The Next Wife by Kaira Rouda (speld decodable readers txt) 📕

it. And I’ll tell him what I’ve learned. Because it is. We all know it. I pull into the garage. My heart thumps in my chest. Ashlyn’s car isn’t here.

I text her: Where are you? You’re supposed to be home.

She answers right away, thank god. I’m at Seth’s. Home in a bit. All fine.

I’m glad she has such a good friend. I need that in my life. I fill a glass of water from the tap and chug it. I’m tempted to open a bottle of wine and invite Christine over. But first I need to speak to Bob. He will tell me the will is fake. We’ll celebrate good riddance to the second Mrs. Nelson. My mind flashes to a powerful memory, the night John announced his plans at our favorite restaurant.

In retrospect, I realized he’d picked a public place so I wouldn’t challenge him. So I couldn’t make a scene. So it would be easy for him to deliver the news and exit the stage, leaving me to find emotional support from the waitstaff.

When you work as hard as we do, you come to discover that you only have each other and the people you pay to be your friends. The dry cleaner is a great guy; Jody, our favorite server at Lindey’s; my yoga teacher; my housekeeper, Sonja. You have that tribe, and then of course, you have your family, and one or two loyal friends like Christine. That’s enough.

John waited until our dinner was served; then he dropped the bomb on our lives. “Kate, it’s settled. I’m moving out. I need some time.”

“What?” I’d rested my fork at four o’clock on the white china plate. I remember the sautéed spinach and the halibut resting on couscous. “What did you just say?” The restaurant was loud. I must have heard the wrong thing, the wrong words. We’d been agitated with each other, short and unloving. And I knew about his flirty behavior with Tish at the office, their illicit romance, but I was ready to forgive him. It was a phase. All couples go through them—it’s normal, typical. I would be the bigger person and welcome him back to us. That’s what I’d decided.

John leaned forward and said, “It’s over between us. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t think I understand what you’re saying,” I said. My mouth had grown dry. Everyone and everything in the restaurant moved in slow motion.

John’s face came into sharp focus. I’ll never forget the look in his blue eyes. It was a look of pity for me mixed with confidence. A decisive, final heartbreaking smile that burst across his face before he caught himself. I watched as he covered his mouth, brushed imaginary lint from the shoulder of his black T-shirt, and signaled for Jody, making the signing-the-check motion in the air.

“You can’t just walk away from us. Everything we’ve created. What about Ashlyn? The company?”

“Ashlyn will be fine. I’ve already talked to her.”

What? “You’ve spoken to our daughter about leaving me?” My god, he told our daughter first. How long did Ashlyn know the truth? How foolish I’d been. What a joke I was to my daughter. To everyone. What the hell did John think he was doing?

Jody arrived, handed John the check, and turned to me. “You can’t be finished, Kate. You’ve barely touched your meal. Was something wrong with the fish?” It was then she must have noticed the tension. She grabbed the credit card from John and fled.

“Ashlyn will be fine. She’s focused on her own life at college. We’ll work out all the details. I want you to know this will have no reflection on EventCo, nor will it affect what we’ve built together there. We’ll have the attorneys protect everything. EventCo is on a huge upward trajectory, with lots of investor interest. Soon we’ll both be rich beyond our wildest dreams.” John stood, reached out to touch my shoulder, but I pushed his hand away. A bolt of electricity shot through me. A jolt of realization.

My husband is leaving me.

For her.

I stood up. “Why?”

“The truth? I’ve found my soul mate, as corny as that sounds.” John shrugged as he shoved his hands in his pockets. And then the diabolical grin reappeared. “I’m in love.”

How can you compete with that?

“You’re in lust,” I retorted as he turned and walked out of the restaurant. I knew about their affair. But I never would have imagined it would come to this.

That he’d pick her over me.

And now he’s gone, and Tish thinks she can saunter into his place. But she’s wrong. She will not take the company I worked so hard to create.

Never going to happen.

I walk to the kitchen window and try to appreciate the beauty outdoors. The sunset’s orange glow, the green grass, the new mom pushing a baby in a stroller along the sidewalk, the privileged peace of the suburbs.

But I’m not at peace.

I take a deep breath as the doorbell rings. That will be Bob. Bob will have good news.

And then none of us will see Tish ever again.

But when I open the door, Bob’s face tells me the game isn’t over. Not by a long shot.

“I found the notary. She’s lying. We need to go after her,” I say to Bob as I open the door. “You don’t look like you found anything to help us.”

“It’s going to be tough,” Bob says.

I remember that look in John’s eye the night he left me. And the fire builds. “I’m tough. Tougher than she knows.”

CHAPTER 41

TISH

I don’t enjoy it when Ashlyn gets out of line. Sure, she’s mad I was at the office, in her daddy’s office, but she’ll get used to it. And what about me? My needs. My grief. And then, she takes it a step further and threatens me. The nerve. Uncle George told me to calm down when I told him what I wanted him to do. Said it was a mistake. I told him to handle things or I’d find