Page 9 of Rebound

“She’s fine,” I reply, trying to rein in my temper. It’s not his fault, after all. “She’s my wife.”

“I don’t care if she’s your wife or not, sir, if the lady wants to get into my car, then you will not stop her. I can always call the police to help us sort this out.” He holds his phone up like it’s a grenade and he’s about to pull the pin.

Jesus. All I wanted was to talk to my damn wife, and now a vigilante cab driver is threatening to call the cops on me. This is fucking insane.

“That won’t be necessary,” Amber says, finally breaking her silence. She turns her face away from me and hides behind the length of her hair as she peers into the window. “Thank you, so much… What’s your name?”

“My name is Sanjay, miss.”

I can’t see Amber’s face, but I can see his, and his reaction tells me she’s pulling her hypnotism trick. Her eyes are so big, so expressive, that they overcome all resistance. Man, woman, beast—all are powerless against her. Me included. She will now use his name fifteen times in one sentence, and he’ll be so flattered by the attention that he’ll practically have cartoon Tweety Birds fluttering around his head.

“Well, I’m Amber, Sanjay, and I’d like to thank you for being such a gentleman—who said chivalry is dead?” She infuses some real warmth into her voice, and Sanjay’s chest puffs up a little. As it should, because if my wife had been in actual danger, I would have wanted someone like him to make a stand for her. “Thing is, though, Sanjay, this is actually my husband. We just had a little disagreement—you know how that is, don’t you?”

“Oh yes, indeed I do.” He smiles and flashes her his wedding ring. “Thirty-two years married.”

“I thought so. You understand, then, Sanjay, how it can be sometimes. I was just blowing off steam, and my husband here quite rightly didn’t want me to disappear off into the night alone. In his own clumsy way, he was being chivalrous too.”

Clumsy? Really? She never misses a chance to put me in my place, this woman. Sanjay drags his eyes away from Amber and scrutinizes me. I try to make myself look as nonthreatening as possible, and finally, he nods. “Okay, if you’re sure? I can still take you wherever you want to go. No charge.”

“Sanjay, you’re a darling, you really are—but I think my husband and I might stroll home together, give ourselves the chance to cool down and talk. I won’t forget your kindness though, Sanjay—you have a fabulous evening, now, you hear?”

A very slight taste of the South creeps into her voice with those last few words. Amber grew up in and around Washington DC but spent summers with her grandmother in Charleston. Sometimes it shows up without her noticing when she’s angry or otherwise distracted. Sometimes, though, it shows up when she needs to come across as humble and approachable. Like a regular human being rather than the ice-queen wife of a billionaire. Tonight is possibly a combination of all three.

I slip Sanjay a twenty. “Thank you,” I say simply. “You’re a good man.”

His eyes narrow slightly, as though he’s still trying to make up his mind about me, but he takes the cash anyway. A beep of his horn, a little finger wave from Amber, and away he goes in a cloud of fumes and a spray of rainwater. A white knight in a yellow cab.

I turn to face my wife, but she’s already on the move again. Those heels are back to clicking, her stride lengthening. I quickly catch up, grab her arm, and spin her around. She slaps my hand away but finally stays still. We’re beneath a streetlamp, the arc of light shining over our heads like a golden umbrella. She clamps her lips together, stares at the sidewalk, and swipes rain from her cheeks. Except… it’s not rain. Amber is actually crying. What the fuck? Amber never cries—at least not in front of me.

Just like that, all my rage disappears. I want nothing more than to take her in my arms, to hold her close and comfort her. Now I understand why she was running—she didn’t want me to see her like this. Shedding tears in public? She’s simply too tough, too proud, too practiced at hiding her feelings. In fact, she hides them so well, I sometimes forget she has them at all.

We’re both silent, our bodies inches apart, drenched by the downpour that’s growing heavier by the second. If I try to touch her, there’s a very real risk that I will lose a limb. Her anger and sorrow are clear by her downcast expression and the way she’s holding herself. The way she’s refusing to meet my eyes. She has shown weakness in front of me, and to Amber, that is the greatest sin she could commit.

“Are you okay?” I ask, recognizing how inadequate those words are, but I’m unable to come up with anything better.

“Do I look okay?” she snaps back.

“No. You look miserable, baby.”

“Don’t ‘baby’ me, Elijah. I’m forty years old.”

“True. So why are you behaving like a teenager sneaking away from daddy?”

She snorts slightly and finally looks up at me. Amber is five nine, and when we first met, one of my biggest assets was my height and size. She appreciated that she could wear heels and I would still be taller. Back in the days when she loved everything about me.

“Daddy?” she repeats, the ghost of a smile on her face. “If you say so. Do I have a curfew? Are you going to take away my allowance? Am Igrounded?”

“No, but you are behaving like a brat. Why did you leave like that? Why didn’t you tell me you were going? It’s not safe for you, walking these streets at night, looking so…”

“Rich?” she supplies for me. I was going to say beautiful, but her bitter tone tells me she wouldn’t appreciate it. That she’d prefer a fight to a compliment.

“Whatever, Amber. Apart from anything else, it was embarrassing.”

Now I’m speaking her language, and a flicker of remorse crosses her exquisite features. “Yes. I can see that. I apologize if I embarrassed you.”

“Fuck’s sake, Amber, I don’t actually give a damn about that—I give a damn about you. Why did you leave? And why are you crying?”

She squeezes her eyes shut, her long lashes moist and clumped together, her hands balled into tense fists. “I left because you were flirting with Shannon.”

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