Page 3 of What the Wife Knew

He shook his head. “And I reminded you this is my house.”

Oh, come on. This fight didn’t require much energy at all. He could do better. “Not anymore.”

A nerve in his cheek twitched. “I wanted to listen to music.”

I refused to give him the satisfaction of calling out the blatant lie. Not when the bat could speak for me. The second swing lacked the star power of the first, but it was more targeted. The end smacked into the small case on his dresser that housed his prized watch. The crystal shattered and pieces pinged against the hardwood floor.

He dove as if he could catch the parts and magically put the timepiece back together in midair. When he looked up again he was on his knees in the middle of the guest room floor, cradling his beloved and now destroyed watch. “One of these days you’re going to go too far.”

An empty threat. How adorable. “Then what will happen?”

For a few seconds he stared, silently seething as hatred oozed out of him. Those priceless surgeon’s hands cradled the broken and once very expensive watch. His thumb brushed over what had been its face. “You win this round.”

He gave in quicker than expected. That couldn’t be good. “Tomorrow we’ll change the passwords.”

He hadn’t blinked since I stalked into the room. He was a man accustomed to getting his way. He bullied and harassed. Plotted without regard for anyone else. He was the type to force people to squeal then complain about the noise they made.

Those days were over.

“We’ll change the passwords if you get rid of the bat.” He stoodup, looming over me and using every inch of his six-one frame to intimidate.

Dark energy swirled around us. A toxic mix of contempt and mistrust. I sucked it in and used it as fuel. “This isn’t a negotiation.”

“I can’t spend my nights worrying that you’ll get pissed off and kill me in my sleep. My job is too demanding. I need focus and rest.”

Always the victim. “I’m impressed you got this far into the conversation before reminding me about how important you are.”

“Some of us worked hard to earn the life we have.” He nodded in my direction. “Some of us just take.”

This asshole. He acted as if I didn’t know what I knew. “Do you really want to have that discussion, dearest husband?”

He finally looked away to stare at the window and acres of quiet night beyond. “Don’t call me that.”

“Then let me be clear,Richmond.” I waited until he looked at me again. “If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead. So stop tempting me.”

Chapter Three

Her

Present Day

Elias Zimmer showed up at the front door two days after Richmond and his box were dumped in the ground. After the initial flurry of activity and accusations following Richmond’s death, my life had returned to its usual quiet.Usualin the sense of life without Richmond. So, happier.

At the time of his death we’d been married for ninety-seven days. A minister performed the very private ceremony in the family room of a house. No kids. No relatives. No friends, except for Elias, Richmond’s personal lawyer.

Less than four months had passed since I took on the last name I loathed and married the man I ached to kill. Now I lived in the six-million-dollar house the original Mrs. Dougherty, Kathryn, handpicked but never occupied because Richmond divorced her first. A seven-bedroom house in Rye, New York, ridiculously oversized for the two people who were supposed to reside in it full-time.

Kathryn, who everyone agreed had impeccable taste—except for her taste in men, which could only be described as questionable—picked the place because of the lush grounds, the high-end appointments, and the close-in commute to Richmond’s work at New York–Presbyterian Hospital in upper Manhattan. As part of the divorce, she got “stuck” with the older family home nearby, where she’d raised the kids. A mini mansion she now viewed as a hovel. Never mind that Kathryn’s hovel actually was beautiful, still big, and expensive, just less enormous and less expensive than the one I’d snagged. Mine was also closer to the water, which made Kathryn wail about the unfairness.

What-the-fuck-ever.

The house and Richmond’s will and the trust, and all the related money stuff, were the reasons Elias sat at my breakfast bar, sipping a latte I made with that fancy coffeemaker that took two days and an online video to learn to use.

“How are you?” he asked.

A seemingly innocuous question. My get-ready-for-a-shitstorm shield went up. “Fine.”

Elias eyed me over the cup.

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