by Vi Keeland
“No. Actually…I think I’m just going to get going.”
Something was definitely off. “You didn’t even finish your ice cream.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” She stood and walked her bowl into the kitchen.
I followed, speaking quietly so Charlie wouldn’t hear. “Is something else bothering you? Why do I feel like we just did something to upset you?”
Stella smiled, but it was clearly forced. “You didn’t. I just…need to lie down, I think.”
I looked back and forth between her eyes, then nodded. “Alright. Well, let me call you an Uber.”
“I can take the train.”
“No, I’ll call you an Uber. You’re not feeling well.” I pulled the phone from my pocket and opened the app. Punching in Stella’s address, the screen flashed that the driver would be arriving pretty damn fast. I turned the screen and showed it to her. “Four minutes.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
Stella spent a minute collecting her things and said goodnight to Charlie, who gave her a big hug.
“I’ll be back in one second,” I said to my daughter. “You finish up your ice cream while I walk Stella out.”
“Okay, Daddy.”
At the front door, I stepped outside with Stella and pulled it partially closed behind me. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, I’m positive.” She looked down. “Sometimes a headache can make me nauseous, so I just think it’s better if I get home.”
Again, I wasn’t buying it, but I nodded anyway. “Okay.”
A car that matched the description of the Uber pulled up at the curb, so I cupped Stella’s face and kissed her lips softly. “Check the license plate before you get in. It should end in six-F-E. And text me when you get home.”
She nodded. “Goodnight.”
I watched as Stella walked around the car and read the back plate, then climbed into the backseat. She spoke to the driver, and I waited for her to look back and wave goodbye one last time. But she never did. The car simply pulled away from the curb.
Something was definitely off, and my gut told me it had nothing to do with a headache.
CHAPTER 27
Hudson
Stella wasn’t at work when I arrived on Monday morning. I walked by her office three times before my nine o’clock meeting. When she still hadn’t shown up, I shot off a quick text.
Hudson: Everything okay?
The lack of my phone buzzing caused more of a distraction than if it had rung loudly during the presentation I was supposed to be watching. I couldn’t seem to focus. The other night after Stella left, I’d managed to talk myself into thinking I’d overanalyzed shit—that it was just a headache, and everything would be back to normal by Sunday morning. But obviously that hadn’t happened.
By the time my meeting ended, it was almost eleven, and I still hadn’t heard from Stella. Her office door was locked, and the receptionist said she hadn’t seen her today, so I headed down to talk to my sister.
“Hey. Have you talked to Stella today? She’s not in yet.”
My sister stopped writing and looked up. “Hi, Hudson. It’s nice to see you this lovely morning, too. I’m doing well, thanks for asking.”
“I’m not in the mood…”
She frowned. “What crawled up your butt?”
“Can you just tell me if you’ve spoken to Stella today?”
Olivia sighed. “Yeah, I spoke to her twice. She’s working from home. Didn’t she mention it to you?”
I shook my head. “Is she feeling okay?”
A look of concern registered on my sister’s face. “She said she’d had a headache that kept her up the last two nights, but she was feeling better. Everything okay with you two?”
I raked my hand through my hair. “Yeah. I think so.”
My sister gave me the once-over, and her lips formed a grim line. “You think so? But you’re not sure. What did you do?”
“Me? Why do you think I did something?”
“Usually when a man isn’t sure if he did something wrong, he did.”
I shrugged. “Whatever.”
When I got back to my office, my phone finally buzzed after more than two hours of waiting.
Stella: Everything is fine. Going to work from home today.
I felt a modicum of relief that she wasn’t completely ignoring me, but not enough to make the uneasiness in the pit of my stomach go away. So I wrote back.
Hudson: Headache gone?
It seemed like a simple-enough question, yet I watched as the little dots started to move around, then stopped, then started again before completely stopping. Ten minutes later, a response finally came.
Stella: Yes, headache is gone. Thanks for checking in.
Thanks for checking in felt a hell of a lot like Now leave me alone.
Whatever. I had work to do. So rather than waste more hours than I already had overanalyzing shit, I tossed my phone on my desk. Maybe I just didn’t understand women.
***
The next day, I was happy as shit to see light streaming from Stella’s office when I arrived at seven o’clock.
“Hey. You’re in…”
Stella had her nose buried in her laptop. She looked up and smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Yeah. Sorry about not coming in yesterday.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. You don’t work for me. The space here is yours to use as you need. I was just worried maybe something more was going on than a headache…”
Stella shuffled some papers around on her desk and avoided eye contact. “No, nothing going on. Just a headache. I get them sometimes.”
A few days ago, I would have walked into her office, shut the door behind me, and taken her mouth in a kiss that left me with a raging hard-on. Yet at the moment, the vibe I felt kept me at her door. In other words, it wasn’t just a headache. But she was working, and I had a meeting I needed to prep for, so I wasn’t going to push it right now.
Nodding toward my office, I said, “I have an early meeting that’ll take up most of my morning. You want to get together this afternoon and go through the deliveries that haven’t come in yet? We can talk about whatever else is a priority that you might want me to jump in on.”
“I actually went through the deliveries yesterday. We’re on track as of now. I think I have a handle on things. I’m going to sit with Olivia and go through the final marketing stuff in a little while.”
“Oh…okay.” I shrugged. “Maybe lunch later, then?”
“I’m going to work through lunch with Olivia. And I have a meeting later this afternoon uptown at Fisher’s office.”
“Fisher’s office?”
“It’s nothing to do with Signature Scent.”
Clearly she was giving me the brush off, but I was thick…
“Dinner later?”
She frowned. “I’ll probably just get a bite to eat with Fisher afterward.”
I couldn’t get my lips to turn upward to pretend everything was fine, no matter how hard I tried. The best I could muster was a nod to feign understanding. “Let me know if there’s anything you need from me.”
“Thanks, Hudson.”
CHAPTER 28
Stella
Three nights ago
It had to be a coincidence.
I knew that wasn’t true, but I kept telling myself it was as the Uber pulled away from the curb. If I didn’t, I was pretty sure I was going to vomit all over the poor guy’s backseat. I was completely freaked out.
The minute we pulled up to my apartment, I flew out of the car and raced for the elevator. When it didn’t come in two seconds, I decided I’d rather keep busy running up eight flights of stairs than stand waiting while the inside of my chest felt like a ticking time bomb.
In my apartment, I ran straight for my bedroom and dropped to the floor to pull out the plastic bins I kept stowed under my bed. In my panic, I couldn’t remember what the outside of the diary I was searching for looked like, or even which st
orage bin had the most recent books. So I grabbed the first container and started to yank them out one by one.
The first bin had at least thirty different diaries packed into it that I’d collected over the years, but none that were recent. I didn’t bother to put anything back before ripping the top off the next plastic container. Just a few books into that one, I lifted a red, leather-bound volume that sent a jolt of electricity through my body. Ten seconds ago, I couldn’t have identified it in a lineup, but the minute I held it in my hand, I knew. I just knew it was the one.
Unlike every other book I picked up, I didn’t immediately flip it open and rush to read. Instead, I took a deep breath and steadied myself as the seriousness of the situation hit me all over again. If what I suspected was right… Oh God, I know I’m right.
A wave of nausea rolled through me, and my hands shook as I cracked open the book and began to read.
Dear Diary,
This is the first page of a new book, which seems very fitting as I sit here and write today. I know it’s been a while since I last wrote, but all the pages in my old book were filled, and I hadn’t had anything good to write about to start a new one.
Happily, things have recently changed. Summer has been far from boring. In fact, I think this summer has been one of those that musicians write songs about. You see, I met the love of my life. He’s sweet and kind, but also sort of broody and tough. Back in May, when I got home from college, my parents dragged me to some boring party that one of their friends was throwing. I hadn’t wanted to go, but I’m damn glad I did because I met the man I’m going to marry someday!
More soon! ~A
I stopped to micro-analyze every word. Hudson hadn’t mentioned how he and his ex-wife had met specifically, but he’d said their families were friends and they’d run in the same social circle. I’d assumed H stood for husband, but it could also be Hudson.
As I pieced the puzzle together, everything fell into place.
My ex-roommate Evelyn had given me this diary for my birthday. Evelyn and Hudson’s ex-wife were friends. Maybe Alexandria had given her the diary for safekeeping, or who knows—maybe Evelyn had stolen it. Lord knows she had a penchant for taking things from friends.
Alexandria had gotten married at the New York Public Library—that I was certain of. I’d read every detail of her planning. Hudson had also gotten married there, just like his parents before him.
I was also 99.99-percent sure that the child Alexandria had written about was named Laken Charlotte. I remembered because it was the only time the writer had used anyone’s name but her own. Everywhere else she’d referred to people with initials, but on the day her daughter was born, she’d written her name. Laken Charlotte.
It wasn’t a common name, but I needed that extra hundredth of a percent of certainty, and I needed it now. No way I could keep reading from the beginning and wait until I got to that point. So I flipped frantically until I found the section I remembered.
Dear Diary,
Today I became a mother.
A mother.
I had to write that again because I still can’t believe it. The birth was all the gruesome stories of pain I’d heard, and then some. But the moment they laid my little girl in my arms, I forgot all about the agony of delivery. She’s perfect in absolutely every way.
At 2:42 today, my life changed. I took one look in my baby’s eyes and knew in my heart of hearts that I needed to be a better person. A stronger person. A more selfless person. An honest person. I’m so proud to be my sweet girl’s mother, and today I make the promise to become a person she can be proud of someday, too.
Welcome to the world, Laken Charlotte.
~A
I dropped the book to my lap and closed my eyes.
Hudson’s ex-wife was Laken Charlotte’s mother—Charlie’s mother. But unfortunately, that was all I could say for sure. Because according to other entries in her diary, that was all Alexandria could say for sure. She’d kept a secret from her husband—a big one.
This time, I couldn’t hold back my nausea. I ran to the bathroom and unloaded the contents of my stomach into the toilet.
CHAPTER 29
Stella
Fifteen months ago
“You smell like perfume, Aiden.” I took a step away from him after our hug.
He sighed. “Not this again. You have samples all over both of our apartments, of course some of it gets caught in my clothes.”
He turned and walked to his bedroom. I followed.
“You smell like jasmine. I don’t have that here or at your place.”
“Well, then it’s probably a combination of the shit you have laying around. You, of all people, know that when you combine a lot of smells, you make a new one. Whatever my wool coat picked up must be doing the combining.”
“Where were you tonight?”
“Grading midterms in my office. Would you like me to get a note from the security guard I pass on my way out from now on? The better question is, where were you? You still have your shoes on, and your cheeks are red from the cold. So I take it you worked late yourself.”
“I was at the lab working on the algorithm.”
Aiden rolled his eyes. “The algorithm…right. I thought we’d put that to bed. We’re buying a house with that money.”
“Just because I agreed we could use our savings to buy a house doesn’t mean I need to stop working on my product.”
“No, but how do I know you were really there?”
“You don’t. But I’m not the one who smells like perfume and has hotel charges on my credit card.”
“I’m not doing this shit again, Stella.” Aiden put his hands on his hips. “The hotel was a reservation for my parents who were coming to town. I made it a long time ago and forgot to cancel it after they canceled their trip to New York. It had completely slipped my mind when you asked me. A week later I remembered, so I paid the bill. I didn’t think I needed to report back to you.”
The story he’d told me did make sense, only he’d never mentioned that his parents were coming to town, and when they had in the past, they’d always stayed at a hotel near his apartment—not on the other side of town.
Lately it was always the same thing. He had an explanation for everything—the hotel charge, smelling like perfume, when my friend from work saw him at a restaurant with a brunette woman looking pretty cozy, a suspicious text. It wasn’t one thing, but a bunch of small things that added up.
“Look.” Aiden walked over and put his hands on my shoulders. “Those dumb diaries are planting shit in your head.”
I wanted so badly to believe him. But I couldn’t let go of all the similarities between the way Alexandria was treating her husband and things between Aiden and me lately. Alexandria would come home and go right to the shower to wash off her lover’s smell—just like Aiden had started doing the last few months if I was at his apartment when he got home. Alexandria was super cautious with her phone. Aiden even took his into the bathroom when he showered now—except for that one time he was in the shower when I arrived at his place. I’d found his cell charging on his nightstand and tried to sneak a peek at his text messages while the water was still running, only to find he’d changed his password from the one he’d been using forever.
I looked into Aiden’s eyes. “Do you promise me? Promise me there is nothing going on with anyone else. I just can’t shake the feeling, Aiden.”
He leaned closer and spoke directly into my eyes. “You need to trust me.”
I nodded, though I didn’t feel settled.
That night, we went to sleep like we had most nights lately—with a quick peck on the lips and no sex. That was yet another thing that had changed over the last six months and only added to my suspicions.
***
The following week everything had mostly returned to normal—until Fisher called one morning while I was making toast.
“Hey. You told me Aiden was going out of town tonight, right? That’s one of
the reasons you moved our monthly movie night from Sunday to Friday.”
“Yeah. He’s going to a conference upstate on incorporating new technology into college lectures. Why?”
“I ran into that weird guy Simon he works with—the one who parts his hair down the middle and brushes it straight down on the sides. I got stuck talking to him at your Christmas party a few years back, and he spent half an hour explaining how the helium balloons are bad for our marine environment.”
“I remember Simon. What about him?”
“Well, we go to the same gym. I see him every once in a while and try to avoid him. But this morning, the only treadmill open was next to him. So I had to run beside the guy. He noticed my water bottle and started lecturing me about the effects of plastic on Mother Earth. I tried to change the subject, so I asked him if he was going to the conference.”
“Okay…”
“He said it was last weekend.”
“What?” I stopped with the butter knife mid-spread, my toast forgotten. “Maybe they have it over a few weekends?”
“That’s what I figured. I know you’ve been having a hard time with trusting Aiden lately, so I wasn’t going to mention it to you, but it was bugging me. So I Googled the conference. It was last weekend—only last weekend, Stell.”
After I didn’t say anything for a long time, I heard the worry in Fisher’s voice.
“Are you okay?”
Oddly, I felt sort of numb, not frantic and freaked out like I’d been when I first started to suspect something. Maybe deep down I’d known the truth all along. But I was positive Aiden was never going to admit anything.
“Yeah, I’m okay.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Do you think you can borrow your friend’s car again?”
“Probably. Why?”
“Could you do that and be here at four?”
“I thought movie night was going to start at six?”