Chapter 7 - The Panic on the Concourse
Back on the third floor of the atrium, the silence surrounding Daniel Bennett was of an entirely different nature.
He stood beside the central holiday display, his hands buried deep into the pockets of his charcoal cashmere coat, his knuckles clenched so tightly that the seams of his trousers groaned under the strain. The holiday music that had seemed so festive five minutes ago now sounded like a brass band performing at a public execution. Shoppers were looking at him—or perhaps it was merely his mounting paranoia—their eyes flickering toward his unbuttoned coat, his askew scarf, and the obvious, lingering scent of a scandal.
"Daniel, honestly," Vanessa’s voice broke through his spiraling panic, sharp and petulant.
She stood two paces away, adjusting the gold chain of her quilted bag over her shoulder. Her composure had returned, but her eyes were tight with an ugly, calculating resentment. She had expected a scene, yes, but she had expected Daniel to choose. She had expected him to stand beside her, to offer a wry, apologetic smile to his mother, to make it clear that the marriage was an obsolete contract waiting for the lawyers to draft the termination clauses.
Instead, he looked like a condemned man whose trapdoor was already creaking beneath his shoes.
"Pick up the bag," Vanessa demanded, gesturing with a manicured chin toward the black-and-gold boutique sack resting on the floor by his wingtips. "People are staring. Let's go down to the bar at the Four Seasons. You need a scotch, and we need to talk about our schedule for next week."
Daniel turned his head slowly. For the first time in eighteen months, he looked at Vanessa Reed without the intoxicating, flattering haze of an illicit romance.
He looked at the crimson coat—loud, demanding, aggressive. He looked at the heavy makeup, the arched eyebrows, the sharp, calculating expression that had once felt thrillingly sophisticated compared to Emily’s quiet, grounded grace. He saw the coldness in her face. He saw that she didn't care that his life had just suffered a catastrophic structural collapse; she only cared that the public unveiling hadn't gone according to her script.
"Shut up, Vanessa," Daniel said. His voice was flat, dead, and stripped of all affection.
Vanessa’s eyes flared with sudden fury. "Excuse me?"
"I said shut up," Daniel repeated, stepping closer to her, his voice dropping into a harsh, vibrating hiss that made her recoil slightly. "Do you have any idea what you just did? Do you have the slightest comprehension of what just happened in front of that tree?"
"What happened?" Vanessa scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest, trying to maintain her aristocratic disdain. "You got caught, Daniel. It was going to happen eventually. In fact, it’s better this way. Now you don't have to spend another miserable six months pretending you're going to leave her 'after the fiscal year.' It’s out in the open. You call your attorneys, you offer her a reasonable settlement from the secondary accounts, and we get on with our lives."
Daniel let out a dry, barking laugh that bordered on hysteria. He dragged a trembling hand through his swept-back brown hair, pulling at the roots until the scalp burned.
"A settlement from the secondary accounts?" Daniel whispered, leaning down so his face was inches from hers. "You think this is about a divorce court, Vanessa? You think this is about splitting the condo on Lake Shore Drive?"
He pointed a shaking finger in the direction his mother and wife had disappeared.
"That was Margaret Bennett," he snarled. "And behind Margaret is Arthur. Every deal I’ve closed in the last five years was underwritten by my father’s name. My seat on the executive committee? Arthur’s proxy. The partnership buyout scheduled for January? Financed through the family trust. If my father cuts me off, I don't have secondary accounts. I don't have an executive suite. I have an office full of leased furniture and five million dollars in commercial debt that the bank will call in within forty-eight hours."
Vanessa’s lips parted slightly, a flicker of genuine, predatory calculation passing behind her eyes. "Your father wouldn't do that to his own son. Not over a marriage."
"You don't know Arthur Bennett," Daniel rasped, his face pale as chalk. "Arthur’s father left him nothing but an unblemished reputation and an iron code of conduct. He spent forty years telling me that a man who lies to his wife will lie to his partners, lie to his clients, and steal from his own firm. If Arthur decides I am a liability to the Bennett name, he won't just fire me, Vanessa. He will dismantle me."
Daniel looked down at his watch.
The gold hands indicated 4:45 PM.
May you like
Two hours and fifteen minutes.
He didn't wait for Vanessa to answer. He didn't pick up the black shopping bag containing the diamond earrings he had bought for her an hour ago. He turned on his heel and began walking toward the parking garage elevators with long, frantic strides, leaving the woman in the red coat standing alone beneath the glittering Christmas lights of the Chicago concourse.
