Now, I didn’t get specific numbers, Dr. K, but in the men’s bathroom of Le Bernardin a quick Google search of F&C Pharmaceuticals + Johnson & Johnson led to the discovery that the fortune is substantial. Skye’s grandfather appeared in an article on CNBC titled “197 Billionaires ‘Too Poor’ to Make Forbes List of 400 Richest Americans.” The article claimed his net worth to be $1.2 billion from “inherited pharmaceuticals.”

Holy fucking fuck, Dr. K. I’ve never been one to believe in the workings of fate, but it’s just too strange that in the midst of the direst financial crisis of my life I meet someone like Skye—the trust-fund baby of a $1.2 billion fortune.

I spent the rest of our dinner in an odd, dreamy sort of haze. How many times had I considered the insanely rich before? How many times in the past six months had I thought to myself, Jeff Bezos has $160 billion; if he could just give me a quick million, all my financial troubles would be solved forever, and he wouldn’t even notice.

This thought is irrational, and one I probably share with every other middle-class American asshole. But last night at Le Bernardin sitting across from Skye Starling—the girl I’d spent the past two weeks wining and dining and screwing—I asked myself a similar question. And perhaps it was the physical proximity to such exorbitant wealth, but somehow, this time, the question seemed entirely rational. The outcome felt attainable.

No, I wasn’t going to directly ask her for a million dollars, Dr. K; I’m not a complete fool. But the wheels were beginning to turn. By the time the waiter deposited our final course of burnt-orange crémeux with clementine sorbet, I knew how I would pose the question I couldn’t shake from my mind.

“Thank you for being honest with me about your … situation,” I started.

“Of course.” Skye blinked, her eyelashes long and impossibly thick. “I figured I would tell you. We’re starting to spend more time together, and it’s … obviously a part of who I am.”

I nodded. “Trust funds can be tricky. I have some clients who’ve really gotten the short end of the stick in that situation. From a wealth management perspective, I mean. But it sounds like your father didn’t get tied up in any trust-fund laws.” I paused, sorbet dripping from my spoon. “Sorry, I’m babbling. I don’t mean to pry.”

But Skye nodded. “No, you’re right, I’ve heard it can be a total nightmare.” She swallowed. “But, yeah, luckily the trusts weren’t tied up legally or anything. My grandfather made sure of all that before he passed away.”

I exhaled a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding, the plan gathering speed in my mind.

“So, what did you think of your first Le Bernardin experience?” Skye asked as she handed the waiter her black AmEx without looking at the bill.

“That was the best meal of my life,” I said, though in truth I’d been too distracted to fully appreciate each of the decadent courses. “You’re going to have to roll me back to your apartment.”

I don’t know much about dating, Dr. K, having married my first and only girlfriend. But I do know that, millionaire or not, a girl doesn’t treat a guy to a chef’s tasting dinner at Le Bernardin if she’s not into him. That’s just not the way the world works.

Back at Skye’s I used the bathroom and studied my reflection in the mirror above the sink. And it was strange, Dr. K, but for the first time since I met Skye, I could see what she saw. Staring at myself, tall and clean-shaven in a blue blazer, I could understand what would draw a woman of her caliber to a man like me. I recalled the time, not a year earlier, when I’d overheard one of Maggie’s friends say I looked like a dark-haired David Beckham. She and some girls had been watching a movie in the den, and I’d listened to Maggie make puking noises in response while the other girls giggled. Still, that had happened. To young women I was handsome. David Beckham handsome. And though I’ve aged, with my full head of black hair—only a handful of grays if you dig—I could pass for late thirties.

What I saw in Skye’s bathroom mirror was a catch, Dr. K. I’ve been married a long time; I’d forgotten the way I appealed to women before Heather, the way they’d always bypassed Scott and Andy and my other buddies and flocked straight to me. But I’d only ever wanted Heather—spunky, stunning Heather with her twinkly green eyes and ambitious resolve, different from the other conventionally attractive girls whose sly smiles told me I could have them. The man in the mirror was a catch, but he was also Heather Michaels’s husband.

I was never a cheater, Dr. K. I’m not a cheater—that’s what I’m trying to explain. For the past two weeks Skye Starling has been my midlife crisis, but last night, drifting off beside her, I suddenly missed Heather so badly I couldn’t sleep. I missed the life we’d spent thirty years building together. I loathed the ocean of lies I’d put between us, and all the other ways I’d let her down. It was more like remembering than realizing. I think love is like that sometimes, Dr. K. It’s like finally finding the trail again when you’ve been lost.

Yes, I’ve knocked fate in the past, but lying next to Skye, I came to understand that our affair has happened for a reason. That the plan forming in my head during dinner at Le Bernardin has legs. The irony is this: Skye, with her soft skin and hopeful eyes and pharmaceutical fortune, may just be the ticket back to my wife.

Chapter Nine

Heather

JANUARY 1990

Burke had been sending me love letters.

After his initial period of anger when I broke things off in October, he turned into a sad, sulking puppy who was willing to take the blame for everything wrong with our relationship. He wrote in one of his letters:

I know this is all my fault, Bones. I see that now. I need to be more driven and better at planning for the future, like you are. I need to lay off the drugs, and I’m not just saying that. I promise you, Heather Price, if you give me another chance, I’ll prove I can be the man you need me to be. We’ll apply to college together, we’ll get the hell out of Langs Valley just like we always planned. I love you more than anything in this world and imagining a future without you is devestating. Your breaking my heart. Please give me a call.

Poor Burke. I wasn’t surprised he missed me; Burke could have any girl in Langs Valley, but I was the only one who was going to get him out of our dumpy little town and he knew it. With anyone else, his future would be a bleak blur of dead-end jobs and drugs and raising kids in the same shitty way our parents raised us.

Ever since we first got together freshman year—that frigid night in December when he offered to give me a ride home from the hockey game—Burke had been mine. He’d put the heat on full blast and pointed all the vents in my direction, and when we pulled into my driveway, he leaned across the center console and brushed my cheek with the back of his hand.

“You’re perfect, Heather,” he’d whispered before he kissed me. He tasted sweet and minty, and our lips fit together like puzzle pieces, and that had been that. Something easy and good in my life, for a change.

Of course, I missed Burke. I missed his adorable dimples. I missed collapsing into his strong arms at the end of a long day, the way he made me feel tethered to something real. Aside from Gus, Burke was the only home I’d ever known, and I could never say that we didn’t love each other.

But he couldn’t spell devastating, and when I showed Libby the letter, she rolled her eyes.

“Another one?” She took the paper from my hands, scanning the words. “If he can’t use the proper form of you’re in a sentence, he’s not the guy for you.

“I’m serious, Heather,” Libby continued, watching me think. “I have no doubt Burke is a decent guy, but you need someone a million times smarter than he is, someone on your level. You’re going places. And Burke … Burke is an addict. He’s only going to bring you down.”

It was the first time I’d heard anyone say it out loud, but I knew instantly that Libby’s words were the truth. Burke was an addict.

“I know, Lib.” I sighed, wiping coffee grinds from the kitchen counter into the sink. “Believe me, I know.”

I smiled at the sight of Nate and Gus crouched on the floor, intensely focused on Nate’s vast collection of toy trucks. It had been nice bringing Gus with me to Libby’s. The boys played together well, and I felt far less guilty now that I didn’t have to leave my brother at the Carsons’ for so many hours. My father, whom I crossed paths with less and less, hadn’t said a word to me about Gus’s whereabouts. When I asked Gus about Dad, he shrugged his little shoulders. “Haven’t seen Daddy. Where’d Daddy go?”