Chapter 3 - The Appointment Someone Tried to Cancel
I didn't sleep much that night.
The hotel was quiet, the curtains were heavy, and the bed was far more comfortable than the one Adrian and I had shared. None of it helped.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw my appointment time printed on that anonymous page.
At eight the next morning, Naomi arrived with a second copy of the document sealed in a clear sleeve.
“Did you ever share a calendar with Adrian?” she asked.
“Years ago. Birthdays. Travel plans. His doctor's appointments.”
“And your medical appointments?”
“No. Those stayed on my private account.”
She nodded, making a note.
“Then we don't guess. We check where the information came from.”
My obstetrician's office was open for Saturday morning consultations. I called while Naomi sat beside me.
The receptionist remembered me.
“Mrs. Romano, we tried reaching you yesterday. Someone called to cancel your appointment for next Thursday.”
I gripped the phone.
“Who?”
“They said they were contacting us on behalf of your husband's office. We didn't cancel it because the request didn't come from you.”
“Did you tell them anything about my care?”
“No, ma'am. We asked them to have you call directly.”
I thanked her, then asked that my records be marked for direct verification only, with no messages left through household staff.
After I hung up, Naomi set her notebook on the table.
“There are two things we know,” she said. “Someone had your appointment time, and someone attempted to interfere with the appointment. We don't yet know whether it was the same person.”
I wanted to be angry.
Instead, I thought about the number of people who had always answered Adrian's telephone calls. Drivers. Security men. Secretaries. The household office had run on instructions passed through people whose names I didn't always know.
For years, I had been the person making certain those instructions became dinner, clean clothes, remembered birthdays and properly packed prescriptions.
Now I wondered how many other people had access to things I thought were mine.
At noon, Adrian's mother called.
Lucia Romano had never been an unkind woman. She had also never questioned why I did so much of the invisible work in her son's home.
“Adrian told me about the baby,” she said.
“Then you know.”
“I know you're leaving him.”
“He asked me to.”
“I know that too.”
Her voice sounded tired.
“Bianca came to see me yesterday. She said you were threatening Adrian with a settlement that would empty his accounts.”
I laughed once, without humor.
“I'm requesting none of his property.”
“That's what Adrian said this morning.”
“Then why did she tell you otherwise?”
Lucia hesitated.
“I thought you might have an answer.”
“I don't.”
After a moment, she said, “You remembered my birthday every year. My own son forgot it twice. I knew who was sending the flowers, Elena. I just never said thank you properly.”
I stared at the telephone in my hand.
An apology couldn't undo eight years. But I hadn't expected one.
“Thank you for saying that.”
“May I see you sometime? Not as Adrian's messenger.”
“When things are quieter.”
She didn't push.
That afternoon Adrian asked to meet. Naomi suggested a public café, but I wasn't ready to sit under strangers' eyes while my husband attempted to explain his marriage to me.
We agreed on her office, with Naomi in the next room.
He arrived without an entourage.
That, by itself, told me he understood something was wrong.
He looked tired. His collar was open, and there was a crease between his eyes I normally would have reached out to smooth.
I kept my hands in my lap.
“I called the clinic,” he began. “They wouldn't give me any information.”
“They shouldn't.”
“I wanted to make sure you were all right.”
“Then you could have asked me.”
He looked down.
“I didn't send anyone to cancel your appointment.”
I studied his face.
“Someone said they were from your office. Someone also sent my schedule to my hotel.”
“Why would they?”
“That's what I'd like to know.”
He took out his phone and made a call to Tomas, the man who oversaw security at the Romano residence. He asked for a review of access to the household computers and insisted that nobody contact my doctor.
I stopped him when he offered to send guards to the hotel.
“No, Adrian. Not without asking me first.”
His jaw tightened.
“Someone is watching you.”
“Then tell me what you find. Don't turn my life into another thing you control.”
For a moment, he looked ready to argue.
Then he nodded.
“All right.”
It was such a small word. In our marriage, he had used it often when dismissing my concerns. This was the first time I believed he might actually mean it.
He leaned forward.
“I don't want our child growing up afraid of me.”
“Then the child needs to see a man who knows how to be safe.”
His expression changed.
“Do you think I would hurt my own baby?”
“No. I think people around you solve problems with threats, and you rarely stop them. I won't raise a child inside that.”
He had no answer.
As he left, Naomi returned with an email from the clinic. They had preserved the time of the cancellation call and the telephone number visible on their system.
I read the final four digits twice.
They matched the number Bianca used to contact our household for dinner reservations and car arrangements.
There were other ways a number could be used. Naomi reminded me of that immediately.
But I looked at the page and remembered Lucia saying Bianca had accused me of demanding money.
May you like
The woman who wanted my place in Adrian's life had apparently become interested in my pregnancy before we'd even spoken.
And she had tried to cancel the first appointment Adrian knew nothing about.
