Set mid-season 1, though not canon-compliant.
"Nadine?"
Nadine looks up and nearly drops her pen. She forces herself not to react. "Arabelle. I didn't know you were planning to come in today. I would have met you downstairs—"
"Your assistant let me up. I know I don't have an appointment…"
Nadine shakes her head. "Don't be silly. Of course you don't need one. Please, sit." Nadine extends her hand to offer the sofa as she stands, but Arabelle shakes her head and chooses instead to stand in front of Nadine's desk.
"I'm going to be quick." She studies Nadine. "It's been some time since I've had to set foot in this building," Arabelle remarks finally. "Even longer since I've seen you."
"It has." It has crossed Nadine's mind before that she might call Arabelle, check on her. But she wouldn't have known what to say.
"I must confess," Arabelle continues, "Back when Vincent... I was a little hurt that I didn't hear it from you, when he died. You had Jay Whitman call me."
"It was chaotic at the office," Nadine says, which is true. "Everything was time-sensitive and happening all at once. I was tied up trying to get more information. And I didn't think you should have had to find it out from the news just because I made you wait on me to tell you."
"And then when Secretary McCord rescheduled his portrait unveiling," Arabelle says, "you had Daisy Grant call me."
She blinks. "I—"
"Are you avoiding me, Nadine?"
"Am I— no," she says, feeling unsure of her footing. "What reason would I have to avoid you?"
"I wondered that, too." Arabelle peers into her purse. She reaches in to rifle through it. "I thought I was just being… irrational. Emotional. But this week I finally mustered up the courage to go through Vincent's things, and as I was cleaning out his clothes, I found this in his dresser." From the depths of her purse, she pulls out a lacy scrap of fabric and drops it right on top of Nadine's desk. Right where anyone could walk by and see it through the glass walls.
Nadine's heart leaps into her throat. She wants to whip it away, wants to make it disappear. She wants it off her desk. But to touch it would be a sign of guilt, so she doesn't move a muscle.
When Arabelle speaks again, her voice is tight and cold. "Are these yours?" she asks through clenched teeth. "Because they're certainly not mine."
"Arabelle..."
"I'll know if you're lying to me," she says softly.
And Nadine is a fair liar, when she has to be. But even she knows she isn't good enough to fool Arabelle.
"Are you avoiding me because you were sleeping with my husband, Nadine?"
Nadine doesn't answer; she can't. She's frozen in place, and it all feels like a very bad fever dream.
Arabelle takes her silence as her answer. She nods and doesn't look surprised in the least. She looks resigned. She looks exhausted. "I see," she murmurs. She passes a hand over her brow. "You know, you never did strike me as that kind of woman. Sometimes I thought that we could have even been friends." She laughs bitterly. "How wrong I was." It takes everything Nadine has not to flinch.
"I'm sorry," Nadine says. Her voice is smaller than she has ever been. "I am so, so sorry."
"It's a little late for that, don't you think?" Arabelle shifts her purse back onto her shoulder and turns to leave.
Nadine is still standing there, immobilized. Her chest feels tight and her heart actually physically hurts. She isn't sure whether she needs to cry or take an aspirin.
At the door, Arabelle turns to look at her again, and her face is full of contempt. She says, "You know? It's a shame you weren't on that plane with him." She walks away without looking back.