Simon turned his attention back to the light streaming from the crack in Clare’s door. She wouldn’t want to be disturbed. She never did. He pushed the door in anyway, revealing her lavish white enclave, her sanctuary, as she called it. The designer had cautioned Clare, “Maybe, just one or two spots of color?” But Clare had been insistent. White walls, white couch, white shag rug.

He hadn’t done it on purpose, but even the dog he picked out for her was snow white. Charlie, lying curled in a blanket on the couch, lifted his head when Simon came in. His tail wagged violently and thumped against the taut buttoned leather. Simon couldn’t help but smile at the always-happy dog, before turning his eyes to his wife. As Roberto had described, her back was to him, her entire focus and attention aimed at the wide, flat computer monitor in front of her. But on the coffee table, and strewn all over the rug and couch, hundreds of the journals from her shelves were stacked, open, resting on the arm of the couch. He could also see a pile of pens on the floor and new notebooks with Clare’s handwriting.

She was writing a new book.

This both excited him, as Clare was his client and he always loved her work, and depressed him, as she was also his wife who always worked. When Clare was in the throes of a book, she rarely left the house, rarely left this room. The thought of her entrenching for the next several months made his own feelings of entrapment swell. Resisting the urge to go peek at what she was working on—it would make her angry—Simon instead headed over to Clare, who was still oblivious to his presence.

The sound of his shoes on her marble floor could be heard, but she didn’t move a muscle to suggest she noticed. When he was only a few feet away, he could see she had her earbuds in. She always listened to music when she wrote.

Except, she wasn’t writing.

On the huge screen, he could clearly see that Clare was on Facebook; she had promised him. A nervous dread wormed its way around his spine. What damage had she already done? A public social media throw down was the last thing he felt like trying to clean up.

“Clare?” he said, placing his hand on her shoulder.

She screamed and jumped sideways in her chair. She whirled around, startled and angry. It took her a moment to register it was him. “Jesus, Simon!” Her voice echoed through her study. She yanked one of the earbuds from her ear. “You scared me to death.”

“Sorry,” he said flatly, then pointed to the screen in front of her. “You promised.”