(no subject)
Chapter One
Chloe waited five minutes longer than she should have, hoping that the phone might still ring.
It didn’t. And, as the minutes passed, the weight in her gut that had been there all day-that had been there for weeks, although she’d tried to ignore it-got tighter and heavier until it actually hurt.
Finally, when she heard Gabrielle’s loud request for “Mommy!” echo through the penthouse, Chloe stopped staring at the phone and got up to kiss her daughters goodnight.
She glanced into Anna’s room first, but saw that it was empty, the violet color scheme, delicate white furniture, and large collection of stuffed puppies (lined up lovingly in order by size) remaining in semi-neat quiet. Having expected Anna’s absence, Chloe simply moved on to the next bedroom.
There were twin beds in Gabrielle’s room. Gabrielle was in one and Anna in the other.
“Are you going to sleep in here again tonight?” Chloe asked as she entered the room and moved toward her younger daughter, who was curled up under the gold and green coverlet.
Anna nodded and stared up at Chloe with the roundest, widest eyes she’d ever seen. Anna was blonde, like Chloe, and she’d recently had her fourth birthday. “Yes,” the little girl mumbled earnestly. “I wanna sleep with Gabby.”
Anna spoke pretty well most of the time, but when she was tired she would often start to swallow over her words.
Chloe sank down to perch on the edge of Anna’s twin bed. “Did Gabrielle say it was all right?” Chloe confirmed, glancing over at her other daughter, whose delicate features were looking rather grumpy.
At Chloe’s questioning look, however, Gabrielle nodded in a silent affirmation.
“Yes. I asked her like you told me,” Anna declared, snuggling under the covers of the small bed. “I sleep with Gabby tonight.”
“Okay,” Chloe murmured, stroking Anna’s messy shoulder-length hair back from her rosy face. “As long as Gabrielle doesn’t mind, then you can sleep in here with her. But it’s her bedroom, so you have to sleep in your room if she wants to be alone.”
Anna nodded solemnly, her eyes wider than ever. Then she raised her arms up toward Chloe, requesting her goodnight kiss.
Chloe smiled at her pretty, tiny daughter, secretly thrilled, as she couldn’t help but be, that one of their daughters looked a lot like her. Gabrielle, of course, was exactly like Lex in almost every way. But Anna was more like Chloe, particularly when she smiled.
Giving Anna a big hug and a kiss on the cheek, Chloe murmured, “Mommy and Daddy love you, sweetie. Lots and lots.”
Anna giggled happily and hugged Chloe in return. But as Chloe pulled away, Anna’s mouth was turning down into a frown.
“What is it?” Chloe asked, stroking the soft, blonde hair again.
Anna’s forehead wrinkled in deep thought. “I can’t remember what Daddy looks like.”
The weight in Chloe’s gut clenched sickeningly, and a sharp jab shot through her chest. But she managed to smile and shake her head. “It’s only been a few weeks, Anna. I don’t think you’ve really forgotten so soon, have you?”
Lex had been out of town since last month, on a business trip that was only supposed to have taken two weeks.
“She hasn’t forgotten,” Gabrielle put in from the other bed. Her voice sounded impatient and a little bit bossy. “She looks at his picture all the time.”
“I have forgot,” Anna insisted, looking offended by this slur to her credibility and four-year-old dignity. “What color is Daddy’s eyes?”
“You know what color his eyes are,” Chloe prompted softly, knowing that twenty-five days was a really long time for their father to be absent, knowing that they needed to talk about him, to remind themselves that he was important to them. She smiled and reached down to tickle Anna lightly on the side. “What color are your eyes?”
Anna giggled and tried to scoot away from Chloe’s tickling fingers. “Blue!”
Chloe’s smile widened at the girl’s characteristically quicksilver shift in emotion. She tickled Anna a little more. “And what color are Gabrielle’s eyes?”
“Blue,” Anna burst out, trying to slap Chloe’s hand away as she chortled some more.
“And what color are Daddy’s eyes?”
“Blue!” Anna squealed happily.
Chloe pulled her hand back and nodded her head. “That’s right. Daddy has blue eyes, just like you and Gabrielle.”
Anna reached her arms up for another hug, and Chloe pulled her daughter close to her again. Snuggled with her, a little longer than normal. Felt that same weight in her gut. It hadn’t gone away, even though she’d made her daughter happy again.
“Mommy’s eyes isn’t blue,” Anna informed her, when she’d finally pulled away.
Chloe chuckled. “That’s right. I’m the only one without blue eyes.”
Anna patted Chloe’s arms consolingly and let out a dramatic yawn. “That’s all right. Mommy has pretty eyes too.”
Giving her one last kiss, Chloe stood up and moved over to Gabrielle’s bed. Now that she looked closely, she could see that her older daughter was definitely not happy at all.
Gabrielle’s little chin was sticking out, an obvious sign that she was angry about something. A characteristic expression that Lex insisted she’d inherited from her mother, although Chloe strenuously objected to this assessment.
Gabrielle’s blue-gray eyes were exactly like Lex’s. Exactly like Anna’s. And they were clearly stormy at the moment.
“What’s wrong, pumpkin?” Chloe asked, smoothing her daughter’s long red-gold hair--hair that Lex refused to have cut any more than the slightest trim.
“Daddy didn’t call tonight?”
Chloe’s chest suddenly hurt so much that she wasn’t sure she could even breathe. But she managed to keep her face composed as she shook her head and replied, “No. I guess he wasn’t able to tonight.”
Gabrielle’s little chin stuck out even farther, and Chloe could tell it was in an attempt to hide the way her bottom lip was trembling. Gabrielle had always-like Lex-instinctively tried to hide whatever strong emotion she was feeling.
“He didn’t want to say goodnight to us?” The wavering words were somewhere in between a statement and a question.
It hurt so much, that her daughters were both so troubled-in different ways-by Lex’s long absence. And there wasn’t anything Chloe could do to alter the reality: Lex had been gone for a really long time.
Chloe took a deep breath and managed to swallow over the constriction in her throat. “You know better than that, Gabrielle. He was probably in meetings and couldn’t get away. You know he calls whenever he can.”
“Daddy calls last night,” Anna informed them from the other bed. “I told him about the big slide in the park.”
Gabrielle ignored this piece of information, and her eyes were narrowed as they gazed up at Chloe. “He’s always in meetings,” she muttered, breathing in erratic little gasps. “I hate meetings.”
“I hate meetings too,” Anna chimed in, more likely in echo of her big sister’s declaration than out of any real resentment.
Chloe stroked the curve of Gabrielle’s cheek with her thumb. Tried to figure out the best way to deal with this. “I know, pumpkin. But Daddy has to go to meetings for his work.”
Gabrielle sniffed a few times and scowled malevolently. “I hate Daddy’s work.”
“I know,” Chloe said again, silently agreeing with the sentiment, even though she was supposed to be the adult. “But Daddy has to work. That’s how we have money to live on.”
Pushing down the covers with bad-tempered jerks of her arms, Gabrielle complained, “Other daddies work. But they aren’t gone all the time.”
This was undeniably true. And it did feel like Lex had been gone forever.
But Chloe frowned. “Gabrielle. You know Daddy isn’t gone all the time. He’s just on a long trip right now. He’ll be back tomorrow.”
Gabrielle was scowling again. “He said he’d be back today.”
“Yeah,” Anna agreed enthusiastically. “Today!”
Chloe sighed and closed her eyes briefly. Prayed she was handling this the right way. She’d been a mother for more than six years now, but she still felt like she was barely muddling along most of the time.
“I already explained,” Chloe said patiently. “Something came up. Now he’ll be back tomorrow instead.”
Gabrielle’s face was working urgently as she tried to contain her feelings. “Something always comes up. He won’t come home tomorrow either.”
Anna’s little blonde head popped up from her pillow. “He won’t?” she asked, her little eyebrows lowering in confusion.
“Daddy promised he’d be home tomorrow,” Chloe assured them, feeling like she was on the verge of tears of helpless frustration.
“He always promises.” Gabrielle rolled over to her side and curled up in an angry ball. “I hate Daddy,” she choked out.
Chloe suffered from such a sharp pang in her chest that it actually made her feel physically ill. Swallowing hard, she put a firm hand on Gabrielle’s shoulder and turned her back over to face her. “Gabrielle,” she said, relieved when her voice held the authority it needed. She looked at her daughter with steady, disappointed eyes. “You never say that about Daddy, or about anyone else, especially when you don’t mean it.”
“I do mean it,” Gabrielle quavered, still stubbornly holding on to her resentment, despite the desperate trembling of her mouth.
Chloe shook her head and wouldn’t let her daughter roll back over. “Gabrielle. Tell the truth. Do you really hate him? Or are you just mad at him right now?”
Gabrielle tried to hold out. She’d always been as obstinate and determined as her father. But, when faced with Chloe’s unassailable gaze, she couldn’t help but cave.
Chloe knew that Gabrielle loved her fiercely and that she never wanted to displease or disappoint her.
Gabrielle’s pretty face twisted briefly, and she whispered, “I’m mad at him.” She took a shaky breath. “I’m sorry.”
Chloe was so relieved that Gabrielle hadn’t put up a fight that she was just as shaky as her daughter was. With a throaty sound she couldn’t control, Chloe reached down and pulled Gabrielle up into a hug. Burying her face in the long, red hair that Lex so adored, Chloe murmured hoarsely, “Daddy loves you so much, pumpkin. You have no idea how much he loves both of you. And Mommy loves you too. Lots and lots.”
Gabrielle started shaking against her and making muffled, strangled sounds.
Chloe’s eyes were burning and she squeezed her daughter tighter. “Pumpkin? What is it?”
Gabrielle’s face was red and contorted when she pulled it back. “I miss him.” The words sounded like they were forced out of her, as if they resisted ever being spoken.
Exactly like Lex, when he was forced to admit something too deep, too private.
“I know, baby,” Chloe murmured soothingly. “I miss him too.” She pulled her back into a hug.
Gabrielle was sobbing for real now, shaking and gasping against Chloe’s shoulder.
Anna, who’d been listening and watching with her wide, observant eyes, sat up fully in her bed, the neckline of her cotton nightgown slightly askew. “Gabby is crying?” she asked, her bottom lip starting to wobble dangerously.
“It’s okay. She’s sad, but she’ll be okay.” Chloe was fighting tears herself, and suffering from waves of helplessness as she held her weeping daughter, powerless to comfort her, and as she watched as her younger daughter’s face started scrunching up as well.
Anna had always been more openly emotional than Gabrielle was. Had always been quicker to anger, quicker to tears, quicker to laughter. Had always been more like Chloe.
It didn’t take long until Anna was crying as well, and stumbling over to the other bed so that Chloe could hug her too.
So Chloe held both of them. Murmured all the soothing words she could think of. Thought she was going to suffocate on the agonizing lump lodged high in her throat. Exerted all of the control she could muster to keep from crying herself.
She missed her husband as much as her daughters missed their father. And her grief was compounded by so many more complexities. And by a reluctant awareness that had been lurking in her gut for days-one she wasn’t yet ready to acknowledge.
The storm didn’t last as long as she’d feared. Anna’s little sobs soon faded into occasional hiccups, and by then Gabrielle had nearly cried herself out as well.
Chloe murmured comfortingly until both of them were under control again. Then she stood up and said, “I know we miss him. But Daddy will come home soon. I promise. It won’t be long until tomorrow.”
Anna seemed basically content as she crawled back under the covers of her bed, although her cheeks were streaked with the remnants of tears. “Tomorrow,” she sighed in satisfaction. Her eyelids were already drooping revealingly.
Chloe gave the little girl’s hair one last loving stroke. “Tomorrow,” she agreed. “Good night, baby.”
“Night night, Mommy,” Anna mumbled.
Gabrielle was quiet now too, but she didn’t seem to have resolved her feelings as quickly as Anna had. Chloe knew that-like Lex-Gabrielle tended to bottle things away. Brooded on them silently and had trouble letting them go.
“Good night, pumpkin,” Chloe murmured, stepping over to wipe the last of the tears off of Gabrielle’s face. “I love you.”
“G’night,” Gabrielle mumbled hoarsely, her eyes focused unwaveringly on Chloe’s face. “Love you too.”
After another minute, Chloe walked toward the door and turned off the light. Paused before she cracked the door behind her as she left.
Wondered how it was even possible for a human to love anyone as much as she loved these two little girls. Wished she could always keep them perfectly safe and happy.
After a moment, she went to wash her face and pull herself together a little. Then she walked back down the hall to listen at the cracked door of her daughters’ room.
She didn’t hear anything. Sometimes they talked before they fell asleep, Anna asking earnest questions and Gabrielle answering them with grave, six-year-old wisdom. But not tonight.
She hoped they both had gone to sleep. Thought they probably had.
She glanced at the clock and thought with another pang that Lex still hadn’t called. It was too late for him to say goodnight to the girls.
But surely he would at least want to talk to Chloe.
With a shaky sigh, Chloe trudged back to her bedroom. Looked around in vague uncertainty, trying to figure out what to do with herself.
She didn’t feel like reading or watching TV, which is usually what she ended up doing once the girls went to bed. Lois was out of town on assignment, or else she would have called to chat with her cousin and reveled in an actual adult conversation.
She could try to write. She’d published two moderately successful books now, but had been working on the same four chapters of her third book for more than two years now-just couldn’t seem to concentrate or find the focus needed to get back into writing it.
She didn’t like to think about her partly written book, since it made her feel like she was a huge, lazy slob, who didn’t work, had a domestic staff, and yet still couldn’t even manage to make herself write.
Pushing that constant, niggling anxiety out of her mind, Chloe went into the master bathroom and started to draw herself a hot bath.
She’d been taking a lot of hot baths lately, after the girls went to bed.
Most of the time, she didn’t have anything else to do.
She loved her daughters more than anything. Wouldn’t trade them for the world.
But sometimes she was still so, so lonely.
Even when Lex had been in town this year, he didn’t really seem to be with them the way he used to be. She knew he was horribly stressed by a new project he was working on-one he hadn’t given her any specifics on-and also a prickly LuthorCorp acquisition that could affect the entire future of the corporation.
For months, he’d been working longer hours than he had since they’d gotten together. And even when he was home, he was often distracted and would lock himself up in his office for hours.
She knew he loved her and the girls. Never doubted it. But she’d been sensing things going downhill for a long time now, and she couldn’t seem to do anything to stop it.
She didn’t like to think about that either, since it prompted that lurking awareness in her gut that she was still pretending didn’t exist.
Sinking into the bubbly water, she tried to concentrate on what was good. She had a husband who loved her. Two of the sweetest, prettiest, smartest daughters imaginable. A life of ease and privilege. Could buy anything she wanted. Didn’t have to work. Didn’t have a career. Didn’t have to do anything but sit around a luxurious penthouse and bask in having absolutely no life outside of her children and a husband who was never around. Didn’t even have to pretend to write-although sometimes she did, in a futile attempt to act like she had something that was purely her own.
She had everything any woman could want . . . didn’t she?
She soaked in the hot water of the large jetted tub until the heat had finally dissipated and her fingers were starting to prune.
Lex still hadn’t called.
She got out of the tub, put on her pajamas, lay in bed and pretended to read a current bestseller. Kept waiting for the phone to ring.
By midnight, she had to resign herself to the fact that Lex wasn’t going to call tonight after all. He wouldn’t call after midnight, even if he wanted to. He’d be afraid she was asleep and wouldn’t want to wake her up.
Sometimes, when she was really desperate, she tried to call him. She hadn’t gotten through to him directly in almost three weeks. When he was really busy, he didn’t answer his mobile phone-even his private number-so the calls were transferred to his secretary. Eventually Chloe got tired of leaving messages with the cool, snotty woman, so she no longer called unless she had something substantial to say.
Putting down the book and turning off the light, she got under the covers of the big, luxurious bed. Felt small and stupid by herself in it, the expanse of Lex’s side of the bed torturing her with its empty presence.
She was thirty-three years old. And she felt ancient, and exhausted, and insignificant, and of no use to anyone but her children.
Determined not to sulk, she tried to distract herself. Since she was physically restless and jittery-a fairly common sensation now when she was alone in her bed at night-she sorted through her mental collection of erotic fantasies. Ended up visualizing an evening on her honeymoon with Lex. One she could never forget.
Since they’d eloped just before Anna’s birth, they hadn’t gotten a chance to have a real honeymoon until after Anna had turned one. Then they’d left the kids with Gabe and Stella and had gone for a week to Hawaii, since Chloe had never been.
One evening, they had gotten into an elevator of a high rise, one with a glass wall so they could look out over the coastline as they ascended. Then the elevator had stopped suddenly. Chloe had assumed the elevator was stuck, and she had actually been nervous about being trapped.
Until Lex had started to position her, gently pushing her forward so that she was facing the glass wall. Then he’d pressed his body up against her back. He’d taken her like that, hard and fast and dangerous, in a stopped elevator in a lavish high rise, as Chloe had stared down with wild eyes at the lush stretches of sky and sea and sand. She’d come so hard she been stifling screams, her skirt bunched up around her hips, her hands clawing at the smooth surface of the glass, Lex pushing into her rhythmically from behind and speaking the most erotic, thick mutters into her ear.
She’d later found out that he had gotten the key from the building manager to stop the elevator on purpose.
After reimagining the memory for several minutes, Chloe was hot and deeply aroused, with no other source of relief except for her hand.
She used it, as she’d used it nearly every night since Lex had been gone. She seemed to be hornier than ever this year, while ironically having no outlet for her surge of hormones since Lex was seldom around.
After she’d rubbed herself into a quick, efficient orgasm-not a very satisfying one-she got up, went into the bathroom, peed, washed her hands, brushed her teeth, and got back into bed.
When she closed her eyes, she was bombarded with other memories.
Lex, not just when he was arousing her, touching her, making her come. But when he was holding her afterwards. When he was sweet, or funny, or dryly cynical. When he was playing with the girls. When he'd had dinner with them on a regular basis, and often breakfast too. When he and Chloe had spent leisurely Saturday mornings in bed, sometimes on their own, sometimes with Gabrielle.
Chloe remembered those months so vividly, after Anna was born-perhaps the happiest of Chloe’s whole life-when Lex had been committed to spending as much time with them as possible. When he’d been more openly loving with her and with his daughters than he’d ever been before . . . and had ever been since.
It wasn’t that Lex had-or ever would-stop loving them. Chloe knew how much he adored them, knew that would never change. But she should have known all along that that kind of cozy domesticity couldn’t last forever. Lex was an intensely complicated man. And he had so much else going on in his life, other than just his family.
He hadn’t ever stopped loving them. But other things had been progressively distracting him from them.
And now it just wasn’t like it used to be.
Sometimes, all four of them had piled on the big bed in the mornings. Anna, still a baby in Chloe’s arms. Chloe leaning against Lex’s side, his arm draped around her. Gabrielle cuddled between the two of them, tiny and affectionate, trying to be near her new little sister.
Those memories were just as powerful to Chloe as the memories of any lovemaking she and Lex had ever shared, and somehow even more heartbreaking.
The tears that had been lingering in her eyes all evening spilled over at last, and Chloe cried in choked little sobs into her pillow.
It wasn’t just that she missed Lex-although she missed him so much it seemed to tear her apart. But there was something else there too . . . something heavy and unspeakable . . . a lurking awareness she couldn’t yet acknowledge, but that made her sob even harder.
She didn’t cry for long, still trying her best not to feel sorry for herself when she really had a very good life. But it was a long time before she fell into an uneasy sleep, since even after two o’clock she was vaguely hoping that Lex might still call.
Hoping that he wanted to talk to her so much that he’d call her anyway, no matter what time it was.
There had been a time when Lex had wanted Chloe-even just to talk to-that much.
* * *
Chloe woke up later than usual the following morning.
In fact, she was awakened by a little hand patting her on the cheek.
“Mommy still sleeping!” came what sounded like a piercingly loud, childish voice.
Chloe managed to pry her eyelids up. Saw, through bleary eyes, Anna smiling at her proudly.
With some effort, Chloe was able to smile back, smothering her instinctive grumbles at such a rude awakening. “Hi, sweetie.”
“Hi,” Anna said, pulling down the back of her short nightgown, which had been accidentally tucked into her panties. “Daddy comes home today?”
Chloe nodded fuzzily. “Yes. Daddy comes home.” She rubbed her eyes and saw that Anna’s eyes were pleading with her silently. Chloe knew why. So she reached out her arms invitingly and said, “Did you want to get under the covers with me?”
Anna’s face relaxed into another smile, and she eagerly climbed into bed with Chloe, cuddling up against her.
Groggily, Chloe glanced at the clock. Saw that it wasn’t even seven o’clock. “Did you wake up early this morning?” she asked.
Anna nodded enthusiastically. “Gabby woke up first.”
“Where is she?” Chloe asked, picking up her head and peering out the bedroom door and as far down the hall as she could see.
“She's reading,” Anna informed her. Then added, with subdued outrage in her tone, “She said not to bug her.”
“Well,” Chloe said consolingly. “This way you get to snuggle with me until it’s time for breakfast.”
Anna giggled happily and hugged Chloe tightly for a moment. She’d always been more naturally cuddly than Gabrielle was, another trait she got from her mother as opposed to her father.
Chloe relaxed and enjoyed the quiet minutes with her daughter, not really in any hurry to get up. They were getting to the end of the summer now, so they might as well enjoy the leisurely days while they could.
About fifteen minutes later, Anna had dozed off again and Chloe was well on her way herself. But then she heard Gabrielle call out from the hallway, “Mommy!”
“We’re in bed, pumpkin,” Chloe replied, wondering why kids always resorted to yelling instead of investigating someone’s location for themselves.
Anna was awake again by the time Gabrielle padded into the bedroom in her bare feet. She was holding a newspaper, which didn’t surprise Chloe, since Gabrielle always liked to pick it up from the entry table where it was placed every morning and bring it to Chloe.
“Daddy’s in the newspaper,” Gabrielle announced as she approached the bed.
“Is he?” Chloe asked, only vaguely curious. Lex’s picture was in the newspaper a lot.
Gabrielle’s face, however, was tight and worried, and her blue-gray eyes were huge as she added, “He’s kissing a lady.”
“What?” Chloe demanded in surprise, instinctively reaching out for the folded newspaper that Gabrielle was staring at.
“See?” Gabrielle affirmed, pointing to the picture as Chloe pulled it over to look at.
Only then did Chloe realize that this wasn’t the Daily Planet. Or even the local newspaper that she’d written for before she’d ended her career. They had both of those newspapers delivered to the penthouse daily.
This was the Inquisitor-which never appeared in their home, if Chloe had anything to say about it. And Lex was indeed on the very front page.
Kissing another woman.
He was dressed up in evening clothes, as was the woman. They must have been at a cocktail party or something, and Lex was just kissing the woman’s cheek.
In fact, Chloe now recognized the woman-knew she was the wife of one of Lex’s business associates. The kiss was tame and harmless. Probably just a gesture of friendliness or courtesy.
But that didn’t stop Chloe from burning with hurt, humiliation, and dismay as she saw her husband on the front page of a tabloid, with his hands and his lips on another woman.
Both Anna and Gabrielle were now peering over and staring at the picture too. Gabrielle was trying to read the headlines. “What does sor-did mean?” she inquired, sounding out the word as Chloe had taught her.
“It means something very silly,” Chloe replied distractedly. She tried to always take her daughters’ questions seriously-but she was not going to explain what it meant that the paper claimed their father was having a sordid affair.
“Why is Daddy kissing that lady?” Anna asked, gazing up at Chloe with wide, worried blue eyes.
Chloe, by now, had managed to pull herself together. She smiled casually, determined not to worry her daughters by her own involuntary reaction to this. “You know how the newspaper sometimes tries to say mean things about Daddy?”
Anna nodded soberly. “That he hates Supe-man.”
“Superman,” Gabrielle corrected automatically.
Chloe nodded at Anna encouragingly. “That’s right. The newspaper sometimes says mean things about Daddy. And it sometimes tells lies. Daddy is just being nice to this lady. But the newspaper is turning it into a mean lie.”
Anna frowned down at the picture again.
“See,” Gabrielle said helpfully, pointing at a detail in the picture. “He’s kissing the lady’s cheek. Not her mouth, like he kisses Mommy. Sometimes he kisses Stella’s cheek too.”
“Oh,” Anna said, as if this detail resolved everything. She gazed at her sister admiringly.
Chloe sighed, wondering how it was possible that her daughters-four and six years old-would have to figure things like this out. Would have to deal with slurs against their father’s character and have to reconcile them with the daddy they knew.
Chloe stared at the picture again. She knew it was exactly what she’d explained to Anna. It was nothing. Never-never-would she ever suspect that Lex had cheated on her.
Lex’s unshakeable commitment to anything important in his life was at the core of his nature. He’d never cheat on her with someone else.
But still . . . Chloe couldn’t help but feel an irrational pang of jealousy. Of resentment. Of rage and grief both. That this other woman had been so close to Lex. That he’d looked at her with that warm smile in his eyes. That he’d liked her so much he’d kissed her cheek like that.
It wasn’t romantic or sexual, but he was close to this woman in the picture-if only momentarily.
It felt like forever since Chloe had been that close to her own husband.
Gabrielle and Anna had been having a serious conversation while Chloe mulled this over. She was finally distracted when Gabrielle asked her, “What’s this word, Mommy?”
Chloe glanced over. Answered without thinking. “Domestic.”
Gabrielle had been reading for a year and a half now, after Chloe's focused attention to teaching her early. And now she was showing off her skill, moving her finger beneath each word as she read out loud to her sister, who was listening with attentive awe: “Lex Luthor (that’s Daddy, you know) is finally bored with dom-est-ic life, since he spent a racy evening with . . .”
“Gabrielle,” Chloe said sharply, finally coming to her senses and hearing what her daughter was reading. “That’s enough. We don’t need to read that nonsense.”
Gabrielle frowned, obviously surprised by her mother’s terseness. “I was just . . .”
Chloe sighed. “I know, pumpkin. I didn’t mean to be crabby. But there’s no reason for us to read mean things about Daddy when we know they’re not true.”
Anna nodded resolutely. “No mean things ‘bout Daddy.”
Gabrielle had put down the paper. She was stubborn and unusually precocious, but she was fairly obedient for the most part.
“Where did you find that paper, anyway?” Chloe asked.
Frowning in concern, Gabrielle explained, “It was on top of the other papers on the table. I didn’t know it was bad.”
Chloe closed her eyes. Wondered briefly who hated her so much that they would leave that foul story about Lex for her daughters to find. Had a pretty good idea who it might be.
“It’s nothing to worry about,” Chloe concluded with a big smile, knowing she had to move past this or Gabrielle in particular wouldn’t stop brooding about it. Gabrielle was extremely intuitive-she always knew when something was wrong. “Are you getting hungry?”
On hearing their affirmative response, Chloe said, “Why don’t we make pancakes today?”
This announcement, of course, produced loud enthusiasm from both of her daughters. And it successfully distracted them from the story in the paper.
As she reached the door of the bedroom on her way to the kitchen, Anna turned back toward her mother. Asked, “Daddy comes home today?”
“Yes,” Chloe assured her again. “Daddy comes home today.”
Both girls scampered barefoot down the hall, still in their colorful nightgowns, with tangled hair of red and gold.
“Daddy damned well better come home today,” Chloe muttered to herself, bunching the newspaper violently into a ball and trying to rid her mind of the image of Lex kissing another woman, even in an innocuous way.
She’d assumed Lex had been working constantly, but apparently he’d had enough time to go to a party and kiss someone else.
Chloe glanced in the mirror. Her hair was just as messy as the girls’, and she’d put on a few pounds in the last month, so her curves were a little bit too curvy in her sloppy pajamas. She looked horrible. Couldn’t really be surprised that Lex wasn’t rushing home to this.
Shaking her head ruefully, she rid herself of the stupid thought. She knew that Lex loved her. Loved the girls. But she also knew that Lex made choices every day. And, just like when he'd gone out of town at Gabrielle's birth, he could make more choices to prioritize his family over work-if he’d really wanted to.
In weak moments, she couldn’t help but wonder if she just hadn’t made domestic life exciting enough to compel Lex to spend much time at home.
Lex had always been somewhat obsessive about whatever he was involved in. Work. Politics. Secret projects he wouldn’t tell her about. All of it would always pull him away from his family.
But that didn’t mean that Chloe had to like it. Or put up with it.
The lurking awareness she’d been conscious of for too long rose up in a sudden burst of resentment.
“Do you hear me?” she muttered again, under her breath, staring at Lex’s side of the bed before the girls demanded her presence in the kitchen to make them pancakes. “You damned well better get your ass home today.”
* * *
Chloe took the girls to the zoo that afternoon, so they wouldn’t get hyper waiting for Lex to return.
When they got back to the penthouse, there was a message waiting for Chloe.
From Lex.
He sounded stressed and exhausted-Chloe knew how to recognize the signs. Whatever he was working on must have been beating him down. His voice was hoarse from fatigue and frustration, and it sounded like he had to pause during the message occasionally to rub his head or clear his eyes.
But Chloe didn’t have much pity left when she got to the end of the message.
“Hi. It’s me. It’s . . . actually, I have no idea what time it is. Anyway, I’m still in Tokyo. Things are a mess here, and I can’t get away. We’ve been working all night and still have several hours left. Sorry. I’ll leave as soon as I can and should be back tomorrow afternoon. I won’t be able to call before bedtime, so say goodnight to the girls for me and that I’ll see them tomorrow. I hope things are better there than they are here. Talk to you soon. Bye.”
Chloe was shaking so much when his voice finally faded off that she had to steady herself with her hands on the dresser.
The lurking awareness was fully formed in her mind now. She knew what it meant. Knew she’d have to deal with it. Soon.
With an excruciating weight in her gut and a sharp ache in her chest and her throat, she took a shuddering breath.
Pulled herself together.
Went to tell her happy, excited daughters that their daddy wasn’t coming home today after all.
Chloe waited five minutes longer than she should have, hoping that the phone might still ring.
It didn’t. And, as the minutes passed, the weight in her gut that had been there all day-that had been there for weeks, although she’d tried to ignore it-got tighter and heavier until it actually hurt.
Finally, when she heard Gabrielle’s loud request for “Mommy!” echo through the penthouse, Chloe stopped staring at the phone and got up to kiss her daughters goodnight.
She glanced into Anna’s room first, but saw that it was empty, the violet color scheme, delicate white furniture, and large collection of stuffed puppies (lined up lovingly in order by size) remaining in semi-neat quiet. Having expected Anna’s absence, Chloe simply moved on to the next bedroom.
There were twin beds in Gabrielle’s room. Gabrielle was in one and Anna in the other.
“Are you going to sleep in here again tonight?” Chloe asked as she entered the room and moved toward her younger daughter, who was curled up under the gold and green coverlet.
Anna nodded and stared up at Chloe with the roundest, widest eyes she’d ever seen. Anna was blonde, like Chloe, and she’d recently had her fourth birthday. “Yes,” the little girl mumbled earnestly. “I wanna sleep with Gabby.”
Anna spoke pretty well most of the time, but when she was tired she would often start to swallow over her words.
Chloe sank down to perch on the edge of Anna’s twin bed. “Did Gabrielle say it was all right?” Chloe confirmed, glancing over at her other daughter, whose delicate features were looking rather grumpy.
At Chloe’s questioning look, however, Gabrielle nodded in a silent affirmation.
“Yes. I asked her like you told me,” Anna declared, snuggling under the covers of the small bed. “I sleep with Gabby tonight.”
“Okay,” Chloe murmured, stroking Anna’s messy shoulder-length hair back from her rosy face. “As long as Gabrielle doesn’t mind, then you can sleep in here with her. But it’s her bedroom, so you have to sleep in your room if she wants to be alone.”
Anna nodded solemnly, her eyes wider than ever. Then she raised her arms up toward Chloe, requesting her goodnight kiss.
Chloe smiled at her pretty, tiny daughter, secretly thrilled, as she couldn’t help but be, that one of their daughters looked a lot like her. Gabrielle, of course, was exactly like Lex in almost every way. But Anna was more like Chloe, particularly when she smiled.
Giving Anna a big hug and a kiss on the cheek, Chloe murmured, “Mommy and Daddy love you, sweetie. Lots and lots.”
Anna giggled happily and hugged Chloe in return. But as Chloe pulled away, Anna’s mouth was turning down into a frown.
“What is it?” Chloe asked, stroking the soft, blonde hair again.
Anna’s forehead wrinkled in deep thought. “I can’t remember what Daddy looks like.”
The weight in Chloe’s gut clenched sickeningly, and a sharp jab shot through her chest. But she managed to smile and shake her head. “It’s only been a few weeks, Anna. I don’t think you’ve really forgotten so soon, have you?”
Lex had been out of town since last month, on a business trip that was only supposed to have taken two weeks.
“She hasn’t forgotten,” Gabrielle put in from the other bed. Her voice sounded impatient and a little bit bossy. “She looks at his picture all the time.”
“I have forgot,” Anna insisted, looking offended by this slur to her credibility and four-year-old dignity. “What color is Daddy’s eyes?”
“You know what color his eyes are,” Chloe prompted softly, knowing that twenty-five days was a really long time for their father to be absent, knowing that they needed to talk about him, to remind themselves that he was important to them. She smiled and reached down to tickle Anna lightly on the side. “What color are your eyes?”
Anna giggled and tried to scoot away from Chloe’s tickling fingers. “Blue!”
Chloe’s smile widened at the girl’s characteristically quicksilver shift in emotion. She tickled Anna a little more. “And what color are Gabrielle’s eyes?”
“Blue,” Anna burst out, trying to slap Chloe’s hand away as she chortled some more.
“And what color are Daddy’s eyes?”
“Blue!” Anna squealed happily.
Chloe pulled her hand back and nodded her head. “That’s right. Daddy has blue eyes, just like you and Gabrielle.”
Anna reached her arms up for another hug, and Chloe pulled her daughter close to her again. Snuggled with her, a little longer than normal. Felt that same weight in her gut. It hadn’t gone away, even though she’d made her daughter happy again.
“Mommy’s eyes isn’t blue,” Anna informed her, when she’d finally pulled away.
Chloe chuckled. “That’s right. I’m the only one without blue eyes.”
Anna patted Chloe’s arms consolingly and let out a dramatic yawn. “That’s all right. Mommy has pretty eyes too.”
Giving her one last kiss, Chloe stood up and moved over to Gabrielle’s bed. Now that she looked closely, she could see that her older daughter was definitely not happy at all.
Gabrielle’s little chin was sticking out, an obvious sign that she was angry about something. A characteristic expression that Lex insisted she’d inherited from her mother, although Chloe strenuously objected to this assessment.
Gabrielle’s blue-gray eyes were exactly like Lex’s. Exactly like Anna’s. And they were clearly stormy at the moment.
“What’s wrong, pumpkin?” Chloe asked, smoothing her daughter’s long red-gold hair--hair that Lex refused to have cut any more than the slightest trim.
“Daddy didn’t call tonight?”
Chloe’s chest suddenly hurt so much that she wasn’t sure she could even breathe. But she managed to keep her face composed as she shook her head and replied, “No. I guess he wasn’t able to tonight.”
Gabrielle’s little chin stuck out even farther, and Chloe could tell it was in an attempt to hide the way her bottom lip was trembling. Gabrielle had always-like Lex-instinctively tried to hide whatever strong emotion she was feeling.
“He didn’t want to say goodnight to us?” The wavering words were somewhere in between a statement and a question.
It hurt so much, that her daughters were both so troubled-in different ways-by Lex’s long absence. And there wasn’t anything Chloe could do to alter the reality: Lex had been gone for a really long time.
Chloe took a deep breath and managed to swallow over the constriction in her throat. “You know better than that, Gabrielle. He was probably in meetings and couldn’t get away. You know he calls whenever he can.”
“Daddy calls last night,” Anna informed them from the other bed. “I told him about the big slide in the park.”
Gabrielle ignored this piece of information, and her eyes were narrowed as they gazed up at Chloe. “He’s always in meetings,” she muttered, breathing in erratic little gasps. “I hate meetings.”
“I hate meetings too,” Anna chimed in, more likely in echo of her big sister’s declaration than out of any real resentment.
Chloe stroked the curve of Gabrielle’s cheek with her thumb. Tried to figure out the best way to deal with this. “I know, pumpkin. But Daddy has to go to meetings for his work.”
Gabrielle sniffed a few times and scowled malevolently. “I hate Daddy’s work.”
“I know,” Chloe said again, silently agreeing with the sentiment, even though she was supposed to be the adult. “But Daddy has to work. That’s how we have money to live on.”
Pushing down the covers with bad-tempered jerks of her arms, Gabrielle complained, “Other daddies work. But they aren’t gone all the time.”
This was undeniably true. And it did feel like Lex had been gone forever.
But Chloe frowned. “Gabrielle. You know Daddy isn’t gone all the time. He’s just on a long trip right now. He’ll be back tomorrow.”
Gabrielle was scowling again. “He said he’d be back today.”
“Yeah,” Anna agreed enthusiastically. “Today!”
Chloe sighed and closed her eyes briefly. Prayed she was handling this the right way. She’d been a mother for more than six years now, but she still felt like she was barely muddling along most of the time.
“I already explained,” Chloe said patiently. “Something came up. Now he’ll be back tomorrow instead.”
Gabrielle’s face was working urgently as she tried to contain her feelings. “Something always comes up. He won’t come home tomorrow either.”
Anna’s little blonde head popped up from her pillow. “He won’t?” she asked, her little eyebrows lowering in confusion.
“Daddy promised he’d be home tomorrow,” Chloe assured them, feeling like she was on the verge of tears of helpless frustration.
“He always promises.” Gabrielle rolled over to her side and curled up in an angry ball. “I hate Daddy,” she choked out.
Chloe suffered from such a sharp pang in her chest that it actually made her feel physically ill. Swallowing hard, she put a firm hand on Gabrielle’s shoulder and turned her back over to face her. “Gabrielle,” she said, relieved when her voice held the authority it needed. She looked at her daughter with steady, disappointed eyes. “You never say that about Daddy, or about anyone else, especially when you don’t mean it.”
“I do mean it,” Gabrielle quavered, still stubbornly holding on to her resentment, despite the desperate trembling of her mouth.
Chloe shook her head and wouldn’t let her daughter roll back over. “Gabrielle. Tell the truth. Do you really hate him? Or are you just mad at him right now?”
Gabrielle tried to hold out. She’d always been as obstinate and determined as her father. But, when faced with Chloe’s unassailable gaze, she couldn’t help but cave.
Chloe knew that Gabrielle loved her fiercely and that she never wanted to displease or disappoint her.
Gabrielle’s pretty face twisted briefly, and she whispered, “I’m mad at him.” She took a shaky breath. “I’m sorry.”
Chloe was so relieved that Gabrielle hadn’t put up a fight that she was just as shaky as her daughter was. With a throaty sound she couldn’t control, Chloe reached down and pulled Gabrielle up into a hug. Burying her face in the long, red hair that Lex so adored, Chloe murmured hoarsely, “Daddy loves you so much, pumpkin. You have no idea how much he loves both of you. And Mommy loves you too. Lots and lots.”
Gabrielle started shaking against her and making muffled, strangled sounds.
Chloe’s eyes were burning and she squeezed her daughter tighter. “Pumpkin? What is it?”
Gabrielle’s face was red and contorted when she pulled it back. “I miss him.” The words sounded like they were forced out of her, as if they resisted ever being spoken.
Exactly like Lex, when he was forced to admit something too deep, too private.
“I know, baby,” Chloe murmured soothingly. “I miss him too.” She pulled her back into a hug.
Gabrielle was sobbing for real now, shaking and gasping against Chloe’s shoulder.
Anna, who’d been listening and watching with her wide, observant eyes, sat up fully in her bed, the neckline of her cotton nightgown slightly askew. “Gabby is crying?” she asked, her bottom lip starting to wobble dangerously.
“It’s okay. She’s sad, but she’ll be okay.” Chloe was fighting tears herself, and suffering from waves of helplessness as she held her weeping daughter, powerless to comfort her, and as she watched as her younger daughter’s face started scrunching up as well.
Anna had always been more openly emotional than Gabrielle was. Had always been quicker to anger, quicker to tears, quicker to laughter. Had always been more like Chloe.
It didn’t take long until Anna was crying as well, and stumbling over to the other bed so that Chloe could hug her too.
So Chloe held both of them. Murmured all the soothing words she could think of. Thought she was going to suffocate on the agonizing lump lodged high in her throat. Exerted all of the control she could muster to keep from crying herself.
She missed her husband as much as her daughters missed their father. And her grief was compounded by so many more complexities. And by a reluctant awareness that had been lurking in her gut for days-one she wasn’t yet ready to acknowledge.
The storm didn’t last as long as she’d feared. Anna’s little sobs soon faded into occasional hiccups, and by then Gabrielle had nearly cried herself out as well.
Chloe murmured comfortingly until both of them were under control again. Then she stood up and said, “I know we miss him. But Daddy will come home soon. I promise. It won’t be long until tomorrow.”
Anna seemed basically content as she crawled back under the covers of her bed, although her cheeks were streaked with the remnants of tears. “Tomorrow,” she sighed in satisfaction. Her eyelids were already drooping revealingly.
Chloe gave the little girl’s hair one last loving stroke. “Tomorrow,” she agreed. “Good night, baby.”
“Night night, Mommy,” Anna mumbled.
Gabrielle was quiet now too, but she didn’t seem to have resolved her feelings as quickly as Anna had. Chloe knew that-like Lex-Gabrielle tended to bottle things away. Brooded on them silently and had trouble letting them go.
“Good night, pumpkin,” Chloe murmured, stepping over to wipe the last of the tears off of Gabrielle’s face. “I love you.”
“G’night,” Gabrielle mumbled hoarsely, her eyes focused unwaveringly on Chloe’s face. “Love you too.”
After another minute, Chloe walked toward the door and turned off the light. Paused before she cracked the door behind her as she left.
Wondered how it was even possible for a human to love anyone as much as she loved these two little girls. Wished she could always keep them perfectly safe and happy.
After a moment, she went to wash her face and pull herself together a little. Then she walked back down the hall to listen at the cracked door of her daughters’ room.
She didn’t hear anything. Sometimes they talked before they fell asleep, Anna asking earnest questions and Gabrielle answering them with grave, six-year-old wisdom. But not tonight.
She hoped they both had gone to sleep. Thought they probably had.
She glanced at the clock and thought with another pang that Lex still hadn’t called. It was too late for him to say goodnight to the girls.
But surely he would at least want to talk to Chloe.
With a shaky sigh, Chloe trudged back to her bedroom. Looked around in vague uncertainty, trying to figure out what to do with herself.
She didn’t feel like reading or watching TV, which is usually what she ended up doing once the girls went to bed. Lois was out of town on assignment, or else she would have called to chat with her cousin and reveled in an actual adult conversation.
She could try to write. She’d published two moderately successful books now, but had been working on the same four chapters of her third book for more than two years now-just couldn’t seem to concentrate or find the focus needed to get back into writing it.
She didn’t like to think about her partly written book, since it made her feel like she was a huge, lazy slob, who didn’t work, had a domestic staff, and yet still couldn’t even manage to make herself write.
Pushing that constant, niggling anxiety out of her mind, Chloe went into the master bathroom and started to draw herself a hot bath.
She’d been taking a lot of hot baths lately, after the girls went to bed.
Most of the time, she didn’t have anything else to do.
She loved her daughters more than anything. Wouldn’t trade them for the world.
But sometimes she was still so, so lonely.
Even when Lex had been in town this year, he didn’t really seem to be with them the way he used to be. She knew he was horribly stressed by a new project he was working on-one he hadn’t given her any specifics on-and also a prickly LuthorCorp acquisition that could affect the entire future of the corporation.
For months, he’d been working longer hours than he had since they’d gotten together. And even when he was home, he was often distracted and would lock himself up in his office for hours.
She knew he loved her and the girls. Never doubted it. But she’d been sensing things going downhill for a long time now, and she couldn’t seem to do anything to stop it.
She didn’t like to think about that either, since it prompted that lurking awareness in her gut that she was still pretending didn’t exist.
Sinking into the bubbly water, she tried to concentrate on what was good. She had a husband who loved her. Two of the sweetest, prettiest, smartest daughters imaginable. A life of ease and privilege. Could buy anything she wanted. Didn’t have to work. Didn’t have a career. Didn’t have to do anything but sit around a luxurious penthouse and bask in having absolutely no life outside of her children and a husband who was never around. Didn’t even have to pretend to write-although sometimes she did, in a futile attempt to act like she had something that was purely her own.
She had everything any woman could want . . . didn’t she?
She soaked in the hot water of the large jetted tub until the heat had finally dissipated and her fingers were starting to prune.
Lex still hadn’t called.
She got out of the tub, put on her pajamas, lay in bed and pretended to read a current bestseller. Kept waiting for the phone to ring.
By midnight, she had to resign herself to the fact that Lex wasn’t going to call tonight after all. He wouldn’t call after midnight, even if he wanted to. He’d be afraid she was asleep and wouldn’t want to wake her up.
Sometimes, when she was really desperate, she tried to call him. She hadn’t gotten through to him directly in almost three weeks. When he was really busy, he didn’t answer his mobile phone-even his private number-so the calls were transferred to his secretary. Eventually Chloe got tired of leaving messages with the cool, snotty woman, so she no longer called unless she had something substantial to say.
Putting down the book and turning off the light, she got under the covers of the big, luxurious bed. Felt small and stupid by herself in it, the expanse of Lex’s side of the bed torturing her with its empty presence.
She was thirty-three years old. And she felt ancient, and exhausted, and insignificant, and of no use to anyone but her children.
Determined not to sulk, she tried to distract herself. Since she was physically restless and jittery-a fairly common sensation now when she was alone in her bed at night-she sorted through her mental collection of erotic fantasies. Ended up visualizing an evening on her honeymoon with Lex. One she could never forget.
Since they’d eloped just before Anna’s birth, they hadn’t gotten a chance to have a real honeymoon until after Anna had turned one. Then they’d left the kids with Gabe and Stella and had gone for a week to Hawaii, since Chloe had never been.
One evening, they had gotten into an elevator of a high rise, one with a glass wall so they could look out over the coastline as they ascended. Then the elevator had stopped suddenly. Chloe had assumed the elevator was stuck, and she had actually been nervous about being trapped.
Until Lex had started to position her, gently pushing her forward so that she was facing the glass wall. Then he’d pressed his body up against her back. He’d taken her like that, hard and fast and dangerous, in a stopped elevator in a lavish high rise, as Chloe had stared down with wild eyes at the lush stretches of sky and sea and sand. She’d come so hard she been stifling screams, her skirt bunched up around her hips, her hands clawing at the smooth surface of the glass, Lex pushing into her rhythmically from behind and speaking the most erotic, thick mutters into her ear.
She’d later found out that he had gotten the key from the building manager to stop the elevator on purpose.
After reimagining the memory for several minutes, Chloe was hot and deeply aroused, with no other source of relief except for her hand.
She used it, as she’d used it nearly every night since Lex had been gone. She seemed to be hornier than ever this year, while ironically having no outlet for her surge of hormones since Lex was seldom around.
After she’d rubbed herself into a quick, efficient orgasm-not a very satisfying one-she got up, went into the bathroom, peed, washed her hands, brushed her teeth, and got back into bed.
When she closed her eyes, she was bombarded with other memories.
Lex, not just when he was arousing her, touching her, making her come. But when he was holding her afterwards. When he was sweet, or funny, or dryly cynical. When he was playing with the girls. When he'd had dinner with them on a regular basis, and often breakfast too. When he and Chloe had spent leisurely Saturday mornings in bed, sometimes on their own, sometimes with Gabrielle.
Chloe remembered those months so vividly, after Anna was born-perhaps the happiest of Chloe’s whole life-when Lex had been committed to spending as much time with them as possible. When he’d been more openly loving with her and with his daughters than he’d ever been before . . . and had ever been since.
It wasn’t that Lex had-or ever would-stop loving them. Chloe knew how much he adored them, knew that would never change. But she should have known all along that that kind of cozy domesticity couldn’t last forever. Lex was an intensely complicated man. And he had so much else going on in his life, other than just his family.
He hadn’t ever stopped loving them. But other things had been progressively distracting him from them.
And now it just wasn’t like it used to be.
Sometimes, all four of them had piled on the big bed in the mornings. Anna, still a baby in Chloe’s arms. Chloe leaning against Lex’s side, his arm draped around her. Gabrielle cuddled between the two of them, tiny and affectionate, trying to be near her new little sister.
Those memories were just as powerful to Chloe as the memories of any lovemaking she and Lex had ever shared, and somehow even more heartbreaking.
The tears that had been lingering in her eyes all evening spilled over at last, and Chloe cried in choked little sobs into her pillow.
It wasn’t just that she missed Lex-although she missed him so much it seemed to tear her apart. But there was something else there too . . . something heavy and unspeakable . . . a lurking awareness she couldn’t yet acknowledge, but that made her sob even harder.
She didn’t cry for long, still trying her best not to feel sorry for herself when she really had a very good life. But it was a long time before she fell into an uneasy sleep, since even after two o’clock she was vaguely hoping that Lex might still call.
Hoping that he wanted to talk to her so much that he’d call her anyway, no matter what time it was.
There had been a time when Lex had wanted Chloe-even just to talk to-that much.
* * *
Chloe woke up later than usual the following morning.
In fact, she was awakened by a little hand patting her on the cheek.
“Mommy still sleeping!” came what sounded like a piercingly loud, childish voice.
Chloe managed to pry her eyelids up. Saw, through bleary eyes, Anna smiling at her proudly.
With some effort, Chloe was able to smile back, smothering her instinctive grumbles at such a rude awakening. “Hi, sweetie.”
“Hi,” Anna said, pulling down the back of her short nightgown, which had been accidentally tucked into her panties. “Daddy comes home today?”
Chloe nodded fuzzily. “Yes. Daddy comes home.” She rubbed her eyes and saw that Anna’s eyes were pleading with her silently. Chloe knew why. So she reached out her arms invitingly and said, “Did you want to get under the covers with me?”
Anna’s face relaxed into another smile, and she eagerly climbed into bed with Chloe, cuddling up against her.
Groggily, Chloe glanced at the clock. Saw that it wasn’t even seven o’clock. “Did you wake up early this morning?” she asked.
Anna nodded enthusiastically. “Gabby woke up first.”
“Where is she?” Chloe asked, picking up her head and peering out the bedroom door and as far down the hall as she could see.
“She's reading,” Anna informed her. Then added, with subdued outrage in her tone, “She said not to bug her.”
“Well,” Chloe said consolingly. “This way you get to snuggle with me until it’s time for breakfast.”
Anna giggled happily and hugged Chloe tightly for a moment. She’d always been more naturally cuddly than Gabrielle was, another trait she got from her mother as opposed to her father.
Chloe relaxed and enjoyed the quiet minutes with her daughter, not really in any hurry to get up. They were getting to the end of the summer now, so they might as well enjoy the leisurely days while they could.
About fifteen minutes later, Anna had dozed off again and Chloe was well on her way herself. But then she heard Gabrielle call out from the hallway, “Mommy!”
“We’re in bed, pumpkin,” Chloe replied, wondering why kids always resorted to yelling instead of investigating someone’s location for themselves.
Anna was awake again by the time Gabrielle padded into the bedroom in her bare feet. She was holding a newspaper, which didn’t surprise Chloe, since Gabrielle always liked to pick it up from the entry table where it was placed every morning and bring it to Chloe.
“Daddy’s in the newspaper,” Gabrielle announced as she approached the bed.
“Is he?” Chloe asked, only vaguely curious. Lex’s picture was in the newspaper a lot.
Gabrielle’s face, however, was tight and worried, and her blue-gray eyes were huge as she added, “He’s kissing a lady.”
“What?” Chloe demanded in surprise, instinctively reaching out for the folded newspaper that Gabrielle was staring at.
“See?” Gabrielle affirmed, pointing to the picture as Chloe pulled it over to look at.
Only then did Chloe realize that this wasn’t the Daily Planet. Or even the local newspaper that she’d written for before she’d ended her career. They had both of those newspapers delivered to the penthouse daily.
This was the Inquisitor-which never appeared in their home, if Chloe had anything to say about it. And Lex was indeed on the very front page.
Kissing another woman.
He was dressed up in evening clothes, as was the woman. They must have been at a cocktail party or something, and Lex was just kissing the woman’s cheek.
In fact, Chloe now recognized the woman-knew she was the wife of one of Lex’s business associates. The kiss was tame and harmless. Probably just a gesture of friendliness or courtesy.
But that didn’t stop Chloe from burning with hurt, humiliation, and dismay as she saw her husband on the front page of a tabloid, with his hands and his lips on another woman.
Both Anna and Gabrielle were now peering over and staring at the picture too. Gabrielle was trying to read the headlines. “What does sor-did mean?” she inquired, sounding out the word as Chloe had taught her.
“It means something very silly,” Chloe replied distractedly. She tried to always take her daughters’ questions seriously-but she was not going to explain what it meant that the paper claimed their father was having a sordid affair.
“Why is Daddy kissing that lady?” Anna asked, gazing up at Chloe with wide, worried blue eyes.
Chloe, by now, had managed to pull herself together. She smiled casually, determined not to worry her daughters by her own involuntary reaction to this. “You know how the newspaper sometimes tries to say mean things about Daddy?”
Anna nodded soberly. “That he hates Supe-man.”
“Superman,” Gabrielle corrected automatically.
Chloe nodded at Anna encouragingly. “That’s right. The newspaper sometimes says mean things about Daddy. And it sometimes tells lies. Daddy is just being nice to this lady. But the newspaper is turning it into a mean lie.”
Anna frowned down at the picture again.
“See,” Gabrielle said helpfully, pointing at a detail in the picture. “He’s kissing the lady’s cheek. Not her mouth, like he kisses Mommy. Sometimes he kisses Stella’s cheek too.”
“Oh,” Anna said, as if this detail resolved everything. She gazed at her sister admiringly.
Chloe sighed, wondering how it was possible that her daughters-four and six years old-would have to figure things like this out. Would have to deal with slurs against their father’s character and have to reconcile them with the daddy they knew.
Chloe stared at the picture again. She knew it was exactly what she’d explained to Anna. It was nothing. Never-never-would she ever suspect that Lex had cheated on her.
Lex’s unshakeable commitment to anything important in his life was at the core of his nature. He’d never cheat on her with someone else.
But still . . . Chloe couldn’t help but feel an irrational pang of jealousy. Of resentment. Of rage and grief both. That this other woman had been so close to Lex. That he’d looked at her with that warm smile in his eyes. That he’d liked her so much he’d kissed her cheek like that.
It wasn’t romantic or sexual, but he was close to this woman in the picture-if only momentarily.
It felt like forever since Chloe had been that close to her own husband.
Gabrielle and Anna had been having a serious conversation while Chloe mulled this over. She was finally distracted when Gabrielle asked her, “What’s this word, Mommy?”
Chloe glanced over. Answered without thinking. “Domestic.”
Gabrielle had been reading for a year and a half now, after Chloe's focused attention to teaching her early. And now she was showing off her skill, moving her finger beneath each word as she read out loud to her sister, who was listening with attentive awe: “Lex Luthor (that’s Daddy, you know) is finally bored with dom-est-ic life, since he spent a racy evening with . . .”
“Gabrielle,” Chloe said sharply, finally coming to her senses and hearing what her daughter was reading. “That’s enough. We don’t need to read that nonsense.”
Gabrielle frowned, obviously surprised by her mother’s terseness. “I was just . . .”
Chloe sighed. “I know, pumpkin. I didn’t mean to be crabby. But there’s no reason for us to read mean things about Daddy when we know they’re not true.”
Anna nodded resolutely. “No mean things ‘bout Daddy.”
Gabrielle had put down the paper. She was stubborn and unusually precocious, but she was fairly obedient for the most part.
“Where did you find that paper, anyway?” Chloe asked.
Frowning in concern, Gabrielle explained, “It was on top of the other papers on the table. I didn’t know it was bad.”
Chloe closed her eyes. Wondered briefly who hated her so much that they would leave that foul story about Lex for her daughters to find. Had a pretty good idea who it might be.
“It’s nothing to worry about,” Chloe concluded with a big smile, knowing she had to move past this or Gabrielle in particular wouldn’t stop brooding about it. Gabrielle was extremely intuitive-she always knew when something was wrong. “Are you getting hungry?”
On hearing their affirmative response, Chloe said, “Why don’t we make pancakes today?”
This announcement, of course, produced loud enthusiasm from both of her daughters. And it successfully distracted them from the story in the paper.
As she reached the door of the bedroom on her way to the kitchen, Anna turned back toward her mother. Asked, “Daddy comes home today?”
“Yes,” Chloe assured her again. “Daddy comes home today.”
Both girls scampered barefoot down the hall, still in their colorful nightgowns, with tangled hair of red and gold.
“Daddy damned well better come home today,” Chloe muttered to herself, bunching the newspaper violently into a ball and trying to rid her mind of the image of Lex kissing another woman, even in an innocuous way.
She’d assumed Lex had been working constantly, but apparently he’d had enough time to go to a party and kiss someone else.
Chloe glanced in the mirror. Her hair was just as messy as the girls’, and she’d put on a few pounds in the last month, so her curves were a little bit too curvy in her sloppy pajamas. She looked horrible. Couldn’t really be surprised that Lex wasn’t rushing home to this.
Shaking her head ruefully, she rid herself of the stupid thought. She knew that Lex loved her. Loved the girls. But she also knew that Lex made choices every day. And, just like when he'd gone out of town at Gabrielle's birth, he could make more choices to prioritize his family over work-if he’d really wanted to.
In weak moments, she couldn’t help but wonder if she just hadn’t made domestic life exciting enough to compel Lex to spend much time at home.
Lex had always been somewhat obsessive about whatever he was involved in. Work. Politics. Secret projects he wouldn’t tell her about. All of it would always pull him away from his family.
But that didn’t mean that Chloe had to like it. Or put up with it.
The lurking awareness she’d been conscious of for too long rose up in a sudden burst of resentment.
“Do you hear me?” she muttered again, under her breath, staring at Lex’s side of the bed before the girls demanded her presence in the kitchen to make them pancakes. “You damned well better get your ass home today.”
* * *
Chloe took the girls to the zoo that afternoon, so they wouldn’t get hyper waiting for Lex to return.
When they got back to the penthouse, there was a message waiting for Chloe.
From Lex.
He sounded stressed and exhausted-Chloe knew how to recognize the signs. Whatever he was working on must have been beating him down. His voice was hoarse from fatigue and frustration, and it sounded like he had to pause during the message occasionally to rub his head or clear his eyes.
But Chloe didn’t have much pity left when she got to the end of the message.
“Hi. It’s me. It’s . . . actually, I have no idea what time it is. Anyway, I’m still in Tokyo. Things are a mess here, and I can’t get away. We’ve been working all night and still have several hours left. Sorry. I’ll leave as soon as I can and should be back tomorrow afternoon. I won’t be able to call before bedtime, so say goodnight to the girls for me and that I’ll see them tomorrow. I hope things are better there than they are here. Talk to you soon. Bye.”
Chloe was shaking so much when his voice finally faded off that she had to steady herself with her hands on the dresser.
The lurking awareness was fully formed in her mind now. She knew what it meant. Knew she’d have to deal with it. Soon.
With an excruciating weight in her gut and a sharp ache in her chest and her throat, she took a shuddering breath.
Pulled herself together.
Went to tell her happy, excited daughters that their daddy wasn’t coming home today after all.