MRS. LUNE

Richard's arm lay across Bella's waist thirteen minutes before the alarm, while the red clock beside their bed showed 5:47.

It was May 24, 2025, ten months before Richard died.

Bella stayed still and listened to his low, steady snore through his open mouth. Richard slept flat on his back, with one arm over her and one foot past his side, taking the center of their wide bed without trying.

The primary bedroom had room for a sofa, two chairs, and an unused table, yet Bella slept within six inches of the edge.

She lifted Richard's hand one finger at a time, and when he only made a rough sound and turned toward her pillow, Bella slid free.

Her bathroom lights came on in a soft row around the mirror, and the room smelled faintly of last night's face cream. She shut the door before starting the shower.

At forty, Bella knew exactly how long it took to look as if she had not tried. She dried her dark hair with a diffuser, a round tool that spread hot air and kept her waves full. After tinted cream, one coat of mascara, and clear balm, she took her birth-control pill with the first cold mouthful of tap water.

The pill sat beside her vitamins; Richard had once called children a conversation for after the next promotion, and several promotions had come without it.

Bella leaned close to the mirror, where her deep brown eyes looked darker without court makeup or a room waiting to judge them. Fine lines now touched the corners, and she noticed them without hate. Beauty had opened doors for Bella, including the one to this house, but offered no instructions for what came next.

Her mother would have told her to stop staring. Elena Caruso could fix a torn hem with two pins and make the repair look planned. In Bella's childhood Northgate walk-up, five floors without an elevator made every forgotten grocery bag a lesson; Elena had dark curls, red reading glasses, and quick hands that always found the next useful thing.

Once, before a school concert, fourteen-year-old Bella split her only black skirt and started crying in the bathroom while fifty parents waited downstairs.

Elena pinned the cloth, turned Bella around, wiped one wet cheek with her thumb, and said, "They're waiting, so decide what you want them to see."

Bella had walked onto the stage, and now she stepped into a cream fine-knit sweater and fitted jeans. The simple outfit had taken four changes.

The Lune estate held nineteen rooms, not counting halls wide enough for furniture, so Bella could reach the kitchen without meeting another person. At this hour, she liked that more than she admitted.

By 7:15, a vegetable omelet waited on a warm plate at the kitchen island while coffee filled Richard's mug. Beside it sat the Wall Street Journal, the business newspaper Bella had folded with the markets section facing up.

Richard entered wearing gray suit pants and a white shirt open at the collar. At forty-two, he was still lean, with dark hair turning silver at both temples and hazel eyes that softened when he forgot to manage them. His cedar cologne reached the island before he did.

Eight years earlier, Bella had called his controlled movements confidence; now she saw how rarely he had to move around another person.

"Morning, Bells."

"Morning."

He bent, kissed the top of her head, and rested his hand there for half a second. The affection was real and as familiar as every morning before it.

Richard sat, opened the paper, and said after two bites, "Omelet's good."

"Thank you."

"London's confirmed."

Bella kept her smoothie near her mouth. "When?"

"Tomorrow morning for three weeks, maybe a few days more if the deal drags."

Her shoulders loosened before she could stop them, and Richard lifted his eyes from the markets page. "Problem?"

"No, I thought you meant later this summer."

"They moved it up."

"Three weeks is a long trip."

"It's a large deal, and if it closes, it'll be good for us."

Us meant a larger number on a screen Richard checked and Bella did not, so she smiled over her glass.

"Then I hope it closes."

"You'll be all right here with book club, tennis, and the foundation stuff."

He moved one hand, trying to gather the rest of her days from the air, before Bella added, "And the house."

"Exactly, so you'll keep busy."

The omelet cooled while he read, and Bella drank an unwanted smoothie while counting four wet clicks of his chewing before making herself stop.

Richard turned a page and said, "You look good."

"Do I?"

"Have you been going to the gym more?"

The second sentence took the first one back, but Bella only said, "Same as always."

"Camille's doing that spin class, and she looks great, so you should try it."

"Maybe."

"You'd like it."

Bella glanced down at her cream sweater and said, "I'm sure I would."

Richard finished the coffee, reached across the island, and touched her wrist. "Hey, I meant the first part. You do look beautiful."

His face softened into the man who used to wait outside event halls at midnight with food because Bella had forgotten dinner.

"Thank you," she said.

He gave her wrist one small squeeze, gathered the paper, stood, and asked, "Did my shirts come back?"

"They're in the dressing room; the blue ones are together, and your passport is on the top shelf of the safe."

"What would I do without you?"

The answer arrived at once: hire someone. Bella kept it behind her teeth.

Richard walked down the main hall and entered his study, whose door closed a moment later with a soft latch. He shut it whenever he worked from home, even if the only other person in the house was his wife.

Bella cleared his plate as his phone lit with a travel notice on the counter. She turned it facedown without reading it and began a list for the trip.

***

The Plyth Valley Country Club sat above a green golf course and required a member to bring you inside, where people played, ate, and made useful friendships look accidental.

That evening, the dining room smelled of grilled fish, lemon, and furniture polish while low voices moved beneath the soft clink of forks. Richard kept one hand at Bella's lower back as the host led them to a round table near the windows.

Bella wore a short-sleeved black dress with a narrow gold belt, while Richard had chosen a dark suit and the blue tie she packed for London meetings.

Camille Langley, one of Bella's closest club friends, stood to greet them and treated every dinner as if someone might grade it later. At thirty-six, she had a straight honey-blonde bob, gray-green eyes, and a pale-blue dress without one soft fold; her small white bag sat even with the edge of her place setting.

"Look at you," Camille said, kissing the air beside Bella's cheek. "I hate you a little."

"You look terrible," Bella said. "It must be hard."

Camille laughed and pressed her fingertips to Bella's arm, though her eyes still moved over the dress, belt, and bare legs before she sat.

Dean Langley rose more slowly. Camille's husband worked in private equity, meaning his firm bought companies, changed them, and tried to sell them for more. In his early forties, he had thick brown hair, a neat beard, and a heavy watch beneath his navy sleeve.

Dean shook Richard's hand, then opened his arms just enough for Bella to choose a brief hug. "Richard, Bella, it's good to see you."

"You too," Bella said.

Menus opened and water appeared while Camille took one piece of bread, broke it, and left both halves on her plate.

"Did you see the woman in yellow by the bar?" she asked Bella.

Bella glanced once. "What about her?"

"Twelve pounds, maybe fifteen, and she looks incredible."

"She looked fine before."

"Of course she did." Camille pushed the butter dish toward Dean. "She just looks happy now."

The woman in yellow was speaking with both hands and eating a dinner roll. Bella liked her at once.

Dean and Richard began talking about a medical company that needed money to grow; Richard's bank could arrange part of the deal, and Dean's firm wanted the first meeting.

"We should have the division head and his wife over after London," Dean said. "Keep it informal."

Nothing formal meant flowers, staff schedules, food needs, clean silver, correct wine, and a table that made six people feel important without showing how hard anyone had worked.

Richard did not turn toward Bella. "Bells can set that up."

Camille brightened. "At your place, then, because Evelyn always says nobody handles a difficult table like Bella."

Evelyn Lune, Richard's mother and a former chair of the club board, no longer ran its meetings, yet people still quoted her approval as if it came with a seal.

"My mother knows what she's talking about," Richard said.

Bella placed her napkin across her lap. "Send me the dates."

"See?" Dean said. "Done."

The server arrived, and Camille ordered sea bass with no sauce while Bella chose the same fish with the sauce left on; Camille noticed.

While the men returned to numbers, Camille leaned closer and asked, "Are you really not taking the spin class?"

"Apparently my body is now a group project."

Camille's laugh came out too loud, so she covered it with her water glass.

"It's awful," she said, "so you'll love it."

"Richard says you look fantastic."

For one second, Camille's smile lost its clean shape; then she lined her knife beside her plate and said, "Dean likes it."

A woman from the next table stopped on her way back from the restroom. She had a glossy dark bob, an auction name tag still pinned to her wrap, and two children's paper bracelets around one wrist.

"Bella, I don't know how you stay so put together," she said. "No kids at home, right? What do you do with all that time?"

The question came wrapped in a smile.

Bella had once managed three corporate events in one week, including a ballroom that lost power during setup and a chief executive who added eighty guests at lunch. Bella found a generator, rebuilt the tables, and opened the doors six minutes early.

She started to answer as Richard's hand settled on her knee beneath the table.

"She keeps busy," he said. "There's tennis, book club, charity work, and a house that could be a company by itself."

The woman nodded at Bella. "Lucky. I'd give anything for one empty afternoon."

"I'm sure," Bella said.

"Well, enjoy it while you can."

She returned to her table before Bella could ask what was supposed to happen next.

Camille picked up one half of the broken bread, put it down again, and said, "She means well."

"That makes it better."

Dean caught only the last line and asked, "What makes what better?"

"Spin class," Camille said.

He grinned and said, "Whatever she's doing, it's working."

Camille's fingers left the bread.

Richard squeezed Bella's knee once as if they had handled something together, then moved his hand away and asked Dean about closing costs.

Dinner continued as Bella asked the right question about Dean's work and praised Camille's earrings. She touched Richard's sleeve when he made the table laugh, then remembered which wife hated shellfish before agreeing to host people she had never met.

Near dessert, a Hargrove partner stopped at their table, and Richard stood with one hand behind Bella's waist.

"You know my beautiful wife."

The partner did, as did most people at the club.

Richard's pride was real enough for Bella to feel in his hand and hear in his voice, and when the other man glanced at her dress, Richard stood a little straighter.

On the drive home, Richard's hand returned to his phone while he answered an email and said, "Good dinner."

"Camille barely ate."

"She looks healthy."

Bella turned toward the dark window. "That's what everyone says."

"Can you find a Thursday for that dinner? Mid-June, maybe."

"You'll still be in London."

"Then after."

"I'll look."

He typed with both thumbs and said, "You're the best, Bells," while streetlights passed over his face and disappeared.

***

Bella knew Richard wanted sex before he touched her because he poured a second scotch, stayed in the bathroom longer than usual, and came to bed in boxers instead of pajama pants.

She wore a soft gray sleep shirt and lay on her side with a book open to the same paragraph she had already read three times.

Richard set his phone on the charger beside an open suitcase, half filled with shirts Bella had folded and placed on the bench beneath the windows.

He slid under the sheet, touched her hip, and asked, "Still awake?"

"Barely."

He kissed the back of her shoulder and asked, "Too tired?"

Bella knew Richard would have stopped if she had said yes.

"I'm okay," she said.

He took the book from her hand, placed it facedown on the nightstand, and kissed her mouth.

Bella kissed him back while his tongue moved with the same slow push he always used and his palm closed over her breast through the sleep shirt.

"Come here," he said.

She rolled onto her back and pulled the shirt above her waist as Richard pushed down his boxers, his cock already hard.

Bella opened the bedside drawer and handed him the small bottle of lubricant.

He rubbed it over himself, moved between her legs, and used two fingers on her clit with a quick, firm touch that woke the nerves without taking them anywhere.

"Good?" he asked.

"Mm-hm."

He entered her, and the lubricant kept the first push from hurting.

Bella rested her hands on his shoulders while Richard used the steady rhythm he had kept for years. His face stayed near her neck, and his breath warmed the skin beneath her ear.

She made a low sound, and his pace quickened.

Bella lifted her hips when he expected it and tightened her fingers against his back. Another sound left her mouth, soft enough for him and quiet enough for the room.

Over his shoulder, the ceiling fan turned while Camille's broken bread and Richard's promised guest list waited in Bella's mind. The pool filter needed a service call, and one of his blue shirts still had a loose button.

Richard's breath shortened as his body pressed harder between her legs, and then he finished with a low groan. His cock pulsed inside her while Bella held still beneath him.

He kissed her forehead, pulled out, reached for a tissue, and said, "That was nice."

"Yes."

Richard dropped the tissue into the wastebasket and rolled onto his back; within two minutes, his breathing slowed, and before three, the first snore crossed the bed.

Bella pulled down her sleep shirt over a body that had not come close to an orgasm and had not expected one.

She lay beside Richard and searched eight years of hotel rooms, birthdays, quiet Sundays, and one June wedding for the last time she had wanted him first.

She could not find it, and at least two years had passed since desire for Richard felt like her own. Maybe it had been longer; the missing date scared her less than the smooth lie of the last seven minutes.

She had given him every sound in the right place while Richard slept with one arm fallen across the sheet between them. His passport lay on the dresser beneath the printed London itinerary.

Sunday.

Bella stopped counting the ceiling-fan turns and listened as the pool pump started beyond the open window.