Page 69 of Iridescent
Then I hear it.
A faint scraping sound.
It takes me a second to place it. My gaze drops to her hands, and I’m already moving.
I come around the desk and catch both wrists before she can do more damage. The bandages are half ruined, gauze split where her nails have clawed through it, fresh blood beginning to seep through white.
“Stop.”
Her breath catches. She tries to jerk away. I tighten my grip just enough to keep her still.
I know this now. The moment her eyes go distant, I know what comes next.
A few days ago, I found her stepping off a curb and into the path of an oncoming car with that same vacant expression, as if the world around her had gone distant and soundless. I got to her in time. Dragged her back onto the pavement hard enough to throw us both off balance. Even then, she only stared at me, dazed, like she needed a second to understand how close she had come to being killed.
I stayed until a doctor got to her. Long enough to hear the warning delivered in a tone that left no room for interpretation: she was not to be left alone in that condition.
I release Isabel’s wrists and reach for the desk phone.
“Claire.”
Moments later, the door opens.
My assistant steps inside, takes one look at Isabel, and doesn’t hesitate. That alone is worth every cent I pay her.
“Call Dr. Laurent and have him here immediately,” I say, grabbing my keys. “She is not to be left alone. Stay with her until he arrives. If he can’t make it in time, have Benoit take her to the clinic.”
She nods. “Of course.”
I grab my phone, shrug into my coat, and stride out of the office. By the time the elevator doors slide shut, I’m already dialing my wife again.
Chapter 13
“Amor?” My voice carries through the marble foyer as I push the heavy front door shut behind me. “Yara, I’m home.”
Silence.
The wrong kind.
I stand there for a second with my keys in one hand and a bouquet of ivory peonies in the other. At this hour, there is usually a soft glow spilling from the living room, some show playing low in the background, Yara curled into the corner of the sofa with a cashmere throw over her legs while she waits for me. But tonight the house is lit from end to end, every lamp throwing warm light across polished marble and clean lines, and the stillness pressing back at me is wrong enough to set my nerves on edge.
It’s just past eight. She should be here. Then again, the last few weeks have been different.
A cold knot pulls tight in my stomach. I’ve been coming home late, burying myself in work, using it as an excuse to stay away from the house and the guilt waiting for me inside it. Meetings, calls, problems that could have waited—I’ve given all of them more of me than I’vegiven my wife.
I set the flowers down on the console and head into the living room. “Amor?”
My voice bounces off vaulted ceilings and polished floors.
No answer.
The unease deepens. I tell myself not to be ridiculous. She could be upstairs. In the bath. On the terrace. Asleep. Still angry. Any one of those makes more sense than the thin pulse of dread working its way up the back of my neck.
I shrug out of my suit jacket and loosen my tie, but it does nothing to ease the tightness gathering in my chest.
The television is off. The throw on the sofa is folded neatly. Her book is not on the coffee table. Nothing is out of place.
That unsettles me more than a mess would have.
