“We’re tired of being cooped up. This will be over soon.” I was lying to my own mother as much as my children. She stood, bobbling Robert, a less convincing smile than mine plastered on her face. “You guys can order dinner, but you had pizza last night. Get noodle bowls or Thai. Something with vegetables.”

“Pizza can have vegetables,” Peyton said.

“You heard me, Peyton Rose,” I said. God, but I was tired. I handed her my black Amex.

Except it wasn’t really mine, was it? It had my name on it, but it was Trey’s account. All our credit-card accounts were Trey’s.

I didn’t want to think about that. That was the kind of thought a woman had when she was about to leave her husband. I looked at my girls, my baby. I wasn’t going to do that, was I? Not over a fraction of a fraction of a second—but this was Trey’s argument. I didn’t find it any more compelling when I made it to myself.

Perhaps he’d softened. After all, I’d sprung so much on him yesterday. Perhaps with time, and thought, and my support, he would accept that his experiences and memories of that night had been quite different from Lexie’s. He wanted to talk. That was good. He was reaching out. And God, he loved me. I wanted to believe he’d do the right thing in the end. I wanted to believe we’d find a way to keep each other.

I left the night-shift bodyguards at the house with Mom and the kids. Mills and Maxwell were staying with me, earning overtime so a peace talk or a negotiation or a marriage-ending silence could play out. Maxwell parked in the huge garage. It had a pretty stone façade and an elevator lobby with sparkling-clean glass doors. Here, in Trey’s world, even the garages were quite lovely.

Brick walkways with covered awnings ran around the courtyard, three paths cutting across the green. Maxwell and I took the most direct route, straight from the garage’s glass doors to the restaurant. Mills took the longer path to Trey’s office building, going to escort him down.

The hostess seated me at the table I’d reserved, while Maxwell took a seat at the outdoor bar. From there he had a good view of the whole courtyard. A Regina Spektor song played softly through the subtly placed speakers. The other full tables were across the bocce-ball court. If Trey and I stayed calm, we would be able to talk quite privately.

I wanted no interruptions, but I set my phone faceup on the table anyway, the sound still on. If my mother or my girls texted or called, I had to see immediately.