She’d also managed to make a liar, a fool, and a bully out of me. Not gonna lie, it was a personal low. I couldn’t seem to do anything right by this woman. In stunned silence, I stepped back, and Sydney didn’t waste any time putting as much distance between us as possible. I watched as she marched down the stairs with her head held high and her steel spine perfectly straight.
Ten minutes later, in shock and off-kilter, I walked down the same library steps. As soon as I hit the sidewalk, I turned left and headed uptown. In the skyline I could see the Blackstone Building, better known as the Death Star in the family. My large loving family. With all our faults, we were tight. We were there for each other. If I started with the basic assumption that Sydney and I were strangers, I’d have to admit that I knew nothing about her. Only what I’d presumed to know, which was turning out to be off the mark by a mile.
I flipped up the collar of my tux, my shoulders hiked up as the cold air slapped me in the face. The restlessness was back and I needed to walk it off. But mostly, I needed to figure out what to do about my wife.
“What are you doing here?” she immediately said upon seeing me in her doorway. What was I doing here? I wasn’t absolutely certain. Only that my feet had carried me to Sydney’s place without conscious thought. Before I realized where I was or what I was doing, I was standing before her doorman and demanding he call her even though it was well past midnight. It was a miracle she’d let me up.
“I feel duty bound to point out that we are, in fact, married.”
As openers went, maybe not my best one. I’d fumbled my last attempt at an apology and really needed to score on this one and judging from her expression this was not the way to start.
Looking torn, she cocked a hip and scrutinized me. The red dress was gone, replaced by a faded Yale Law sweatshirt with the neck cut out and long pajama pants covered in tiny rainbows. Her hair was piled up on her head in a messy bun and she wore no makeup. It should’ve killed my boner for her––the rainbow pajamas alone should’ve done it––but then the sweatshirt slipped down her bare shoulder, exposing the absence of a bra, and my body said otherwise.
“Married people tend to live together,” I added. She still wouldn’t budge. “We could stay at my place if you prefer.”
Dragging her feet, she moved aside to let me enter. Her place was nice. Whoever had decorated her apartment did a nice job. We had the same taste in furniture. Comfortable oversized pieces, natural materials, soft neutral tones. It had a large living room and an open kitchen, a wall of windows that overlooked Central Park.
“No paintings of clowns done by Malaysian blind kids?”
“Chilean orphans, thank you very much.” Crossing the room, she turned off the TV. “I see being a patron of the Guggenheim hasn’t taught you anything about art.”
“That’s Midge’s thing. I prefer my art living. The Tetons…a night sky with no light pollution…a woman’s body.” She frowned and a smile stretched across my face. “Nice place.”
“One bedroom. I bought the smallest apartment in the best building I could afford.”
This night was looking better and better. “Verse and chapter from the Bible by Frank Blackstone?”
“Yep.”
Placing the remote on the coffee table, she turned. Her arms crossed, chin tilted up. An angry queen with rainbows on her pjs. Technically, my queen. Damn, she was beautiful. Unconventional. Unique. I discovered something new about her face every time I looked at her and the more I looked the more I found something to like.
“I’m sorry,” I stated, tone matter-of-fact. If she was expecting me to get my knees dirty, she’d be waiting forever. I didn’t grovel. Not in the past, not now, not ever.
“What exactly are you sorry for? That you exchanged a few years of freedom for your inheritance?”
“I deserved that, but you’re wrong. I didn’t do it for my inheritance. In fact, I told him to keep it when he tried that angle. I did it for the land.”
Her brow got a cute little wrinkle. “The land trust? That’s Frank’s baby.”
“Wrong again. That’s my baby. I asked him to set it up. And he threatened to break it apart and sell