All Chapters of Not The Man She Wanted: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

His bedroom door clicked shut. A small sound. It went through me like a nail. I stood in the long hallway in my wedding dress and counted the gold lights in the city through the window. A thousand. Two thousand. None of them mine. The thirty-two silk buttons up my spine bit through to the skin every time I breathed. Behind the wall, a drawer slid open. A drawer slid shut. A zipper. The soft thud of a shoe hitting hardwood. Somewhere in this black-and-white box of an apartment, my husband of ten hours was dressing for a place he had not invited me to. I pressed my back against the cool wall. One. Two. Three. Four. My mother's voice in my head from the year I was six and afraid of the dark. His door opened. I did not turn. I made my face the face I had worn for five years across a desk from his father. Quiet. Useful. Empty. His cologne arrived before he did. Underneath it, a fresh whiskey he had poured himself just now, in his own room, on his wedding night. He stopped behind m

CHAPTER 13 — THE DEAL CLOSESThe dress arrived in a black box on Friday afternoon with a card in Alvin's handwriting. Champagne. The Ashworths like champagne. — A.I lifted the lid. The silk inside breathed out at me. Pale gold, the color of the inside of a wedding cake. A neckline that came up high and a back that fell open all the way down. There was no price tag. Alvin's tailor had pinned a small note to the hem: Adjusted to your Tuesday measurements. A man I had never met had measured me through a magazine photograph and the dress fit me like he had grown up in our house.I stood in front of the bathroom mirror in the guest room for a long time before I put it on. My mother's pearl earrings caught the light. Six days married. Five days since the redhead. Four days since the message I had not answered. Do not trust the redhead. She works for his father. I had not asked Fabiola about it. I had not asked anyone. The phone the number had come from did not exist anymore when I tried it

CHAPTER 15 — HARRY, FROM AFARThe folder landed on my desk at 4:51 in the afternoon.Lena dropped it from chest height. The sound it made on the new wood was a small slap. She had been doing that for two days. Small mean things she could deny were mean."Vendor renewals. Mr. Alejandro wants your initial by tomorrow.""Which Mr. Alejandro."She did not answer. She walked out.I opened the folder.Twelve contracts. Standard renewals for the year. Cleaning. Catering. Security uniforms. Office supplies. I had typed contracts like these for five years.The fourth one stopped me.Alejandro Fabrics, LLC.The cover page was plain. The address was a warehouse on the south side, a part of town the company cars had never taken me through. The signature at the bottom of the cover letter was small and square and unhurried.Harry Alejandro. President.I read the name three times.Six days married. Six days carrying this last name. Six days of Mrs. Alejandro at the elevator and Mrs. Alejandro at the

CHAPTER 17 MEGAN RETURNSShe walked off the bus on a Thursday morning with a foil-wrapped pie in one hand and a paper bag in the other and she did not call ahead.That was my mother. Megan Knowles did not call ahead. She arrived.I did not know she was coming. I was at my desk at 9:14 reviewing the Ashworth deal paperwork for the third time when Tasha, the new floor receptionist, knocked on the glass."Mrs. Alejandro. There is a woman at the front desk for you. She says she is your mother."I stood up so fast the chair rolled away from me and hit the wall."Tell her — tell her I will come right down."I did not take the elevator. I took the stairs. Twenty-three flights. By the time I reached the lobby my lungs hurt and my hair had come down out of the clip and I had the cold sweat of a woman who has not yet thought of a single lie.She was standing by the security desk in her good blue coat. The one she had worn to my high school graduation. The collar was a little frayed now at the

CHAPTER 19 — THE WILD NIGHTIt was a Friday. Six days after the magazine. Three days after I had given my husband my mother's address and watched him write it on a piece of paper, fold it in half, and put it in the inside pocket of his suit jacket without a word.I had stayed late at the office. I had been staying late at the office. The apartment had begun to feel like a thing I was avoiding.The doors slid open on forty-eight. The bass hit me in the chest.The first thing I saw were strangers. A man in a half-buttoned silk shirt leaning against the wall of my entryway, laughing into a phone. A woman in a gold dress eating a strawberry over the marble of my kitchen island with her hip cocked against the counter and her shoes off on my floor.Music shook the windows. Atlanta blinked back at it from forty-eight floors of glass.I counted twelve people from the doorway. That was just the kitchen and the living room. The pool door was open. There were more on the terrace.The smell of th