“Nick!” Simone’s angry hiss makes my name sound like a rebuke. “You picked this place. Be a gentleman and deal with the maître d’!”

TTYL, I type slowly, not caring about the sunburn I’m getting from Simone’s heated glare.

SOS, Chloe replies, then adds a wink.

I say two sentences to the man in the white coat and black tie, we’re seated, two martinis ordered, and then Simone demands, “I’ve never seen you that happy about a work issue.”

“There’s a lot you’ve never seen about me, Simone.” The glow from the quick interchange with Chloe is wearing off.

Fast.

Tends to happen when you talk to an ice queen.

“Is it that woman?”

“That woman?” I don’t like her tone.

“The one the children told me you’re dating.”

My turn to narrow my eyes and study her.

She doesn’t like it.

I say nothing, but I don’t break eye contact.

She squirms. Funny. She never squirmed before when confronted.

“Good for you,” she finally says, then sips her martini, evaluating the quality. From her expression, she’s satisfied. Barely. “I’d assumed you’d been a monk all these years. The children never mentioned any women.”

“We’re not going to talk about my love life, Simone.”

Her eyes widen. “I wasn’t talking about your love life, Nick. I was talking about your sex life.”

“The fact that you don’t realize they can be the same thing tells me nothing’s changed.”

Her face turns ugly. Deeply ugly, with a pent-up anger that a part of me jumps to soothe. I’m able to stop myself. Old habits run deep, but they’re not etched in my core any longer.

She shakes it off, clearly working hard within to find that delicate balance that gives her a feeling of control. “I’m glad to hear you’ve found some joy. Have you been dating her long?”

“I’m not going to talk about her.”

“Chloe, is it? You can’t stay away from French women,” she says with a smile and a wink, moving with feline grace as she crosses her legs, leaning back in the chair, her smile flirtatious and dangerous.

I start to argue that Chloe isn’t French. This is a trap, though. The best way not to engage is to withhold.

That’s how the last two years of our marriage worked. Simone poked and demanded, and I withdrew.

And then she left.

“I can’t stay away from some women,” I say with a laugh, pulling out my phone and typing just as the waiter brings a bread basket. I look up from the phone, ignoring Simone, and order for us both. As she stares at me, nonplussed, I type out a text.

I’ll save you. Say the word. Can I come over tonight?

But I don’t hit Send.

Not yet.

“You’re different.” Simone’s statement makes me look up, placing the phone face down on the table. I dip a piece of bread into the olive oil the waiter just plated and fill my mouth with something other than a retort.

Mouth full as I chew, I just shrug.

“Harder.”

I check in below the belt.

Nope.

“More authoritative.”

I raise my eyebrows and look at her.

“More commanding. You’ve come into your own, Nick. And I deserve some of this.”

It takes everything in me not to choke on the focaccia. A piece of rosemary pokes my tonsil. The martini washes all the uncertainty away.

“You deserve what exactly, Simone?”

“I never thought this would be easy.”

“What would be easy?” A preternatural sense of unease creeps through my skin, making my hands clench, thighs tighten, body priming for battle.

“Testing the waters. Seeing what’s left between us.”

Instinct is a double-edged sword. I didn’t want to believe it. Didn’t think the signs she was sending were real. Couldn’t fathom that this was happening. Thought I was making it up.

No.

Simone is coming on to me.

“What’s left between us are three beautiful, kind, good children we produced, Simone. And that’s all.”

Caprese salad is delivered. I dig into mine. Simone orders a vodka soda with lime.

Guess the martini didn’t meet her standards after all.

“That’s all?”

Flavor explodes in my mouth as I chew, the fresh basil sweetening my thoughts. She’s looking at me with bedroom eyes, and I can’t help myself.

I pick up my phone and push the damn Send button, then set it back down.

I smile.

She smiles.

“Thank you,” I say.

She leans in, her mouth tight and loose at the same time, her eyes victorious. Simone looks like the cat that ate the canary.

“For what?”

“For clarity.”

Bzzzz.

I check my phone.

k, says the text.

I blink. I look at Simone. Amelie’s face flashes through my mind, a snapshot of the moment Simone shunted them off, picking dinner with me over the kids yet again.

Deserve. What does Simone deserve? She doesn’t deserve whatever she wants from me. A reconciliation? A roll in the hay for old time’s sake? Something in between, more likely.

I’ll give her a taste of her own medicine.

My body decides before I do, the napkin against my mouth, folded on the table as I stand, shoving my phone in my back pocket.

“I’m so sorry, Simone. I’m having a work crisis. A colleague needs me.”

She flinches, her swan’s neck graceful, pulse thready and quivering at the hollow of her throat, where the skin is suddenly flushed with anger. “What?”

I pull out my wallet and throw a handful of twenties on the table, a sense of power building in me. Her face is tipped up in shock, eyes tracking my movements, her expression one of disbelief.

“I’m sure you’ll be well taken care of by the waiter, Simone. Perhaps you can call the children and invite them to join you. I can’t have dinner tonight.”

“You’re leaving me for her.”

“No.” And this is the truth. “I’m leaving because I have to go save someone.”

Not Chloe.

Me.

* * *

I wait at her door after pressing the bell. Feels like ninth grade, when I asked Mary Elizabeth Manning to the Valentine’s Dance, and had to stand in the cold, wearing an ill-fitting suit, wondering what the hell I’d gotten myself into, but unable to undo it.