Chapter 5: The Birthday That Never Came
I waited until Maya had gone before I called Adrian’s mother.
The office door clicked shut behind her. For a moment, I sat listening to the building breathe: the distant rush of elevators, the muted voices beyond my glass walls, the low hum of the air-conditioning. My CEO title was printed on the directory outside. It didn’t make the call easier.
She answered on the fourth ring.
“Claire, sweetheart. Is everything all right?”
“I wanted to ask you something about your birthday.”
A small pause. “All right.”
“Did Adrian give you the watch I picked out?”
Silence.
Then, gently, “No. I never received a watch.”
I closed my eyes. The answer didn’t hurt because I’d been uncertain. It hurt because some part of me had still hoped I was.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Why are you apologizing? You weren’t the one who forgot.”
“I asked Adrian to buy it while I was traveling. He told me it was handled.”
“Oh.” Her voice softened in the way people’s voices do when they’re trying not to make a difficult moment worse. “I thought perhaps you’d changed your mind.”
“I hadn’t.”
“I know you wanted to do something special.”
The quiet that followed belonged to both of us. I could picture her at home, keeping the conversation gentle for my sake, though the lie wasn’t hers to soften.
“I’m going to find out what happened,” I said.
“You don’t have to protect me from the truth, Claire.”
That nearly undid me.
“I won’t.”
When we hung up, I stayed still, my phone in my hand. The city beyond the windows was bright and indifferent. I had spent weeks imagining her opening that gift. I’d pictured her turning her wrist to catch the light, teasing me for choosing something too extravagant.
Instead, she had never even seen it.
I sent Adrian one message: Come to my office. Alone.
He arrived a few minutes later and closed the door behind him. His eyes went first to my face, then to my phone on the desk.
“You called my mother,” he said.
“I asked her whether she received the watch.”
He exhaled, looking down. He didn’t ask what she’d said.
“Did you give it to Vanessa?”
“Yes.”
The word was quiet. It still seemed to fill the room.
I stood, not because I wanted to loom over him, but because sitting suddenly felt too much like accepting his version of events before I’d heard it.
“Why?”
He rubbed his palm along the edge of his jacket. “There was an issue at work. Vanessa was upset. She said the way I was handling things could turn into a formal complaint.”
“What things?”
“I can’t get into all of it right now.”
“You can get into why you gave her a gift meant for your mother.”
His jaw tightened. “I thought if I gave her something personal, it would settle things down. Keep it from becoming a scandal.”
“A watch worth enough to make it a scandal.”
“I know how it sounds.”
“Do you?”
He looked at me then. The tiredness in his face might once have made me reach for his hand. Now I saw how easily it could become a request for me to take care of him.
“It was a selfish decision,” he said. “I didn’t want a problem at work. I didn’t want the attention. I thought I could handle it quietly.”
“You could have told me.”
“I should have.”
“You told me it was handled.”
“I know.”
“You let my mother think I’d changed my mind.”
“I didn’t tell her that.”
“Did she think the watch was coming?”
He didn’t answer fast enough.
I felt my hurt settle into something clearer, less likely to be mistaken for a plea. This wasn’t confusion. He had understood what the gift meant. He’d known whose birthday it was, whose watch it was, and what “handled” would make me believe.
“You didn’t just give away a present,” I said. “You let two women carry your lie for you.”
“I wasn’t trying to hurt either of you.”
“You were trying not to be inconvenienced.”
His gaze dropped again.
“I made a bad choice,” he said. “But we don’t need to make this public.”
There it was: the easy next step, offered like mercy. Keep the secret small. Keep the people around him comfortable. Let my mother-in-law believe the missing gift was a harmless mistake, and let Vanessa keep wearing the proof.
I looked at the man I’d married and felt the distance between us become measurable.
“No.”
“Claire—”
“My mother-in-law deserves the truth. So do I.”
“I’m asking you not to turn a personal mistake into an office crisis.”
“You gave an employee a gift intended for your mother, then lied to me about it. You can’t decide it’s private just because the truth would be inconvenient.”
His expression changed. For a second I saw anger, or fear dressed as anger. Then he swallowed it.
“I’m not asking you to lie.”
“You already did that part for both of us.”
He stared at the floor between us. I wanted to ask if there was anything else. The question rose, sharp and enormous. But I didn’t have evidence for anything else yet. I wouldn’t let fear write the facts for me.
I opened the door.
Adrian looked at me. “What now?”
“Now, you leave.”
He did. His footsteps faded down the corridor, swallowed by the polished quiet of the executive floor.
I returned to my desk, but I didn’t sit. Through the glass, I saw Vanessa approach from the far end of the hall. She stopped outside my office, waiting until I looked up.
The watch gleamed on her wrist.
This time, it wasn’t a mystery. It was an answer Adrian had given me without saying the word.
Vanessa lifted her hand slightly, as if she’d noticed my attention. Then she pushed open the door and stepped inside.
“Did he tell you?” she asked.
“Yes.”
A small smile crossed her face. “And did he tell you why?”
“He said he wanted to avoid a scandal.”
“He would say that.”
“You knew it was for his mother.”
“I knew it was a gift.” Her fingers brushed the watchband. “I also knew he didn’t want trouble.”
“You accepted something he knew wasn’t his to give.”
“Adrian makes his own choices, Claire.”
“And you knew he was lying to me.”
Vanessa’s smile faded, leaving something colder behind. “You think this was about the watch.”
I didn’t move.
She leaned toward the desk, her voice dropping. “If you’re waiting for Adrian to choose what’s right when it costs him something, you’ve misunderstood him for a long time.”
May you like
Then she glanced at her wrist.
“And this is only the smallest of his compromises.”
