Chapter 4: The Woman Waiting at Home
The penthouse was lit the way Diana always kept it at night — every lamp on, every surface visible, the kind of brightness that left no shadows and somehow still felt cold.
She was on the couch when they came through the door.
Her wine glass was on the coffee table.
Her eyes moved from Caleb to his father to Olivia, and then to the three babies, and something crossed her face that she controlled almost immediately.
Almost.
"What is this?" she said.
"Olivia and her children are staying tonight," Caleb said.
He set his keys on the entry table.
"I'll explain the sleeping arrangements in a minute.
First I need to talk to you."
"Caleb — "
"Diana." He said her name the way he said it in meetings when someone was about to waste his time.
"Living room.
Now."
George guided Olivia gently toward the kitchen.
"Let's find something warm for these little ones," he said, as if he had lived there for years.
Diana didn't move from the couch.
"You brought your housekeeper into our home," she said.
"At ten o'clock at night.
With three babies."
"I found her sleeping in the park." Caleb sat down across from her.
He didn't raise his voice.
"She's been sleeping there since March.
Since the week her landlord evicted her."
Diana picked up her wine glass.
"That's very sad.
But it's not our responsibility."
"A neighbor saw you in her building."
The wine glass stopped halfway to her mouth.
"She lost her apartment two days after you visited," Caleb continued.
"The landlord cited overcrowding.
One bedroom, three children.
A rule he'd apparently never enforced before."
"I don't know what you're implying."
"You told her not to speak to me.
She told me tonight.
You said if she did, you'd make sure she never worked in this city again."
Diana set the glass down.
"She's lying."
"She's not the type."
"You don't know what type she is.
You barely know her name."
"I know she's been coming to this apartment every week for three years and starving herself to feed her children." Caleb leaned forward.
"And I know you knew she was outside in the cold with three babies, and you said nothing to me.
For four months."
"I am not responsible for managing your employees' personal lives."
"You're responsible for what you did to her apartment."
Diana stood up.
"I want her out of this house."
"That's not happening tonight."
"Caleb, I am your wife — "
"Then act like it." His voice didn't rise.
It dropped.
"Tell me why.
That's all I'm asking.
Tell me why you did it."
Something shifted in Diana's expression.
Not guilt — something harder than guilt.
Calculation.
"She was getting too comfortable," Diana said finally.
"Coming in here every week, talking to you, talking to your father.
You never noticed the way she looked at you."
"She was doing her job."
"She was doing more than her job and you were too oblivious to see it."
"So you evicted her.
With three infants."
"I protected my marriage."
"By putting a woman and three babies on the street." Caleb stood.
"That's not protection, Diana.
That's cruelty."
Diana's chin lifted.
"You'll feel differently in the morning."
"I won't."
"She'll be gone by the end of the week," Diana said.
"I'll make sure of it.
I still have the number for her agency.
One call and she loses every client in the city."
The threat sat in the air between them.
Caleb looked at his wife — really looked at her — and felt something he hadn't expected.
Not anger.
Something quieter and more final than anger.
From the kitchen, he could hear his father's voice, low and steady, and the small sounds of babies being fed for the first time in hours.
"Don't make that call," Caleb said.
Diana smiled.
"Or what?"
He didn't answer.
May you like
He walked to the kitchen instead.
But she was already reaching for her phone.
