looked as if he were headed to a television interview, not visiting the wife he had left during childbirth.
He kissed my forehead without asking permission.
Then he looked at Lucas in the bassinet.
"They moved him back in here?"
"For feeding."
Vincent touched one finger to Lucas's tiny fist.
For a few seconds, something human moved across his face.
I hated that part of me still noticed.
I hated that there were pieces of him I still wanted to believe.
Then his phone rang.
He stepped away from the bassinet.
"Not now."
A woman's voice answered loudly enough that I could hear the first word.
"Vincent--"
He ended the call.
I looked at him.
"Who was that?"
"Work."
"Work has a woman's voice now?"
His eyes narrowed.
"Don't start."
The phrase hit me harder than I expected.
I was lying in a hospital bed with an incision across my abdomen.
He had vanished during an emergency.
He had come back smelling like another woman.
And somehow I was the one who should not start.
I kept my voice soft.
"I asked a question."
"And I answered it."
He reached for the leather folder again.
My stomach dropped.
"The papers?"
"Yes."
He opened the folder on the tray table.
This time, I paid attention to the headings.
Carter Family Legacy Trust.
Spousal Consent.
Assignment of Membership Interests.
Indemnification Agreement.
I recognized only some of the words.
But I recognized enough to know this was not a simple birth certificate form.
"You said this protected Lucas."
"It does."
"Why does it mention membership interests?"
Vincent's hand stopped.
"Because some of my companies are being reorganized."
"Your companies?"
"Our family assets."
"Then I should understand what I'm signing."
"You do understand."
"No."
I met his eyes.
"I don't."
For several seconds, neither of us moved.
Then he leaned closer.
"You have always trusted me with the business side of our life."
"I almost died yesterday."
"What does that have to do with this?"
"Everything."
His mouth tightened.
I could see irritation rising beneath the polished surface.
"You're emotional."
I stared at him.
"I am recovering from childbirth."
"Exactly."
One word.
One careless word.
It told me more than a confession might have.
He saw my expression and immediately changed course.
"I'm not saying you can't think clearly."
"You asked the nurse whether I could."
The color left his face for less than a second.
Then he recovered.
"I was concerned about you."
"Concerned enough to ask if I could make my own decisions?"
"You were saying strange things."
"Name one."
He looked away.
"I don't remember every detail."
"Convenient."
His eyes snapped back to mine.
"You need to be careful how you speak to me."
The room became very quiet.
I had heard Vincent use that tone with employees.
With contractors.
With people who owed him money.
He had never used it with me before.
Or maybe he had, and I had spent years translating it into something softer.
"Why?"
I asked the question calmly.
"What happens if I'm not careful?"
Vincent stared at me.
For a moment, I thought he might say something honest.
Instead, he closed the folder.
"We'll do this at home."
He stood.
"I'm going to see Lucas's doctor."
"Without me?"
"I'm his father."
"And I'm his mother."
"Then come with me."
He knew I could barely walk without help.
We both knew it.
He picked up the folder and headed toward the door.
I pressed the call button beside my bed.
A nurse appeared before Vincent reached the hallway.
"Can you please tell the pediatric team that I want to be present by phone for any non-emergency discussion about Lucas if I can't physically get there?"
The nurse nodded.
"Absolutely."
Vincent looked back at me.
The expression on his face was not anger.
It was surprise.
He was surprised I had stopped making things easy for him.
After he left, Mom came in from the family lounge carrying two bottles of water.
I told her what had happened.
"He told you to be careful how you speak to him?"
"Yes."
Mom put the bottles down too hard.
"I want five minutes alone with him."
"No."
"Four."
"Mom."
"Fine."
She sat down.
"Three."
I laughed despite myself, and the movement hurt my incision enough to make me wince.
Mom's expression softened immediately.
"Sorry."
"Don't make me laugh."
"I will try to hate him more quietly."
At noon, Eleanor sent me a secure link.
The documents were preliminary public records and corporate filings she had pulled quickly through a researcher.
One name appeared over and over.
Mercer Strategic Partners.
The firm had advised Carter Holdings on three transactions in eighteen months.
One transaction involved a warehouse acquisition in Indiana.
One involved refinancing several restaurants.
The third was listed only as a pending restructuring.
The filing date was six days before I went into labor.
I read that line twice.
Then I saw the registered agent for the restructuring entity.
Camille Elise Mercer.
My fingers went numb.
Eleanor called before I could call her.
"I need you to stay disciplined."
"She is involved in the restructuring he wants me to sign."
"Yes."
"And he was with her the night I almost died."
"We do not know that yet."
"I know her perfume."
"Then we prove the rest."
I closed my eyes.
"How?"
"By letting him believe you are still trying to save the marriage."
I opened my eyes again.
"You want me to pretend?"
"I want you to protect yourself until you understand what he is doing."
That was different.
Pretending for Vincent had nearly destroyed me.
Pretending for Lucas might save us.
"Okay."
"Good."
Eleanor lowered her voice.
"There is one more thing."
"What?"
"One of the filings references a secured obligation of eighteen point four million dollars."
I stopped breathing for a second.
"Vincent owes eighteen million dollars?"
"The company may."
"May?"
"I need the underlying documents."
"And he needs my signature."
"Possibly."
The word hung between us.
Possibly.
Not proof.
Not yet.
But enough to explain the urgency.
At three that afternoon, I asked the nurse to help me walk the hallway.
My legs felt weak, and every step pulled painfully at my incision.
Mom stayed on one side of me while the nurse stayed on the other.
We made it twenty feet before I needed to stop.
That was when I saw Vincent through the narrow window in the stairwell door.
He was one floor below us, near the private parking access.
A woman stood in front of him.
Even from above, I recognized her posture.
Camille Mercer.
She wore a camel-colored coat.
Her dark hair was pulled into a low knot.
One hand rested against Vincent's chest.
The other held his wrist.
They were arguing.
I could not hear the words through the glass.
Then Camille stepped closer.
Vincent bent his head toward her.
She whispered something into his ear.
He put his hand around the back of her neck.
And kissed her.
My mother made a sound beside me.
I did not.
I did not cry.
I did not call his name.
I did not pound on the glass.
I reached into the pocket of my robe and pulled out the prepaid phone.
My hands were shaking.
May you like
But not enough to blur the photograph.
