Chapter 2 - She Almost Died While He Was With Another Woman
The nurse looked at Victor for a long moment before answering.
“She had a serious cardiac episode,” she said. “Her heart rhythm became unstable before the paramedics arrived. They were able to stabilize her, but the cardiologist is concerned about damage to the heart muscle.”
Victor seemed not to understand the words.
“Damage?”
“She’s alive, Mr. Romano.”
The nurse emphasized that sentence.
As though she had already seen enough husbands arrive in expensive coats expecting money, influence, or urgency to change the laws of the human body.
“She’s receiving excellent care. But right now, the doctors need room to work.”
Victor stared through the narrow glass panel in the emergency-room door.
He could see only pieces.
A blue curtain.
The edge of a bed.
Someone in scrubs moving quickly past.
Nothing that resembled Elena.
Nothing that reassured him.
Twenty-three minutes earlier, he had been standing in a hotel suite with Selena Vale, believing the most difficult part of his evening would be deciding whether to go home.
Now he would have given anything to be standing in that cold penthouse kitchen beside a dinner he had ignored.
His phone vibrated.
Selena.
He rejected the call again.
A minute later, a message appeared.
I didn’t know she was actually sick.
Victor read it once.
Then again.
His thumb hovered over the screen.
He typed:
What exactly did she say to you?
The answer came almost immediately.
She asked for you. She sounded upset. I thought she was trying to get you home.
Victor closed his eyes.
“What did she say?” he whispered to himself.
Another message.
She said, “Please… put him on.”
Victor sat down.
The hallway seemed suddenly too bright.
His expensive coat hung open. His shirt collar was crooked. Rainwater still darkened the shoulders.
For perhaps the first time in his adult life, Victor Romano did not know what action could improve the situation.
He knew how to restructure a failing company.
He knew how to negotiate with banks.
He knew how to walk into a hostile boardroom and leave with everyone believing his solution had been their idea.
But there was no strategy for the knowledge that his wife had called him while collapsing alone and another woman had answered.
There was certainly no strategy for the fact that the other woman had been in his arms less than an hour earlier.
“Victor?”
He looked up.
Daniel Cho, his chief of staff, was approaching from the elevators.
Daniel had worked for Victor for nine years and had seen him furious, triumphant, exhausted, mildly drunk, publicly attacked, privately betrayed, and once almost arrested in Madrid because of an argument involving a development permit and an ambassador’s nephew.
He had never seen Victor look frightened.
Until now.
“I came as soon as you called.”
Victor rubbed both hands over his face.
“Elena almost died.”
Daniel stopped beside him.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
That admission alone told Daniel how serious the situation was.
Victor Romano always knew.
Or pretended to.
Daniel sat beside him.
For several minutes, neither spoke.
Then Daniel said quietly, “Have you called Sofia?”
Victor looked at him.
Elena’s younger sister.
Of course.
He had forgotten.
That realization made something inside him sink even further.
“I’ll call her.”
“No,” Daniel said. “You stay here. I’ll do it.”
Victor shook his head.
“She should hear it from family.”
Daniel’s expression changed slightly.
He did not say what both men understood.
At that moment, Victor did not feel much like family.
Still, he dialed.
Sofia Marin answered on the third ring.
“Victor?”
“Sofia.”
Something in his voice made her immediately serious.
“What happened?”
“It’s Elena.”
There was silence.
Victor forced himself to continue.
“She’s at Mercy Harbor. She had some kind of cardiac event.”
“What?”
“She’s stable right now, but—”
“I’m coming.”
“Sofia—”
“I’m coming.”
The call ended.
Victor lowered the phone.
Daniel stared at the floor.
After a while, he said, “Do you want me to cancel tomorrow?”
Victor almost laughed.
Tomorrow.
There was apparently still going to be a tomorrow.
“Yes.”
“All meetings?”
“All of them.”
Daniel nodded.
He stood.
Then Victor said, “Daniel.”
“Yes?”
“Cancel the Chicago trip. The Singapore calls. The investor dinner Thursday.”
“For how long?”
Victor looked toward the emergency-room door.
“I don’t know.”
Daniel studied him.
“All right.”
He turned away.
“Daniel.”
He stopped again.
Victor’s voice was lower now.
“There’s something else.”
Daniel waited.
Victor stared at his own hands.
“I’ve been seeing someone.”
Daniel did not react immediately.
That frightened Victor more than anger might have.
“Does Elena know?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so?”
Victor looked up.
Daniel had never spoken to him that way.
But Victor had no anger left to defend himself with.
“She suspected.”
“And tonight?”
Victor swallowed.
“She called while I was with her.”
Daniel’s face changed.
“She answered my phone.”
Understanding came slowly.
Then fully.
“Oh.”
“That’s all you have to say?”
“No.”
Daniel adjusted his glasses.
“But none of the other things I have to say would help Elena tonight.”
Victor nodded once.
It was possibly the most honest response anyone had given him in years.
---
Sofia arrived thirty-eight minutes later wearing jeans, a wool coat thrown over a sweater, her dark hair still damp from the shower.
She rushed toward Victor.
“What did the doctor say?”
“They’re still evaluating her.”
“Can I see her?”
“Not yet.”
Sofia pressed a hand over her mouth.
For a second, Victor thought she might cry.
Instead, she turned toward him.
“When did this happen?”
“Security found her around seven forty.”
“Security?”
“She triggered the penthouse emergency alarm.”
“Why didn’t she call you?”
The question landed between them.
Victor said nothing.
Sofia stared at him.
Then at his face.
Then at the phone still clutched in his hand.
“She did.”
It wasn’t a question.
Victor looked away.
Sofia’s expression slowly hardened.
“You ignored her?”
“I was in a meeting.”
The lie came automatically.
A habit.
A reflex polished by years of running companies and controlling perceptions.
Then he stopped himself.
“No.”
Sofia watched him.
Victor took a breath.
“I wasn’t in a meeting.”
Her eyes narrowed.
He said, “There’s someone else.”
For several seconds, the only sound was the distant beeping of hospital equipment.
Sofia stepped backward.
Victor expected anger.
Perhaps even deserved it.
Instead, she looked unbearably tired.
“Elena asked me three months ago if I thought you were having an affair.”
Victor felt his stomach drop.
“What did you tell her?”
“I told her I didn’t know.”
Sofia’s eyes shone.
“She said she hoped she was becoming paranoid because that would be easier than being right.”
Victor closed his eyes.
He remembered the last six months differently now.
Elena asking whether he would be home.
Elena glancing at his phone.
Elena going quiet when he said another meeting had run late.
Elena stopping halfway through stories because he was answering emails.
He had told himself she was becoming distant.
Now he wondered when she had simply stopped trying to be heard.
Sofia moved to the opposite side of the waiting room.
She did not speak to him again.
Not until a cardiologist finally emerged.
“Family of Elena Romano?”
Both of them stood.
“I’m her husband.”
“I’m her sister.”
The physician introduced herself as Dr. Nina Patel.
“She’s stable.”
Victor’s shoulders sagged so visibly that Dr. Patel noticed.
“But,” she continued, “I want to be clear. What happened was significant.”
She explained that Elena had suffered a severe coronary artery spasm that caused an abnormal heart rhythm and temporarily reduced blood flow to part of her heart. Initial imaging suggested the damage might be limited, but more testing would be needed.
“Can stress cause it?” Sofia asked.
“It can contribute,” Dr. Patel said carefully. “There are often multiple factors. We’ll need to investigate medications, family history, hormone levels, underlying vascular conditions. I don’t want anyone assigning a single cause.”
Victor looked down.
The doctor’s caution offered him no comfort.
“Can we see her?”
“One person briefly.”
Sofia and Victor looked at each other.
Victor immediately said, “Sofia.”
She seemed surprised.
He wasn’t.
For once, there was no decision to negotiate.
“She should see you.”
Sofia entered the room.
Victor stayed outside.
---
Elena remembered very little from that first night.
A ceiling moving above her.
A mask over her face.
A voice asking whether she knew her name.
Cold air.
Then warmth.
Then nothing.
When she opened her eyes properly, daylight pressed softly through blinds.
Sofia sat beside the bed.
“El?”
Elena looked toward her.
Her throat felt dry.
“Where am I?”
“The hospital.”
Memory arrived in fragments.
The kitchen.
The floor.
Victor’s phone ringing.
A woman answering.
Elena shut her eyes.
Sofia reached for her hand.
“You’re safe.”
“Victor?”
Sofia hesitated.
“He’s here.”
Elena opened her eyes again.
The heart monitor beside her continued its quiet rhythm.
“He came?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“All night.”
Elena looked toward the window.
It was strange.
For months she had wanted Victor to come home.
Now the thought of him sitting somewhere beyond the door brought no relief.
“Was she with him?”
Sofia’s grip tightened.
“You don’t need to deal with that now.”
“That means yes.”
“Elena.”
“Was she?”
Sofia exhaled.
“Yes.”
Elena stared at the ceiling.
She had imagined this moment many times.
Discovering proof.
Crying.
Demanding answers.
Throwing something, perhaps.
Walking dramatically into some new life with her shoulders straight and her wedding ring left behind.
Instead, she felt almost nothing.
Or perhaps she felt too much for her body to sort into separate emotions.
“Did she really say he didn’t want to talk to me?”
Sofia’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
Elena turned toward the wall.
A tear slipped sideways across the bridge of her nose.
May you like
She wiped it away before Sofia could.
“Tell him not to come in.”
