The Travelers by Chris Pavone Read Free Book Online Page B

student debt. Does this go on in Australia? Borrowing for university?”
    “Of course. Are you still broke then? Uni couldn’t have been that long ago.”
    “You flatter me.”
    “I suppose I do, Mr. Rhodes.” That sly grin again, something more than a little playful. This is a dangerous woman here.
    “Well, to be honest, Ms. Hardwick, I never did dig out from that financial hole. I’ve moved sideways in my debt structure. Excavating new subterranean passages, like a whole ant colony of interconnected financial obligations that bears a passing semblance to solvency around a fundamental core of what is, in essence, bankruptcy.”
    Will never believed that writing would make him rich, but his extreme level of unrich has come as a shock, and it’s possible that in a few years his job may no longer even exist. Not even Chloe is aware of the full extent of Will’s—of their—financial woes. When they first started dating, Will was so ashamed of the sorry state of his affairs that he refused to acknowledge to himself that there was any problem at all; he just surged forward. Matters improved when they started living together, sharing expenses. But Will is still carrying an embarrassing load of consumer debt, and he has found himself unable to come clean to his wife.
    “That’s a truly sad story, Will Rhodes.
Très triste.
”
    “This is what keeps me up in the middle of the night. Spirals of self-doubt and fear, and this recurring nightmare that I’ll end up living in a trailer park in north Jersey, alone and destitute on my deathbed, frothing-at-the-mouth resentful that no one ever suggested I learn Mandarin, or code-writing, or, I don’t know, trusts-and-estates law.”
    He’s not sure why he’s unburdening himself on this stranger. Actually, he is sure, but he doesn’t want to admit it to himself, so instead he keeps talking. “On the plus side, these fears are what impel me out of a sleepless bed to my computer, where I churn out three hundred words here, a thousand there, sometimes an overblown modifier-laden three thousand, which I deliver triumphantly with an envelope packed with expense receipts. I’m at my most productive when seized by financial panic in the middle of the night.”
    She bites her lip, perhaps biting back a flirtatious response, substituting instead a flirtatious look. “So tell me, Will Rhodes, what is it that your wife does for a living?”
    Ouch. Will wonders if Elle is purposefully shifting the mood, dragging reality to intrude on this fantasy. Or is she trying to accomplish something else, something more subtle? Yes, Will, I know you have a wife, but I don’t care.
    Again, she arches that eyebrow. God damn, he loves that arched eyebrow.
    This Elle Hardwick, she certainly looks like a woman who’s going to wreck his marriage.
    —
    The guy from
Saveur
has moved down to sit across from Elle, next to Bethany the publicist whom Will has met at a half-dozen things, and now next to Will is a jovial lecherous Scottish chef named Callum, and everyone roars at the winemaker Bertrand’s joke, and it’s all fun in the way that these things can be fun, plus tonight there’s been a sexy stranger at Will’s side, a woman who either wants him badly or has spent the evening pretending to.
    “So you’re married?” Callum asks.
    “
Mmm
,” Will says. “I am indeed.”
    At the end of the table, a megalomaniacal chef is making a big show of opening a jeroboam, a big bottle of a big wine, cackling and feral, like a drunk French hyena.
    “There’s a lot of temptation.” Callum inclines his head at Elle. “Isn’t there, mate?”
    Will doesn’t answer.
    “How do you resist?”
    “With great difficulty,” Will says, rising. “
Excusez-moi
.” He pats the guy on the shoulder, walks away, a bit unsteady on liquored-up legs on squishy grass.
    Inside, it’s too bright. Will’s pupils, accustomed to the candlelit night, are slow to close up here in the house. The drapes are too