He scrolled through the thread of their texts, watched the “love you” texts diminish in frequency, then disappear to be replaced by “Late again don’t wait up” and “sched appt to change transmission fluid in BMW”. The last four messages were “Can’t make coffee Thursday a.m. conf call w/ Beijing pls reschedule” followed by “you there?” three times in the last forty minutes.
Shit. Her snapped response in the elevator three days earlier flashed through his mind. I’m not your admin, Shane. When had he started treating her like she was?
“Come on, Copeland! You’ve got three shots waiting for you!”
Lifting one finger at Curt to tell him to wait, Shane waded through the crowd to the door as he dialed Natalie and lifted the phone to his ear. He stood on the sidewalk, the bitter fall wind snapping at his coat through four rings, then the standard voicemail instructions. Again.
He disconnected without leaving a message and pushed back into the bar, which was crowded with colleagues and friends celebrating the newest partners at Blue Earth Funds.
She’s just working late, or on the train, or at home, taking a hot bath. She’s not ignoring you.
Two years ago she’d have laid into him, instigating one of their knock-down, drag-out fights that rode honest waves of anger and frustration. Lately a thickening scrim of ice frosted every interaction. A laugh huffed from his chest. She said he was the one who’d changed.
He knocked back a shot of Jagermeister and shook hands with gray-haired Reese Fairchilds, one of the firm’s founding partners. “I didn’t expect this for another year, maybe two,” Shane said.
Reese lifted an eyebrow at maybe two, but a smile creased his face, still tanned from a summer weekends spent in the Hamptons. Lately he’d been turning to Shane for his thoughts on an acquisition or a strategy shift. “Now the fun really begins,” he said, his voice clear and audible despite four televisions tuned to market analysis or the game.
Adrenaline rushed through Shane’s veins. “Can’t wait,” he said.
“Monday,” Reese said paternally, then looked around. “The work isn’t going anywhere. You tell your wife yet?”
“Not yet,” he said.
“Take her out and celebrate,” Reese urged. “This is as much her victory as it is yours. The Hamptons house is empty. I can have the housekeeper open it, if you’d like to take a long weekend.”
Right now he wasn’t sure Natalie would cross the street with him. The therapist appointment had unnerved him. Natalie didn’t bring in mediators. Making an appointment with a third party was a step he never thought she’d take. “Thanks for the offer. I’ll touch base with my wife and let you know.”
Half an hour later Shane shared out the last round of shots with the crowd and stepped into the cool night air. Despite his worries testosterone surged through his veins, elevating his heart rate, heightening his senses. In the twenty-first century the hunt and kill were after intangibles like signing a big deal, or making partner by thirty-five, but the effects on the male physiology were the same as his ancestors after a battle.
He wanted sex.
He wanted his wife. Fairchilds was right. This victory wasn’t his alone. It was, or should have been, theirs. The concerned look in Reese’s eye when he’d asked after Natalie burned in Shane’s gut. Reese’s second wife hosted the firm’s Fourth of July party. Rumor had it his first marriage had disintegrated under the burden of a massive expansion effort a decade earlier.
Oh yeah, he saw it plain as day...now. When it might be too late, because his wife, who used to answer his calls on the first ring, who used to text him little love notes at odd hours, was ignoring his calls and texts. The logical first step was to find Nat and tell her the good news, then apologize. But while Nat was calmly practical in her professional life, in her personal life she was passionate, emotional, loyal unto death unless she was wronged. Then she held a grudge like it was the only thing between her and a short drop into a pit of snakes.
They needed to clear the air, but with Natalie incommunicado, it wouldn’t be easy to do.
A tap of the calendar icon on his phone brought up the online calendar he shared with Natalie for her big Italian family’s never-ending schedule of activities; maybe she was at a birthday or anniversary party, with her phone in her purse. The only entry for tonight was drinks with Chris at Lannisters.