Free The Saint's Wife by Lauren Gallagher

faced him. “What?”
    “Look.” He shifted his weight. “We don’t see eye to eye. Never have, never will. But…I mean, you’re…” He paused, struggling to hold her gaze. “Chris’s illness, it’s hard on all of us, but you’re his wife. I can’t even imagine what that’s like.”
    “You’re right,” she said coldly. “You can’t.”
    He blinked. “I do care, though.”
    “About me?” She narrowed her eyes. “Or about keeping His Majesty happy?”
    “You. For God’s sake, I—”
    “Save it.” She glared at him. “If you cared about me, you would have left me in Tillamook.”
    “Would you really have stayed there? While Chris was…” He swallowed.
    Joanna’s eyes lost focus for a moment. Then she met his again, and nodded. “Yes. I would have.”
    Anger tightened his throat. “You’d really—”
    “David.” She put up a hand. “Please. I know you care about Chris. Believe it or not, so do I. But you have no idea what my life is like. And as long as you think I should just suck it up and take whatever he”—she stabbed a finger toward the door—“dishes out, then forgive me if I have trouble believing that you care about me any more than you care about one of his cars or that goddamned yacht.”
    He wanted to snap back that Chris was dying , for God’s sake, that this was her husband and his best friend she was talking about, but then he noticed the way the light was playing on her way-too-thin cheeks and her way-too-prominent collarbones.
    David chewed his lip. “Is there…is there anything I can do?”
    She jumped a little, as if she’d been expecting a very different response. And maybe she was. She recovered quickly, though, and set her jaw. “Yes, actually there is something you can do.”
    “Name it.”
    “If I ever manage to work up the courage to leave him again?” She took a step toward the ballroom door. “Don’t try to stop me.”
    And with that, she was gone.
    By the time Saturday rolled around, David still hadn’t shaken off his thoughts about Joanna. Several times, while they’d been working in either Chris’s home office or the downtown one, he’d been tempted to ask if things were getting better between the couple. Pick Chris’s brain a little, look for the red flags, try to put his finger on what was fucked up between them. And whether it was a new development, or if it had been that way all along and he’d completely missed it. He was curious and concerned, but they’d been too busy to talk about anything personal.
    And this weekend, David had other things to concentrate on.
    At just a little past nine in the morning, he pulled up in front of his ex-wife’s house. On the way up to the front door, he couldn’t help smiling, and that smile got even bigger when he heard “Daddy’s here!” from the other side.
    His ex-wife opened the door, and Tiffany, his four-and-a-half-year-old daughter, exploded through it. “Hi, Daddy!”
    “Hey, kiddo!” He scooped her up and hugged her. “How’s my favorite little girl?”
    She giggled. “Good.”
    “Good.” He kissed her cheek, and then set her down. “You ready to go?”
    “Yes.”
    “You sure?” Alexandra asked. “I think you still needed to pack your bag.”
    Tiffany’s smile vanished in favor of a sheepish expression, and her cheeks glowed red.
    “Why don’t you go finish packing?” David gently nudged her, and she quickly turned and trotted down the hall.
    Leaving David alone.
    With Alexandra.
    They followed her to her room. Alexandra had stacked some folded clothes on the bed, and Tiffany carefully started putting them into her Dora the Explorer backpack. Though she was not yet five, she insisted on packing her own things. She’d definitely inherited her mother’s independence.
    While she packed, David and Alexandra stood in the doorway. They exchanged glances but didn’t speak. David hated to admit to himself that that had become normal. At least the slightly frosty silence was