Chapter 2: The Rules Apply to Both of Us
His smile didn't even flicker.
"Sure," he said, spreading his hands like a man who had already won.
"What's the condition?"
I set my glass down slowly.
I made sure he was watching my face before I spoke.
"The rules apply to both of us."
The smile disappeared.
"What?"
"An open marriage," I said calmly.
"That means both of us.
Not just you."
He stared at me.
I watched the color shift in his face — the confidence draining out of it, replaced by something I hadn't seen from him in years.
Panic.
"That's — that's not what I meant," he said.
"I know exactly what you meant," I told him.
"But that's my condition.
Equal.
Or not at all."
He leaned forward.
His voice dropped low.
"You're not serious."
"I'm completely serious." I picked up my glass again.
"In fact, I already have someone in mind."
The silence that followed was the loudest thing I had ever heard.
His jaw tightened.
His eyes went somewhere else for just a second — somewhere guilty — and that one small moment told me everything I needed to know.
There was already another woman.
He hadn't come to that dinner with an idea.
He had come with a plan.
And now his plan had just collapsed around him.
But what I hadn't told him yet — what he still had no idea about — was that I had made a phone call that afternoon.
Before the dinner.
May you like
Before any of this.
And the person I called already knew everything.
