The Wrong Wife by Maya Alden
Chapter 16
Declan
Mateo was sitting too close to Esme. I needed to catch up on what Viv and the Senator discussed because my attention was divided. This was not who I was. Business always came first, but I was feeling jealous that Mateo was sitting beside her, enjoying her smiles.
She wasn't drinking wine—probably because her father said she shouldn't. She liked wine; I knew that even though we'd lived together for just a few days, yet she'd submitted to Julien. He'd been angry with her; that was for all to see in the way he talked to her with barely repressed fury. I thought he'd be grateful that she'd married me so he could retire, his business in good hands, and his future income secured. But when I'd called him to tell him that Esme would join us for dinner with the Senator, he'd advised me against it.
"Esme is not Viv. She'll say something stupid…Monica is like that as well. I'm careful where I take these two."
The way he'd put down his wife and daughter was cruel, I'd thought then, yet I had ignored Esme all evening. Especially after what we'd done in the car on our way here. At the remembered feel of her on my fingers, I felt my cock tighten. Viv was sitting on the other side of the Senator. Otherwise, she'd have noticed and attributed it to her. She would not have been wrong in the past. Watching her in powerful lawyer mode always made me hard, but today…there was guilt for how I was treating Esme. Mateo had said that I should show compassion. I had failed at that. Fuck compassion: I was humiliating her here at dinner. I should've insisted we sit together. Newlyweds and all that.
"Senator, we will be happy to provide funds for some of the mayor's homelessness programs," Viv said when I returned my attention to her.
"The program needs corporate sponsors," the Senator agreed. "And my wife is a staunch supporter."
"Absolutely," Cecily Rivers said. "Esme, have you worked with homelessness?"
Esme looked like she wanted the earth to open and swallow her, but only momentarily. She gathered herself as I'd seen her do so many times in the past two days. The pressure of continually wearing a mask and not letting the fear or sadness of the moment show must be immense. How did she handle that regularly?
"Yes, in Seattle," she replied and stiffened. Her father had leaned toward her and whispered something. I saw his fingers grab her arm. He'd done that before, and I hadn't liked it then or now. There was malice in the way he touched her.
"I've heard good things about the Seattle program. Tell us about it," Senator Rivers demanded.
Esme nodded at her father as he said something to her; and smiled as if he was being friendly. "The program in Seattle worked closely with SAMHSA…Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services, a federal program. They offer grant programs and services, which helped set up facilities to help men, women, youth, and even families struggling with mental health and substance use issues. And the Housing First program with targeted rental and housing subsidies also had a major impact."
"What was your role?" the Senator asked.
Julien once again squeezed Esme’s arm, and she flinched but kept the smile on her face. "I worked with juveniles aging out of the system to make sure that they went to a halfway home where they would continue to have supervision and would also acquire skills through training programs. The goal is to ensure they either these children go to community college or get trained for a job."
"How many children did this program work with?" Senator Rivers asked.
"Oh, easily, say two hundred young adults every month, and some months it was more. Funds and resources were always stretched. We continually had to prioritize what we could and couldn't do."
"That must've been hard." Cicely was impressed with Esme.
My phone lit up with a text message from Viv that I read discreetly. Get them off this topic. Esme will keep talking about this, and we need the Senator to support the tech bill.
I looked up to see Esme in her element. "Of course, it's never easy working with young adults who've had a difficult childhood, but when you can turn their lives around that's the reward and fully worth it. And, honestly, they’ve had a harder time than the social worker."
"Esme is going to work at Safe Harbor," Cicely told her husband.
He smiled broadly. "An excellent program. Maria Caruso has been way more serious about charity programs than her father was. We're very impressed with that whole family."
"The Knight Foundation supports many good causes as well," Nina piped in.
"Of course, of course," the Senator realized that he'd admired another wealthy donor and ignored the one taking him out for a six-course Michelin star dinner. "The Knight family is always at the forefront of innovation. Why, Viv and Dec are talking about the tech bill, which will make it easier to bring semiconductor raw materials from around the world to the United States."
The topic quickly shifted back to the bill and the cause of the dinner.
Esme fell silent again. Before the last course, she excused herself. I wanted to follow her, but Julien beat me to it. If I left the table too, there would be too few Knights left, so I stayed.
When they returned, Esme's face was drawn even though she’d painted that awful plastic smile on her face, I’d learnt to differentiate from the real deal.
After dinner, I was eager to get into the car with Esme and talk to her, but Viv insisted on a drink at a nearby bar called The Misfit. Mateo said he would leave, and Julien took that opportunity to suggest he drop Esme off.
I watched her get into Mateo's Maserati that the valet had dropped off and followed my ex-fiancée to a bar for a drink I didn't want.