Page 37 of The Marriage Blunder

He nodded. “She wants you to come to her. If she wanted to finish you off, she’d be pushing the family narrative a lot harder. This is about leverage, not revenge.”

He was right, of course. He was always right when it came to Carolyn. He could have written her playbook, and maybe had.

The fireplace caught the edge of his face, gold on one side and shadow on the other. He looked like a man who had been bracing for this conversation all day, and now that it was here, was trying to decide whether to fight or let himself be fought for.

I said, “You want to eat?”

He shrugged again, but this time it was an invitation. “If there’s food, yes. If not, I’ll survive on wine and passive aggression.”

“Adams is making something.”

“Good. I can trust Adams.”

We sat there, not talking, for a few minutes. I watched the city move outside the window. I watched the way the wind made the air shimmer above the balcony railing. I watched the clock on the wall tick down the minutes until dinner, and found that I was not in a hurry for it to arrive.

Jude leaned back, arms crossed, wine glass in hand. “You could just let it happen, you know.”

“Let what happen?”

He looked over at me, glasses reflecting the fire. “The narrative. Let her win. Start over.”

I considered it, really considered it, for the first time since the whole thing started. There was an appeal in the idea of walking away, of letting the world think whatever it wanted, of starting the next thing with no baggage at all.

But then I thought about the look on his face in the club, the weight of his hand in mine, the way he had said “we” without even noticing it.

I said, “Not my style.”

He grinned, but it was not a happy one. “I didn’t think so.”

We sat. The music shifted, a new track, something with more drums.

When dinner came, Adams served it with the precision of a surgeon and the discretion of a man who could write blackmail novels if he was ever so inclined. Jude didn’t wait for me to start. He dug in, methodical, unhurried, and said nothing for the first ten bites.

I let him eat. I watched the way he held the fork, the way he cut each bite down to the smallest possible size, the way he wiped his mouth on the napkin and set it exactly square on his lap after every course.

At some point, he looked up and said, “It’s going to get worse before it gets better.”

“I know.”

“Are you ready for that?”

I thought about the phone calls, the emails, the way every room had suddenly shrunk by half. I thought about my father, the way he would say “This is not what I raised you for,” and the way my mother would quietly not take sides.

I said, “Yes.”

He nodded, as if satisfied, then picked up his wine glass and drained it again.

After dinner, we sat by the fire and finished the bottle. He slouched down into the couch, one arm draped over the back, and for the first time that day, I noticed he was relaxed.

The city was a sheet of color behind the glass, cold air still coming in from the balcony. The fire was down to a low, steady burn.

He said, “You know, I used to hate these kinds of places.”

I looked around the room. “Penthouses?”

He shook his head. “Rooms where the whole point is to keep the world out. I thought it was cowardly. Or maybe just lonely.”

I waited, because there was more.