CHAPTER 1
“You’re sure you have everything?” Shaundra asked, hovering in the nursery doorway.
Phylicia, the 50-something-year-old nanny, put her hands on her hips in the classic don’t-get-me-started pose that made Shaundra think of her late grandmother, and pursed her lips. “First of all, young lady, I was taking care of babies before you lost your front teeth. Secondly, you know I have everyt’ing, because you already asked me twice.” The nanny’s soft Barbadian accent was as musical as a Caribbean breeze, and, as always, Shaundra began to relax.
“And thirdly, Miss Shaundra, it’s high time you left the house and did something. We have ‘nuff breastmilk in the fridge, I have your number in my phone, and Benjamin’s asleep.” She gave Shaundra a wide, comforting grin. “Get going, before I have to drag you out the front door myself!”
Shaundra couldn’t help but laugh at that idea, because Phylicia was all of four-foot-ten and as wide around as she was tall. She doubted this quirky little woman would be dragging anyone anywhere.
She nodded, checked her makeup in the mirror on the wall, and cat walked down the long hallway to the front door in her patent leather high heels. She opened it, noticing that her car was already idling in the wide flagstone driveway. The smoked glass made it difficult to see inside, and it was even harder since it had already grown dark. But she wasn’t worried. Her driver, Monty, was as patient as they came. He was probably comfortably leaning back in the driver’s seat, immersed in his omnipresent sudoku book.
She turned back toward Phylicia as she stepped out, hesitating. “Did you remember to—”
“I remember everyt’ing,” the older woman said tartly. “Go and have a nice time.” She shut the door with a loudwham.
Giggling to herself, Shaundra walked down the drive towards the car. Her first solo night out since Benji was born! The sheer liberation! She hoped tonight would go exactly as she planned.
She was happy to have a driver, because Lord knew she’d never been one of those women who enjoyed driving. It was one good decision her husband Nathanael had made when they’d first become engaged. Rather than arrive wherever she was going frazzled and irritated by other drivers who seemed determined to kill her, she could relax in the back seat of the spacious luxury vehicle and catch up on celebrity gossip on her phone.
She opened the back door and got in, surprised that Monty hadn’t hopped out to open it for her as he usually did. He was probably filling up the last sudoku square and hadn’t realized she’d arrived. He could be single-minded with that thing!
The glass between the front and back seats was up, so she hit the intercom button. “Hey, Monty.”
No response.
“Ready when you are.” She’d already texted him her destination, so there was little else to be said. But still, the silence in front was disconcerting.
The door locks clicked, and the car began to move.
Shaundra began to feel a niggling tingle of dread playing at her nape. Weird.So weird.“Monty?” she called and hit the button to lower the separating pane of glass.
Then she screamed. The interior of the car was dark, but she could clearly see that this man was not Monty, who was old enough to be her grandfather, bald as an egg, but had a ZZ-Top type white beard so bushy that he played Santa at the neighborhood children’s hospital every year, without needing fake facial hair.
The man she saw was tall and dark-haired. An imposing, broad-shouldered figure who was expertly handling the wheel as they slid smoothly onto the highway.
“Monty has the night off,” he said.
She was no longer terrified. Shaundra was just pissed off. “What the hell, Nathanael!” Her annoyance was palpable, and tinged with the unsettled feeling that came with seeing the man who had walked out on their four year marriage almost the moment she’d discovered she was pregnant. Since then, his visits were sporadic and cursory, merely caretaker visits to make sure the bills were paid and everything at the house was running. To add even more insult to her injury, he determinedly acted as if their son, Benjamin, didn’t exist.
And now here he was, taking the place of her driver? She couldn’t decide if she was more angry or shocked. “What the hell are you doing in my car?”
“Ourcar, wife,” he reminded her. “Not yours, not mine, butours.”Even though he’d grown up in the States, his French accent was discernible.You can’t shake your history,he used to say when she teased him about it.
Now, she wished she could reach over the seat and givehima good shaking. “Why are you here?”
He glanced up at her in the rear-view mirror, his face carved out of stone, his neatly trimmed beard and moustache failing to hide the determined set of his jaw. “Where are you off to?”
“I asked you a question first!”
“And who are you going with? Dressed like that?”
She looked down at herself, taking in as if for the first time her black satin shift dress, which was as glossy and iridescent as an oil slick and barely hid the tops of her shapely breasts. The long, curvaceous chestnut-brown legs, shaved just this afternoon, gleamed with her favorite skin product. Black heels, designed for strutting. She looked good, dammit, and why she was dressed that way was none of his damn business. So she told him so.
He snorted. “Itismy business. I’m your husband.”
It was her turn to snort. “Really? Because my empty bed tells a different story. The fact that I hold our baby in my arms every day, knowing that his father doesn’t want him, says different. You’ve been gone from the house for almost a year, without an explanation. So remind me,darling,why do you consider yourself my husband?”