“Why?”

“They know about us,” she said quietly. “They think I’m a hooker.”

Which made Gabe a john. “Where are you?”

There was panic in her voice when she said, “I’m at an all-night diner. I have nowhere to go.”

“Can you go to a hotel tonight?”

“My credit card is maxed out. I might have enough for a hostel.”

He couldn’t let his sugar baby slum it in a hostel. It would degrade them both. “Get an Uber and go to my place. I’ll call the doorman and tell him to let you in.”

“Where are you?”

He thought about Melody, the crazy paralegal. She’d turned up at his Hamptons house with her fake brief and nearly destroyed him. “My daughter and I went away for the weekend,” he fibbed. “But you’re welcome to stay at my place for a couple of days.”

“Thank you so much.”

“On Monday, I’ll make some calls. We’ll find you somewhere to live.”

After he hung up, he finished his Scotch, thinking about Natalie alone in his apartment. He liked the image in his mind, the pretty brunette naked under one of his work shirts, or maybe in his robe. In reality, Natalie would likely be wearing her own clothes, but this was his fantasy; he chose the wardrobe. Tinkling the ice in his glass, he allowed himself to imagine himself there with her, even living there with her.

It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. Violet was growing up, was going to college (or to fucking Honduras). It was not uncommon for couples to split once the kids left home. The gray divorce, they called it. No one would be shocked; no one would be to blame. Everyone would put it down to living separate lives. He could keep Natalie on the down-low until sufficient time had passed and it was socially acceptable to introduce his new girlfriend. There would be whispers about her age, comments about an affair, a midlife crisis, but he wasn’t the only guy he knew to turn into a cliché.

It was the Scotch muddling his thoughts. He barely knew Natalie. And while she was sexy, attractive, charming, she would never fit into his world. His friends and colleagues might grudgingly accept her, but Violet would lose her mind. And, as an attorney, he knew all too well what he would lose if he divorced Celeste.

Under New York’s equitable distribution system, his wife would make out like a bandit. She’d been a decent earner when they married but had devoted the last six years to her health, their daughter, and their home. Gabe would get brownie points for sticking by her through her illness, but at the end of the day, Celeste would get half. Half of what she knew about, half of what she and her lawyers would be able to find, but still . . . half.

And Celeste had always been a personal and professional asset. At the firm, the partners and their wives adored her. She was accomplished in her own right but happy to play hostess to his friends and clients, always remembering their names, asking after their children, charming them. She kept their home beautiful and immaculate, organized their social calendar, had wrangled their rebellious daughter. And Celeste legitimized him. She’d been a public defender, a crusader for justice. No one would suspect her husband of being less than squeaky clean. And he had stood by her while she battled cancer. He wasn’t afraid to use that anecdote when he needed to.