The Husband's Secret(10)

            “I’m so sorry, I just want to die,” wept Felicity.

            Tess pulled back her hand. Felicity—snarky, sarcastic, funny, clever, fat Felicity—sounded like an American cheerleader.

            Will tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling with a clenched jaw. He was trying not to cry too. The last time Tess had seen him cry was when Liam was born.

            Tess’s eyes were dry. Her heart hammered as if she were terrified, as if her life were in danger. The phone rang.

            “Leave it,” said Will. “It’s after hours.”

            Tess stood, went over to her desk and picked up the phone.

            “TWF Advertising,” she said.

            “Tess, my love, I know it’s late, but we’ve got us a little problem.”

            It was Dirk Freeman, marketing director of Petra Pharmaceuticals, their most important and best-paying client. It was Tess’s job to make Dirk feel important, to reassure him that although he was fifty-six and was never going to climb any higher in the ranks of senior management, he was the big kahuna and Tess was his servant, his maid, his lowly chambermaid, in fact, and he could tell her what to do and be flirty, or grumpy, or stern, and she’d pretend to give him a bit of lip, but when it came down to it, she had to do what he said. It had occurred to her recently that the service she was providing Dirk Freeman bordered on sexual.

            “The color of the dragon on the Cough Stop packaging is all wrong,” said Dirk. “It’s too purple. Much too purple. Have we gone to print?”

            Yes, they’d gone to print. Fifty thousand little cardboard boxes had rolled off the presses that day. Fifty thousand perfectly purple, toothily grinning dragons.

            The work that had gone into those dragons. The e-mails, the discussions. And while Tess was talking about dragons, Will and Felicity were falling in love.

            “No,” said Tess, her eyes on her husband and cousin, who were both still sitting at the meeting table in the center of the room, their heads bowed, examining their fingertips, like teenagers in detention. “It’s your lucky day, Dirk.”

            “Oh, I thought it would have—well, good.” He could barely hide his disappointment. He’d wanted Tess all breathless and worried. He’d wanted to hear the tremor of panic in her voice.

            His voiced deepened, became as abrupt and authoritative as if he were about to lead his troops onto the battlefield. “I need you to hold everything on Cough Stop, right? The lot. Got it?”

            “Got it. Hold everything on Cough Stop.”

            “I’ll get back to you.”

            He hung up. There was nothing wrong with the color. He’d call back the next day and say it was fine. He’d just needed to feel powerful for a few minutes. One of the younger hotshots had just made him feel inferior in a meeting.

            “The Cough Stop boxes went to print today.” Felicity turned in her seat and looked worriedly at Tess.

            “It’s fine,” said Tess.

            “But if he’s going to change—” said Will.

            “I said it’s fine.”

            She didn’t feel angry yet. Not really. But she could feel the possibility of a fury worse than anything she’d ever experienced, a simmering vat of anger that could explode like a fireball, destroying everything in its sight.

            She didn’t sit down again. Instead she turned and examined the whiteboard where they recorded all their work in progress.

            Cough Stop packaging!!!