"He stopped loving me. I'm not sure he ever did, really. He wanted an important wife." She moved her shoulders. "He thought he got one. In the past couple of years we began to disagree over quite a lot of things. Or I began to disagree with him out loud. He didn't care for that. Oh, it's no use going over all the details." She waved her hands with self-directed impatience. "Basically we grew apart. He began to spend more time away from home. I thought he was having an affair, but he was so uncharacteristically furious when I accused him, I believed I was wrong."
"But you weren't."
"I'm not sure, about then. It doesn't matter." Laura jerked a shoulder, picked up the tulle again to give herself something to do with her hands. "He hasn't touched me in more than a year."
"A year." It was, perhaps, foolish to be shocked at the idea of marriage without intimacy, but Margo was shocked nonetheless.
"At first, I wanted us to go to a counselor, but he was appalled by the idea. Then I thought I should try some therapy, and he was beyond appalled." Laura managed a quick, thin smile. "It would get out, and then what would people think, what would they say?"
No sex. None. For a year. Margo fought her way past the block and concentrated. "That's just ridiculous."
"Maybe. But I stopped caring. It was easier to stop caring and concentrate on my children, the house. My life."
What life? Margo wanted to ask, but held her tongue.
"But I could see in the last few weeks that it was affecting the children. Ali in particular." Gently, she replaced the tutu, folded her hands in her lap to keep them still. "After you left, I decided we had to straighten things out. We had to fix what was wrong. I went to the penthouse. I thought it would be best if we talked there, away from the children. I was willing to do whatever had to be done to put things back together."
"You were willing," Margo interrupted, leaping up and puffing out an angry stream of smoke. "It sounds to me like—"
"It doesn't matter what it sounds like," Laura said quietly. "It's what is. Anyway, it was late. I'd put the girls to bed first. All the way over I practiced this little speech about how we'd had a decade together, a family, a history."
It made her laugh to think of it now. She rose, deciding she could indulge in a short brandy. As she poured two snifters, she related the rest. "The penthouse was locked, but I have a key. He wasn't in the office." Calmly she handed Margo a glass, sat down again with her own. "I was annoyed at first, thinking he'd gone out for a late dinner meeting or some such thing and I'd geared myself up for nothing. Then I noticed the light under the bedroom door. I nearly knocked. Can you imagine how pathetic the situation was, Margo, that I nearly knocked? Instead, I just opened the door." She took a sip of brandy. "He was having a dinner meeting, all right."
"His secretary?"
Laura gave a snorting laugh. "Like a bad French farce. We have the philandering husband sprawled over the bed with his jazzy redheaded secretary and a bowl of chilled shrimp."
Barely, Margo managed to strangle a giggle. "Shrimp?"
"And what appeared to be a spiced-honey sauce, with a bottle of Dom to wash it down. Enter the unsuspecting, neglected society wife. The tableau freezes. No one speaks, only the strains of Bolero can be heard."
"Bolero. Oh, Jesus." Her breath hitching, Margo dropped into a chair. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I can't help it. I'm too tired to fight back."
"Go ahead and laugh." Laura felt a smile breaking through herself. "It is laughable. Pitifully. The wife says, with incredible and foolish dignity, 'I'm terribly sorry to interrupt your dinner meeting.'"
It was an effort, but Margo managed to wheeze in a breath. "You did not."
"I did. They just goggled at me. I've never seen Peter goggle before. It was almost worth it. The fresh young secretary began to squeak and try to c
over herself, and in her rush for modesty upended the shrimp sauce on Peter's crotch."
"Oh. Oh, God."
"It was a moment." Laura heaved a sigh, wondering which of the three of them had felt more ridiculous. "I told them not to get up, I would see myself out. And I left."
"Just like that?"
"Just like that."
"But what does he say? How is he handling it?"
"I have no idea." Those soft gray eyes hardened into a look that was pure Templeton—tough, hot, and stubborn. "I'm not taking his calls. That stupid electric gate of his has finally paid off." As her gentle mouth hardened as well, Margo thought it was like watching silk turn to steel. "He can't get in because I've instructed the staff not to admit him. In any case, he's only tried once."
"You're not going to even talk to him?"
"There's nothing to talk about. I could and did tolerate indifference. I could and did tolerate his utter lack of affection and respect for me and my feelings. But I won't tolerate, not for an instant, his lying and his lack of fidelity. He might think that boinking his secretary is simply his droit de signor. He's going to find out different."
"Are you sure it's what you want?"