Wrong Number;

Kai was already asleep when she got home.

She stood in the doorway of his room for a moment, watching the rise and fall of his chest in the dark, and felt the particular kind of exhaustion that has nothing to do with the body. Then she pulled his door quietly shut and went downstairs.

Natya was waiting in the hallway, still in her apron, her face bright with the effort of containing everything she wanted to ask.

It's complicated, Lilya told her. But it will work out.

Natya hesitated. Then, in the careful way she had of approaching things that mattered to her: I won't have to leave, will I. Even if there is no salary for a while. I want to stay. You are like a sister to me. I have no one else here.

Lilya looked at her. This woman who had shown up every morning for three years, who spoke with a Russian accent and had never once asked for anything she wasn't owed. Unlike everyone else in Lilya's life recently, Natya's loyalty had not turned out to be conditional on something.

She took Natya's hands in both of hers.

Thank you, she said. And meant it in a way she hadn't meant much lately.

Natya beamed. Now go rest, she said firmly. I'll make something to eat if you want.

Lilya shook her head. Just one drink and then bed.

Just one drink turned into three. Then a fourth she poured without really deciding to. She sat on the couch in the quiet house with the glass in her hand and let her mind go where it had been trying to go all day.

Where was Julian right now. What city. What hotel. What name. Was he sitting somewhere warm with a drink in his hand too, relieved, lighter, free of her. Was he laughing. Was he with her, whoever she was, the woman Theo had known about and said nothing.

The whiskey burned going down and she welcomed it.

By the fourth glass something had shifted in her. The grief had curdled into something harder and stranger. She picked up her phone. Opened the camera. Her shirt had come undone at the top two buttons, her skirt had ridden up, the black strap of her garter belt just visible at the hem. She looked, she thought, like a woman who had stopped caring what anyone thought.

Good. That's exactly what I am.

She was going to send it to Julian. A message that needed no words. Here I am, you idiot. Here is what you walked away from. Here is what you don't get anymore.

She opened WhatsApp. Julian's chat had always been pinned to the top. She tapped it, attached the photo, typed: I'm happy too. Good riddance, you pathetic coward. Hit send.

Felt a savage satisfaction for approximately four seconds.

Then looked at the screen.

The name at the top of the chat was not Julian.

It was Alec Cortez.

The satisfaction evaporated. She sat completely still for a moment, staring at the delivered receipt under the photo, and then she deleted the message with fingers that were not entirely steady and spent the next thirty seconds pacing in a tight circle saying things to herself that she would not repeat in polite company.

You are a grown woman, she told herself. An attorney. A person with a law degree and eleven years of professional experience. Look at you.

Her phone buzzed.

She looked at it from across the room. Then she picked it up.

I believe this message was sent to the wrong person.

That was it. No commentary. Just those nine words, clean and without judgment.

She typed: I'm so sorry. It was a mistake. I apologize if I bothered you.

She sat back down and closed her eyes and told herself it was over.

Another buzz.

With a sight like that, it's impossible to feel bothered. I hope I get to see the real thing one day.

Her mouth did something that was almost a smile before she could stop it. Disgusting, she thought. Opportunist. And then, despite herself: at least he didn't call me shameless.

Good night, she typed, and set the phone face down.

She should have stopped there.

She did not stop there.

The fourth drink became a fifth, and the fifth did what whiskey does when grief and fury have already loosened everything. The music from the stereo moved through her and she moved with it. First just her foot. Then her shoulders. Then she was standing on the coffee table in her stockings, skirt lifted, dancing in her own living room at midnight like she was reclaiming something that had been taken from her without her permission.

She picked up her phone. Recorded thirty seconds of it. Typed: returning the favor, Mr. Yaman. and sent it before the sensible part of her brain could intervene.

His reply came fast. A photo. No caption.

She opened it and went very still.

Broad shoulders tapering into a torso that suggested someone had spent considerable time and discipline on the question. Perfectly sculpted, every line deliberate. And those V-lines disappearing beneath his waistband like an invitation she hadn't asked for and couldn't stop looking at.

Oh my God, she said out loud.

She laughed. Then made herself put the phone down. I'm still married, she told herself. Technically. Legally. The law matters. I am a lawyer and the law matters and this is wrong.

Her eyes drifted back to the phone.

It buzzed.

His voice, when she answered, was low and unhurried.

I don't give a damn about the law, he said. You're divorcing him anyway. And by the way, you're the one who brought up the kissing. I'll be there in ten minutes.

She jumped to her feet. Wait. No. I'm a lawyer. The law —

Want me to break the door down.

You absolutely cannot break the door. It would wake Kai.

She was already moving. Her feet carried her upstairs, into her office, and she sat down at her desk and opened her laptop.

What are you doing, Alec said.

Shh. Don't distract me.

Her fingers found the keyboard. Case reference number. Parties. Date of marriage. Irretrievable breakdown of the marital relationship. Grounds: severe and persistent incompatibility. Claim for damages.

Are you writing a divorce petition right now.

I need to file it. Stop talking.

A silence. Then a laugh, real and unguarded.

You are the first person in my life who has tried to file legal documents before we've even kissed.

She hung up.

Somewhere in the city Alec Cortez put down his phone, looked at it for a moment, and reached for his car keys...