Chapter 1 - The Exile in the Storm
The sixth blow sent Claire Bennett stumbling backward into the marble console table she had spent three months choosing when she and her husband built their dream home.
A crystal vase shook.
One white rose slipped from it and fell to the floor.
Claire caught herself with one hand against the stone, breathing hard as brown hair fell across her face. She tasted blood before she felt it. When she lifted her head, a red drop slid from the corner of her mouth and landed on the pale tile beneath her bare feet.
Across the room, Grant Mercer adjusted the cuff of his shirt.
Her husband of eleven years did not apologize.
He did not reach for her.
He looked annoyed.
Behind him, Vanessa Cole stood near the staircase wearing Claire's cream silk robe.
And Claire's dead mother's pearl earrings.
Outside the enormous windows, rain hammered the dark yard of their Bellevue, Washington, home so violently that the trees bent in the wind.
Claire stared at the earrings.
Not the robe.
Not Vanessa's bare legs.
Not even Grant.
"The earrings," Claire said.
Vanessa touched one pearl nervously.
"What?"
"Take them off."
Grant exhaled sharply. "Claire, enough."
Claire's swollen lip trembled, but her voice did not.
"I said take them off."
Vanessa looked at Grant.
"He gave them to me."
For a moment, the only sound in the room was rain.
Those pearls had belonged to Claire's mother, Elaine Bennett. She had worn them in the last family photograph taken before the car accident that killed both Claire's parents when Claire was eight.
Grant knew that.
He had watched Claire cry the first time she wore them on their wedding anniversary.
"They weren't his to give," Claire said.
Grant stepped between the two women.
"Everything in this house is mine."
Claire looked at him slowly.
"What did you say?"
Grant spread his hands toward the room, the staircase, the custom kitchen, the glass wall facing Lake Washington.
"Who pays for this? Who works fourteen-hour days? Who built the company that paid for this house?"
Claire almost laughed.
Almost.
The cut inside her lip stopped her.
"Everything we have," she whispered.
"Don't do this."
"No. Say it again."
Grant stepped closer.
"Everything here is mine."
At the end of the hallway, their longtime housekeeper, Martha Ellis, stood frozen near the kitchen doorway with a dish towel in her hands.
Claire saw her.
Martha immediately lowered her eyes.
That hurt in a different way.
For months, Claire had known something was wrong.
Grant came home later.
His business trips somehow grew longer whenever weekends were involved.
There had been unfamiliar perfume on his shirts and calls he took outside on the patio.
Every time Claire asked, Grant had an explanation.
Investors.
Contractors.
City officials.
A delayed project.
A difficult client.
And Claire, who had loved him since she was twenty-seven, had wanted the explanations to be true.
Tonight, all those explanations were standing ten feet away in Claire's robe.
Claire looked at Vanessa.
"How long have you been coming here?"
Grant kicked a chair aside.
"Don't make this more pathetic than it already is."
"You brought your mistress into my home."
"Your home?"
Something in his expression changed.
The contempt was worse than the anger.
Then Claire noticed the suitcase beside the staircase.
Her suitcase.
Half-zipped.
A sleeve from one of her sweaters hung out from the side.
She stared at it.
"You packed my things."
Grant said nothing.
Suddenly Claire understood.
The argument had not ended their marriage.
Grant had planned this before she came home.
He had known Vanessa would be there.
He had known Claire would discover them.
And he had packed her bag in advance.
Grant picked up the suitcase, opened the front door, and threw it down the stone steps.
It burst open in the rain.
A sweater landed in a puddle.
Claire stared at him.
"You hit me six times."
Grant kept one hand on the door.
"Don't make me repeat myself."
Something inside Claire became very quiet.
She picked up her cracked phone from the floor.
When she passed Vanessa, the other woman stepped backward.
The pearls remained in her ears.
Claire walked outside.
The door slammed behind her.
The lock clicked immediately.
Cold rain struck her face.
She had no shoes.
No coat.
Her suitcase was soaked before she managed to pull it upright. One wheel jammed against the stone edging. After struggling with it twice, Claire finally let go.
She sat on the bottom step.
For several seconds she simply stared at her phone.
Her father was dead.
Her mother was dead.
She had no siblings.
For most of her life, whenever something happened that she could not fix, there had been one person she called.
Thomas Bennett.
Her father's younger brother.
The man who had raised her after the funeral.
The man who had attended parent-teacher conferences, taught her to drive, sat through her college graduation, and walked her down the aisle when she married Grant.
Claire pressed his name.
He answered on the second ring.
"Claire?"
She tried to speak.
Nothing came.
May you like
His voice immediately sharpened.
"Claire, what's wrong?"
