Novels by Mercy Peter

(Camille)I had a key to Nathaniel's apartment, and in eleven months I had used it exactly four times.Tonight I used it because I was tired of being polite. My flight from Geneva had landed early, and his phone had gone to voicemail twice, and a woman who has spent a year being understanding eventually runs out.The elevator opened onto lamplight and the smell of tea. Nathaniel drank black coffee and nothing else. This was something floral, and it was coming from the kitchen."Nathaniel?" I called.A woman stepped out of the kitchen instead.She was slender, with shadows under her eyes and a thin bandage at her hairline, half hidden by dark hair. She held a teacup in both hands as if it were the only warm thing in the world.I knew her at once. I had seen her face twice before: once in the newspapers after the accident, and once in a photograph on a shelf in Nathaniel's office, half hidden behind a stack of books. He had said it belonged to an old project. I had pretended to believe

(Arielle)Nathaniel drove me to the Sterling house himself and parked across the street. I had asked him to wait in the car. He had agreed, but his hands stayed on the steering wheel, and he watched the front door as if it might bite."Twenty minutes," I said. "If I'm not out by then—""I'll come in.""You'll wait.""I'll wait," he said, in the tone of a man who had no intention of doing so.Damian had left for the office. I knew because I had checked, and because he had texted twice that morning, each message longer and more careful than the last. I hadn't answered either.The house looked exactly as I had left it. White stone, black shutters, the climbing roses I had planted the spring Ethan learned to walk. I used my own key. It still worked, which felt like an oversight on someone's part.The front hall smelled different. Lilies, heavy and sweet, where I had always kept eucalyptus. A vase of them sat on the console table, in the spot where Ethan's school photograph used to be.Viv

(Arielle)Damian came back three days later, and this time he didn't ask for me.I was in the hallway outside Nathaniel's study when the elevator opened. I heard his footsteps first, fast and heavy, and then his voice, low and controlled."Where is he?"Nathaniel stepped out of the study before anyone could answer. He closed the door behind him, but not all the way. I understood that this was deliberate. He glanced at me, then at the gap, and walked down the hall to meet my husband.I stayed where I was, in the shadow of the bookcase, and listened."You've got nerve," Damian said. "Walking into my life, taking my wife into your home, and then hiding behind a doorman.""Your wife walked out of a hospital because she wanted to," Nathaniel said. "I didn't carry her out. I offered her a car.""You offered her a bed.""I offered her a guest room, with a lock on the inside. She can show you, if you'd like to check."Damian laughed, sharp and humorless. "Don't play the gentleman with me, Nat

(Arielle)Damian found me in under two days.I should have known he would. Ten years of marriage had taught me that Damian Sterling did not lose things. He recovered them.I was in Nathaniel's kitchen, barefoot, reading the morning news on a tablet I had no memory of being handed, when the doorman's voice came through the intercom. Polite. Strained."Mr. Cross, there's a gentleman here who insists he's expected."Nathaniel looked at me across the counter. He didn't say anything. He just waited, the way he always did, leaving the decision in my hands."Send him up," I said."Arielle." Quietly. "You don't have to see him.""I know." I set the tablet down. "That's why I want to."He nodded once and moved to stand by the window, far enough away that this would be my scene and not his. I smoothed the front of my sweater. My hands were steady, which still surprised me.The elevator chimed.Damian came through the doors like a man walking onto a construction site he owned. Dark coat, no umbr

(Arielle)“Don’t you want to see the look on Damian’s face when he realizes he’s been betrayed?”I said it the next evening, standing in Nathaniel’s kitchen with a glass of wine I hadn’t touched. He had come home early. He’d taken off his jacket and loosened his collar, and he was looking at me the way he had all day, as if he were waiting for a verdict.“Betrayed,” he repeated.“He thinks I’m a blank page. Someone he can rewrite whenever it suits him.” I set the glass down. “He told a woman who couldn’t remember her own name that she had no husband and no son. I want him to find out, slowly, that he never had the upper hand.”“Revenge isn’t a clean thing.”“Neither is what he did.” I held his eyes. “He and Vivienne lied to me. Fine. I can lie too. They think I’m still lost. Let them keep thinking it. Let them get comfortable. And when they are, I’ll take it all apart.”He was quiet for a long moment.“You’d need to be convincing.”“I’ve been a convincing wife for ten years.”Somethin

(Arielle)I don't know how long I stood at the window after the sedan was gone. Long enough for the glass to go fully dark, and for my reflection to become the only thing in it. "I want to leave," I said. Nathaniel didn't ask whether I was sure. "The doctor will want to keep you overnight." "Then the doctor can write whatever she needs me to sign. I can't sleep in this building. Every afternoon he sat in that chair and watched me thank him." My voice stayed level, which surprised me. "I keep thinking about how kind I was to him." "Give me ten minutes." It took him twelve. I never learned exactly what he said to the attending physician, but she came in with a clipboard and a tight expression, went through the concussion checklist twice, and made me promise to return at the first sign of dizziness. Nathaniel carried the folder of discharge papers. A nurse brought a wheelchair. I let her, because my legs had not entirely forgiven me for the morning. Nobody had packed my things. The