CHAPTER 2: The Woman Who Wanted the Couch

Sloane had chosen the sofa as if it were already hers.
She leaned back against the white cushions, one hand around a crystal glass, watching Emma from beneath perfect lashes. She had been invited for dinner as a charity consultant. She had stayed after dinner as the truth.
Grant never called her his mistress.
Men like Grant preferred softer words for ugly things.
He said Sloane understood ambition. He said she knew how to stand beside a man in public. He said Emma had become quiet, fragile, invisible.
Emma had listened to all of it from across the dining table while the candles burned low and the city glittered behind him.
Then Sloane made one mistake.
She smiled at Emma and said, “Some wives need to learn when the room has moved on.”
Grant wanted applause from the wrong woman so badly that he confused cruelty with control.
Now Emma was on the floor, and Sloane was watching to see if she would cry.
Emma did not give her that gift.
Sloane did not understand marriage. She understood access. To her, Grant was not a man with vows attached to him, but a locked door she had almost opened.
That was why she watched Emma so closely. She wanted proof that the old wife was disappearing, proof that the new woman could move in before the cushions even cooled.