Chapter 4 - The Mistress Finally Told Her the Truth
Elena did not answer Selena’s message that night.
Nor the following morning.
Recovery had changed time.
Before the hospital, Elena measured her days through Victor’s schedule.
Breakfast before his first call.
Dinner around his meetings.
Weekends postponed because something had happened in London or Miami or Chicago.
At Mercy Harbor, time was measured differently.
Medication at eight.
Blood pressure at ten.
A slow walk down the corridor after lunch.
Rest when her body demanded it.
For once, Victor Romano’s calendar had absolutely nothing to do with the rhythm of her life.
Elena discovered she liked that more than she expected.
She also discovered that silence could be useful.
Selena did not message again.
Victor did not call.
He communicated only through Sofia when practical matters required it.
The apartment was available whenever Elena wanted to return.
Victor had moved into a suite at one of the Romano hotels.
The staff had been instructed to follow Elena’s directions.
Her medical care would be covered whether she remained married to him or not.
Sofia read the last message aloud and looked at Elena.
“That sounded very Victor.”
Elena smiled without humor.
“Did it include a spreadsheet?”
“Not yet.”
They both laughed.
It felt good.
Not because anything was funny.
Because laughter reminded Elena there were still parts of herself the last year had not taken.
---
Dr. Patel discharged her nine days after the incident.
“You are not fragile,” the cardiologist said, standing at the foot of the bed. “But you are recovering.”
Elena nodded.
“There’s a difference.”
“A big one. I want you walking. Eating well. Sleeping. I want cardiac rehabilitation. And I want you to treat stress as information, not as a personal failure.”
Elena considered that.
“Stress as information.”
“Your body tells you things long before your schedule does.”
Sofia, standing beside the window, murmured, “Can I have that embroidered on a pillow?”
Dr. Patel smiled.
“I’ve heard worse business ideas.”
Elena was cleared to leave.
But she did not return to the penthouse.
Instead, she went to Sofia’s brownstone in Brooklyn.
Victor did not object.
That, too, felt strange.
For years, whenever Elena suggested spending more than a weekend away, Victor found reasons she should stay.
A charity dinner.
A visiting investor.
A family event.
Once, simply because he had told her, “I sleep better when you’re there.”
At the time, she had thought it romantic.
Now she wondered how many things in her marriage she had mistaken for love simply because they sounded beautiful.
---
Sofia’s house was noisy in ordinary ways.
A radiator clicked.
Neighbors dragged trash bins along the pavement.
Someone practiced trumpet badly in an apartment across the alley every afternoon at four.
Sofia’s husband, Mateo, cooked too much food and pretended not to notice when Elena ate only half of it.
Their eight-year-old daughter, Lucia, had been told Aunt Elena’s heart “needed a little rest.”
Lucia accepted this explanation and made Elena a paper medal that said:
WORLD CHAMPION RESTER
Elena pinned it beside her bed.
No one asked her whether she was leaving Victor.
That was the greatest kindness.
Four days after moving in, she finally replied to Selena.
Tell me.
The response arrived twenty minutes later.
Not by text. Whenever you’re ready. Public place. You choose.
Elena surprised herself by agreeing.
---
They met the following Tuesday in a quiet café near Washington Square Park.
Sofia hated the idea.
“You don’t owe her anything.”
“I know.”
“Then why go?”
“Because I spent six months wondering what was happening in my own life.”
Elena pulled on her coat.
“I don’t want other people deciding what I’m allowed to know anymore.”
That ended the argument.
Selena was already seated when Elena arrived.
Without the glamorous photographs Elena had found online months earlier, she looked younger.
Thirty-two, perhaps.
Her blond hair was tied back. She wore a dark sweater and no visible jewelry.
She stood when Elena approached.
“Thank you for coming.”
Elena sat.
“I didn’t come for you.”
“I know.”
A server brought tea.
For a while neither woman touched it.
Finally Elena said, “You told me Victor didn’t want to speak to me.”
Selena’s face tightened.
“Yes.”
“Did he say that?”
“No.”
The answer was immediate.
Elena had expected it.
Still, hearing it hurt.
“Why?”
Selena stared into her cup.
“Because I was angry.”
“At me?”
“At him. At myself. At the whole situation.”
“And somehow I became the person you punished.”
Selena nodded.
“Yes.”
No excuses.
Elena appreciated that more than she wanted to.
“How long?”
“Five months.”
Elena looked away toward the window.
Five months.
Long enough to become a second life.
“Did he tell you he loved you?”
“No.”
“Did you love him?”
Selena was quiet.
“I thought I did.”
“And now?”
“Now I think I loved how important I felt when he chose me.”
The honesty unsettled Elena.
Selena continued.
“I met Victor through the Hudson Crown project. My firm handled interior redevelopment. We worked late. He talked about his father. About the company. Sometimes about you.”
Elena looked sharply at her.
“What did he say about me?”
“That you were the best part of his life.”
Elena almost laughed.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
Selena finally met her eyes.
“But that’s what he said.”
“Then why have an affair?”
“I asked him once.”
“What did he say?”
“That with me, he could be someone who hadn’t disappointed you yet.”
The words struck Elena strangely.
Not because they excused him.
They did not.
Because they sounded like Victor.
A man capable of acquiring a hotel chain but terrified of saying, I am unhappy. I am grieving. I need help.
Elena folded her hands in her lap.
“What happened two weeks before I went to the hospital?”
Selena’s gaze dropped.
“He ended it.”
“So the letter was true.”
“What letter?”
“Never mind.”
Selena nodded slowly.
“He came to my apartment and said he was going to tell you. He said continuing the affair had become a way of avoiding everything he actually needed to face.”
“Then why were you together that night?”
Selena exhaled.
“Because I called him.”
Elena waited.
“My firm was being removed from the Hudson Crown development.”
“By Victor?”
“No. By the board.”
Selena twisted the paper sleeve around her cup.
“After he ended things, I requested reassignment because continuing to work with him was impossible. Someone noticed. Questions started. I panicked.”
“And Victor went to see you.”
“Yes.”
“At a hotel.”
“My apartment building had reporters outside because of an unrelated celebrity staying there. Victor didn’t want photographs of us becoming a story before he told you.”
Elena almost smiled at the bitter irony.
“So he chose discretion.”
“Yes.”
“In a hotel room.”
Selena flushed.
“He booked a suite so we could talk privately.”
“And you were wearing his shirt.”
Selena closed her eyes briefly.
“I spilled wine on my blouse.”
Elena stared at her.
It sounded absurd.
It also sounded entirely possible.
“Did you sleep with him that night?”
“No.”
“Were you going to?”
Selena’s answer took longer.
“I wanted to believe we might.”
“And Victor?”
“He said no.”
Elena leaned back.
“Before or after I called?”
“Before.”
For several seconds, neither woman spoke.
Selena reached into her handbag.
“I brought something.”
She placed an envelope on the table.
Inside was a printed email.
From Victor.
Sent at 6:41 p.m. that evening.
Selena,
Tonight cannot become another version of the past five months. I will help address the Hudson Crown issue because my decisions contributed to the position you are in. After that, there can be no private contact between us. I am telling Elena everything tomorrow.
Elena read it twice.
Her feelings refused to arrange themselves neatly.
Victor had not gone there intending to continue the affair.
He had still gone.
He had not told Selena to reject Elena’s call.
He had still left his phone with a woman he had been sleeping with.
He had intended to confess.
He had still lied to Elena that very evening.
Truth did not erase betrayal.
It merely changed its shape.
Selena looked at her.
“I’m sorry.”
Elena folded the email.
“Are you apologizing because I nearly died?”
“No.”
Selena swallowed.
“I’m apologizing because you called asking for your husband and I decided, for about ten seconds, that humiliating you would make me feel less humiliated by him.”
Elena remained silent.
“It didn’t.”
“No,” Elena said softly. “I imagine it didn’t.”
She pushed back her chair.
Selena stood too.
“Elena.”
She paused.
“I don’t expect forgiveness.”
“Good.”
Selena nodded.
Elena put on her coat.
Then she said, “But I believe you’re sorry.”
It was all she could offer.
May you like
For now.
---
