“Robert, tell me again you aren’t having an affair.” She said, leaning against the cabin bar and refusing to look up from her skiwasser.
He set down his drink, the usual Bombardino, and ran his fingers through his immaculate salt and pepper hair. “Ophelia I promise you. I have never so much as looked twice after another woman. My heart is entirely, unequivocally yours. But this suspicion? It needs to stop. It’s breaking us Oph. It’s breaking me.”
She nodded, expecting this response. “So then let me have your passwords. You have mine. If there’s nothing to hide then let me have your passwords.”
“You know my client work is… confidential.”
“Like I knew you were flying to Brussels last week before our trip, but then your PA said you were in Brazil.”
“You know I mix things up.” He said, adding a log to the fire.
“Brazil!” She threw her hands up, no longer interested in hiding her frustrating. “It’s not even the same continent, come on. Give me some respect here.”
“Both Bs,” he said, sipping his drink so calmly she wanted to hit him.
“Who goes to Brazil for 3 days? What on earth is going on?” She paced the cabin. This painfully boring place they came to every year because he liked routine and he needed a break from the stressful job he couldn’t talk about. She didn’t need to worry about bills like her friends did, so she didn’t ask questions. She dutifully packed for the trip every year and met him at the cabin. His cabin. She hated the cabin.
“Honey, we had such a wonderful day on the slopes and we could have had a great night, but this?” He shook his head and took another sip from his glass. “We need to meet with Dr Brown again, revisit our trust and-“
“Oh stop that. I do not have trust issues and I know what you’re doing Robert, you deflect, you distract, it’s maddening.” She gestured tearing out her hair.
He raised an eyebrow. “I-“
She took a breath and smoothed her robe. “At least stop the lies.”
Robert’s shoulders sank. He rubbed his temples. “I don’t know what to tell you.”
She sat down. “Try starting with the truth for once.”
He looked at the seat next to her, but glanced first at his phone on the counter. For just a second. Long enough for her to notice it. To grab it.
He stood over her, veins throbbing in his forehead as he forced a steady tone. “My files are confidential, you know this.”
She stood and stared at the mirror above the fireplace. Noticing her greys and fine lines, noticing him seeing them too. She felt sick as realisation dawned: she thought her friends’ husbands had been pigs for suggesting they dye their greys or try fillers or Botox and Robert had been progressive for being fine with her aging… but what if he simply hadn’t noticed. She looked away, breaking their odd mirror eye contact. “We have been married for 15 years and you have never once told me the truth.”
“I’m calling Dr Brown. Pass me my phone.”
“No. No, we are not continuing this charade. I followed you.”
She glanced back at the mirror and saw a flash of something in his face. Fear perhaps.
“When? Why? Oph this is. This just isn’t-“
He sat down on the loveseat opposite her, staring out of the cabin window, towards the mountains that it was too dark to see.
She swallowed hard. Trying to gain the strength to just say it, and the energy to sound like it wasn’t breaking her. “I saw you meeting a woman.”
“You could have comprised the-“ he put his head in his hands. “How could I have been so stupid?” He looked up and laughed.
“What are you even saying? I saw you with her, Robert.”
“And that’s what you think? That I’m having an affair with a high security client? That I’d throw everything away for some fling?”
“I didn’t think-“
“No you didn’t think. My clients are high net worth individuals. They require the utmost secrecy and they track and monitor everything. The entire deal could be compromised. I need to find out what they know. Give me my phone.”
She shook her head and moved further away from him. “It’s been five years to the day since I saw you with her. I’ve followed you several times Robert. And I know what you’re doing.”
He shook his head.
“Give me your passcode.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“Because of your implied secret service job? Well I checked. MI5 and even MI6 can tell their spouse. Unless you’re somehow FBI, which is unlikely, then you wouldn’t need to withhold anything from me.”
He laughed. “You’ve lost your mind.” He held out his hand for the phone, shaking his head and sighing as though handling a naughty child.
“There it is again. I know what you are doing Robert. You have been meeting this woman for 5 years. At hotels. At airports. From what I’ve learn, she is Brazilian. So I gather you were with her in Brazil. You see her twice a month like clockwork. This isn’t a business deal and she isn’t a new client you’re trying to win over. So tell me Robert, are you having an affair?”