Nolan Haste was thirty years old and owned a city.

Not in the way politicians claimed cities, or billionaires pretended to. He owned it quietly through movement. Every taxi that rattled through traffic, every delivery truck grinding its way down an avenue, every bus sighing at a stoplight rolled on wheels stamped with his family’s name.

Haste Sweet Wheels.

A silver hubcap split by a lightning bolt.

People saw it a hundred times a day and never thought about it.

That was exactly how Nolan liked it.

He stood at the edge of the Crystal Ballroom of the Pierre Hotel, a champagne flute dangling from his fingers, and watched his wife blow a kiss to a boy young enough to be her son.

He was a beautiful man, though not in the way people said it aloud. There was nothing soft about him. Nothing delicate. He was built, six two, broad shouldered, the kind of frame that came from discipline rather than vanity. His jaw was sharp, his posture effortless, his presence always controlled.

His dark hair was always swept back. His eyes gray blue, cold as winter water rarely gave anything away.

Tonight, he wore a midnight suit cut so precisely it seemed part of him. He looked like a man who had never lost anything in life.

Except what mattered.

Farris Hadid appeared at his elbow like a djinn made of money and mischief. The Arabian prince and he was actual royalty, the 130th nephew to the King. They were too many and he preferred a life away from all the boring stuff.

Farris had skin the color of warm honey, eyes like carved onyx, and a smile that had launched a thousand yachts. His beard was trimmed to perfection. His kaftan style jacket was silver thread on black silk. He smelled of pride and maximum rich boy arrogance.

"Look at your bitch," Farris said, tilting his glass toward the far end of the ballroom.

Nolan didn't turn. He didn't need to.

He had already seen Beth whispering into the ear of Jamie Crawdad, the twenty two year old heir to the Crawdad Industrial Grease empire, a company the boy was running into the ground like a drunk with a bulldozer. Jamie was lean, blond, baby faced, and stupid. He was also half Beth's age.

"What?" Nolan said. His voice was calm. It always was.

Farris tapped two fingers on Nolan's forearm. "She's going to fuck him, you know that."

Nolan took a sip of champagne. It tasted like nothing. "Yeah."

He watched Beth laugh, throw her head back, touch Jamie's chest. She was still breathtaking or maybe that was just the part of him that had never learned to stop bleeding. Elizabeth Haste, born Elizabeth Whitmore, former supermodel.

At thirty two, she had cheekbones that could slice reality in half, awfully long honey blonde hair that moved like gold, and a mouth that had smiled it's way onto a hundred magazine covers before the drinking started and the jobs dried up. Tonight she wore a backless scarlet dress that clung to every curve she hadn't lost. Her eyes were the color of whiskey. They always were, these days.

Farris studied him. "We're worried about you. Everyone is."

"We?" Nolan asked. His jaw was tight. He hid his hands in his pockets so Farris wouldn't see the fists.

"Marcus. Sarita. Your mother, Nolan." He paused. "She called me last week."

That made Nolan glance at him.

"Crying." Farris added quietly.

Nolan's jaw tightened, he almost broke the flute in his hand.

Farris leaned in, his voice dropping to a whisper that still carried the heat of the desert. “We don’t want you doing this to yourself anymore,” Farris said. “She’s not worth it.”

For a moment, Nolan said nothing.

Nolan finally looked at his oldest friend. They had met at Columbia, Nolan the scholarship kid from Detroit, Farris the prince slumming it in finance. Fifteen years of friendship, and still Farris was the only person on earth who could say anything to him without fear of losing a contract or a kneecap.

"I love her," Nolan said. The words came out recited. A prayer he no longer believed but couldn't stop saying.

Farris raised his glass in a mock toast, his sexy eyebrows climbing. "Keep telling yourself that, habibi." He clinked Nolan's champagne flute and disappeared into the crowd like smoke.

Nolan stood alone. The music swelled. Couples spun past him, diamonds and cufflinks. He thought about the first year of his marriage, when Beth had still been his. Or when he had still believed she was. She had been sleeping with her ex, a gaunt male model named Sven who wore turtlenecks in summer. Then there was the hedge fund manager. Then the drummer from that indie band. Then the names blurred into a smear of cologne and betrayal.

He had forgiven her. He had forgiven her because their daughter Amy was born, and Amy had Beth's eyes and Beth's hair and none of Beth's cruelty. For three years, Beth had stayed home. She had baked cookies. She had read bedtime stories. She had become the wife Nolan had dreamed of when he slipped the ring onto her finger at St. Patrick's Cathedral, back when the whole world had called them golden.

Then Amy turned three, and Beth sat him down at the kitchen table and asked for an open marriage.

Nolan Haste, who had never lost a negotiation in his life, had said yes.

Because he loved her. Because he could not imagine a world where she did not wake up next to him. Because every time he tried to picture another woman, any woman his mind went blank as a dead channel.

He had let her bring men into their home. He had met some of them at breakfast. He had listened to her describe their sizes in the bed they still shared, because she said honesty was important, and he had nodded and swallowed and smiled.

Now he watched Beth look over her shoulder. She caught his gaze. Her red lips curved into a slow, familiar smile, the one that had once made him feel like the luckiest man in Manhattan. Then she blew him a kiss, took Jamie Crawdad's hand, and let the boy lead her toward the grand staircase.

Nolan set down his champagne flute. He climbed the stairs one step at a time. His heart full of humiliation.

The corridor upstairs was long, carpeted in burgundy, lined with doors. He followed the sound, the unmistakable rhythm of his wife's pleasure, the headboard tapping the wall, a boy's breathless grunts. He stopped outside a door left slightly ajar. The lamplight spilled out like a confession.

He pushed it open. The scene inside was exactly what he expected.

Jamie Crawdad was inside her. Pumping. Sweating. His trousers around his ankles. Beth lay on the hotel sheets, her red dress bunched at her waist, her hair fanned out like a halo. She didn't look caught. She didn't look ashamed. She looked up at Nolan and smiled, that same smile, the one that had once made him forget every other woman in the world.

Now it just made him tired.

"It's time to go," Nolan said. His voice was steady. He didn't know how.

Beth waved her fingers at him. "I'll see you in a bit, honey." Then she turned her attention back to the boy, digging her nails into his back. "Harder," she said. "Harder, boy."

Nolan closed the door.

He stood in the hallway for a long moment, his forehead against the wood. The moaning continued. He thought, Where did I go wrong?

But that was the problem. That was always the problem.

He had been asking himself the wrong question for seven years.

The right question wasn't Where did I go wrong?

The right question was Why am I still here?

And he didn't have an answer.