“Good?”
He put an oyster on a plate and slid it toward me. “Try one.”
I scrunched up my nose. “You know oysters aren’t really my thing.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing,” Sam said, picking up the shell and throwing the oyster down like a shot. He smiled and wiped the sides of his mouth with a napkin before placing it back into his lap. “How many days ’til the wedding now?”
I took my phone up out of my clutch, opened the wedding countdown app, and set it down on the table. “Fifty-two days, but who’s counting?”
An announcer came over the intercom to say the show would be starting in a few minutes and asked everyone to please kindly turn off all cell phones. Sam took his phone out of his pocket, switched off the volume, and placed it beside mine. He leaned into the table and caressed the side of my face. “I know I’ve been a bit distracted, but I promise you, now that this deal is practically wrapped up, all my attention will be on the wedding.”
I shifted in my seat.
“I mean it. I know I’ve been a shit lately. How can I make things up to your sister?”
“She’s in town one more day. Is there any way you can find some time to meet Alec tomorrow?”
He leaned down, lifted my hand, and kissed the top of it. “Yes. I give you my word. I’ll make some time to see them all tomorrow before they fly out.”
I smiled. “Thank you, Sam.”
He peeked up at me from the table. “Now there’s that famous thousand-watt smile. I’ve been looking for it all day.” Sam looked down at his watch and grabbed his phone off the table. “My assistant should still be in the office, let me pop out and make a quick call to her to clear my morning schedule for Merritt.” He cupped my chin in his hands. “That smile better be waiting for me when I get back,” he teased.
I forced an even larger grin on my face, and he laughed.
He bent down and kissed my forehead. “You’re such a nut. I love you.”
The server returned with the second round of drinks and placed them on the table. I took a few sips of the martini and noticed my phone vibrating on the table. I picked it up and realized it was Sam’s phone. He must’ve slipped mine into his pocket by mistake.
“Sam, that’s my—”
I turned to see if Sam was still within shouting distance, but he was already outside. I turned back and set the phone down, while the small band took to the stage and began tuning up. The phone rang again, and our server tapped me on the shoulder.
“Miss, I have to ask you to please turn that off during the show.”
“Yes, of course. I’m so sorry,” I whispered back.
I picked the phone up and fumbled around for the off button, when a message popped up on the screen.
Maybe I can tempt you with this.
My fingers trembling, I typed what I thought was Sam’s password into the keyboard. The phone didn’t open. The password used to be his birthday, he must have changed it? I tried a few more sets of numbers. Nothing. Then, I keyed in 1214 his parent’s address. It unlocked. A small number four hovered over his text message icon. I clicked it open, and three pictures of a woman wearing nothing but a pair of black lace garters and super high heels appeared on his phone. Her face was out of frame, but the rest of her was on full display. I clicked through the texts and read the last message.
Sneak away from work when you can. I’ll be here waiting.
I inhaled sharply and looked up from the screen. Sam was hurrying back into the room, waving my phone around in his hand.
“I grabbed the wrong one,” he said, passing the phone back to me. “This is your phone.”
A lump inched its way up my throat and settled firmly in the base. I tried coughing to clear it.
Sam softened his eyes. “What’s wrong?”
I moistened my lips and lifted his phone, the photo of the woman spread eagle across her white duvet opened up on the screen.
Sam closed his eyes and sank down into his chair. “Fuck.”
“Lucky for you, I think she’s completely game.”
“Fuck,” Sam repeated.
The lights dimmed, and Audra McDonald took to the small stage.
I lowered my voice. “Are you having an affair?”
Sam put his head in his hands, covering his eyes.
“Sam, are you having an affair?” I asked again.
He looked up from the ground, his face almost eye level to mine.
I swallowed hard, tears streaming down my face. “Do I need to remind you, Clause Two stipulates the word ‘yes’ is the only—”
“Yes,” he answered, his voice breaking with emotion. “Yes.”
Chapter Eight
Six months. That’s how long Sam had been seeing the girl in the photos. Six months. They met right after he proposed to me. She was manning the door at a club he and his work buddies liked to take clients to. Ironically, she was also a struggling actress, going out on auditions during the day and working bottle service at 1 OAK at night. Who knows, we may have even crossed paths a few times when she came into the Gerber Agency for this role or that one. I probably even gave her some words of encouragement or professional advice, something I liked to do for the actors just starting out.
We sat at our kitchen table while he recounted their budding relationship and the great lengths he went to in order to keep it a secret. Sam willingly answered every single question related to his infidelity, except one. He didn’t tell me the girl’s name. He didn’t offer, and I didn’t ask. What difference did it make who she was, really? All that mattered was that she even existed at all.
Over the next several hours, I learned that Sam kept a separate bank account for any expenses related to their relationship and often helped her meet her rent. He told me the two of them met up several nights a week after her shift at the club, but because she had several roommates, they usually went to a hotel. Like a witness on the stand, Sam recounted the countless lies and half-truths he’d delivered to me over the course of the last several months. Work served as his biggest cover, but there were so many fabrications, so many betrayals, it didn’t take long to see that his dishonesty touched almost every aspect of our daily life. In reality, he’d been leading two lives, one as the dutiful fiancé and the other as a single man about town.
As Sam detailed the affair, I played back each deceit, wondering how I could have been so blind. There was the afternoon a few months ago, when he sent me to the spa at the Peninsula Hotel, arranging for a massage, facial, manicure, and pedicure. I remember bragging to the aesthetician about my thoughtful boyfriend who, for no reason I could think of, was treating me to a day of beauty. Little did I know he just wanted me out of the way for a few hours so he could be with her.
Then, there was the time he presented me with a plane ticket to Maine to visit my best friend from college, Grace, who was performing in a touring production of Miss Saigon. I was gone for an entire weekend, and he spent all of it with his girlfriend.
After he was finished talking, I got up from the table to crack open the bottle of 2013 Opus One we’d been saving for our first anniversary. Last year, on Sam’s “yes date,” he surprised me with a trip to Napa Valley. Our first stop was the Opus One Vineyard, a beautiful winery off Highway 29. Opus One was famous for their world class Cabernet Sauvignon, so renowned, in fact, that they only put out one signature blend a year. Sam arranged for us to take their Library & Tasting tour.