“Let me drive you.”

“No.”

He staggered toward me, rubbing his face.

“About last night. I can explain.”

I turned.

“Explain what? How she ended up in your arms? Or how you forgot about me while she asked you to drive her home?”

He swallowed.

“She just got back. She’s not used to things here anymore. I was helping.”

“She’s thirty-two, James, not a refugee child.”

“That’s unfair.”

“No,” I said. “Unfair was your wife sitting in a wine-soaked dress while you wiped Ashley’s hand first.”

His face tightened.

“She didn’t do it on purpose.”

“You don’t know that because you refuse to see her clearly.”

He dragged a hand through his hair.

“Ashley has feelings for me,” he admitted, voice low. “I know that.”

The admission landed harder than denial would have.

“So you know.”

“Yes, but I don’t feel that way about her. My feelings for you haven’t changed.”

I stared at him.

“How comforting. Your feelings haven’t changed. Only your behavior, your priorities, your boundaries, and your ability to tell another woman no.”

“If you care about this marriage, you will cut her off completely. Today.”

He froze.

And there it was.

The hesitation.

Tiny, but fatal.

I laughed softly.

“You can’t even promise that without grieving her.”

He looked away.

“She’s been away for years. She doesn’t have anyone.”

“And that someone had to be you?”

No answer.

I opened the door.

“Think carefully before you come find me again.”

At the office, my assistant, Megan, intercepted me before I reached my door.

“Mrs. Carter,” she said carefully, “Ms. Brooks is waiting in your office.”

Of course she was.

Ashley sat behind my desk touching the silver frame that held my wedding photo. James and I smiling beneath a canopy of summer flowers, young enough to believe beauty could predict loyalty.

When she saw me, she smiled.

“Laura. Finally we get to meet without the whole crowd.”

I closed the door behind me.

“What do you want?”

“James was supposed to take me house hunting today, but I can’t reach him.” She tilted her head. “So I thought I’d ask you.”

“Houses?”

“He said I could stay at your place temporarily until I find something.”

My place.

Not our guest room.

Not if you’re comfortable.

I walked around the desk and sat down.

“If you need lodging, I can send you the names of several long-term hotels. You can pay for whichever one you prefer.”

Her smile thinned.

“That’s not very welcoming.”

“I’m not welcoming you.”

Ashley leaned forward, red nails resting on the edge of my desk.

“James said I could help out here too. He said I understand people. That maybe I could do client relations.”

I looked at her hand on my desk.

Then at her face.

“Did he also tell you the initial capital for this company came from me?”

Her expression flickered.

I opened the drawer and pulled out the shareholder agreement, the founding document James had signed back when we were still raw and ambitious and I had insisted on protections because my father raised me to love people but verify paper.