Just This Night

by Mari Madison

  God, last night had been good. Like, best-night-ever good. In fact, now, in the light of morning, it was almost hard to believe it had really happened as it had. That we’d really talked, shared, made love—quite a few times actually.

  But more importantly, we’d made promises.

  From here on out, there would be no more need to keep distance between us. No more fighting our feelings, no more denying what we felt. We could be together—in every sense of the word. We could be a real, legit couple that did all those nauseating things real legit couples did. Like . . . updating our Facebook relationship statuses and going out to brunch or whatever.

  Best of all, I could finally show Mac that love doesn’t have to tear you apart. In fact, true love had the power to put you back together.

  My mind flashed back to the day Ryan had first called. When he’d first confessed he’d been sleeping with my sister. At the time I had felt as if the bottom had dropped out of my world. And who could blame me? I’d pinned everything I had on that relationship—on this assumed security of a fiancé/boyfriend, a guaranteed happily ever after. But in the end, had I truly loved Ryan for who he was? We’d been so young when we’d first gotten together and had changed so much over the years.

  Sure, I loved the idea of having a boyfriend. But Ryan in particular? I wasn’t so sure anymore. We’d been so different. We hadn’t shared the same values or the same goals. We hadn’t wanted the same things. He wasn’t interested in supporting who I was. But to be honest, had I been any more supportive to him? After all, I’d been the one to ask him to leave everything he knew and loved behind, to follow me and my dreams. Never once considering that perhaps he had his own to pursue. If he had come out here, he would have been miserable. And that would have made me miserable, too.

  Maybe it wasn’t so bad that he’d found something with my sister. Not that the way they went about it had been right. Obviously, they should have been honest from the start. But if they had truly connected, truly bonded to one another, felt the way I felt with Mac—well, how could I blame them for that? How could I begrudge them their own happily ever after?

  Especially seeing how it had inadvertently led to my own.

  I forced my thoughts back to the present, straining to listen beyond the door. I could barely make out muffled voices and frowned as I realized Mac’s sounded a little distressed. Worried, I searched for my clothes, then realized they were still in the wash and I only had Mac’s shirt. Not sure what else to do, I slipped it on, then headed for the door.

  “Is everything okay . . . ?” I started to ask, peeking my head through. But I trailed off as my eyes fell upon a woman standing in the doorway. She was pretty, petite, with stick-straight chestnut-colored hair, large almond eyes, and cheekbones that cut Angelia Jolie-esque lines across her face. She was thin, too, possibly too thin, and dressed sharply in a tailored black pantsuit that looked as if it cost more than my yearly salary. I looked down at Mac’s rumpled flannel shirt and wondered if I should have stayed in bed.

  Mac glanced back at me. The expression on his face chilled me to the bone. “Sorry, Beth,” he said. “This will just take a minute.”

  He started to turn back to the woman, but her gaze stayed locked on me. Her eyes were cutting, cruel, suspicious.

  “Perhaps I should have called first,” she observed with a raised eyebrow. “I guess I didn’t realize you would have . . . guests. Especially with our daughter sleeping in the next room.”

  Oh God. I almost fell over backward. It couldn’t be . . .

  But it couldn’t be anyone else either.

  Well, this was a bit awkward.

  It’s okay. They’re not together anymore. You have every right to be here. You did nothing wrong.

  Summoning all my bravado, I forced myself to cross the room and hold out my hand, determined to take the high road here. She was still Ashley’s mother, I reminded myself. Meaning she still deserved my respect.

  “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Elizabeth. I work with Mac at News 9.”

  “I’m Victoria,” the woman confirmed in a cold voice. She looked down at my hand and frowned, as if I’d offered her a snake. “His wife.”

  Ouch.

  My face flushed. Dropping my hand, I retreated a few steps, feeling the humiliation burn through me as she raked her gaze over my scanty attire. If looks could kill I was pretty sure I’d be on the floor. Seriously, what had made me think coming out here, dressed in Mac’s shirt, would be a good idea?

  I glanced at the door, wondering if I should run, but my feet felt glued to the floor. I looked over at Mac, silently begging him to say something—anything—to diffuse this powder keg—to make it all okay. To defend my right to be here. To say I was his girlfriend—not some dirty one-night stand.

  But he just stood there, a deer caught in headlights, glancing from one of us to the other, his face stark white and his hands shaking. I wanted to be furious at him for not defending me. Yet at the same time, my heart wrenched at the pain and confusion I saw in his eyes. And who could blame him? He thought she was gone forever. And now here she was, showing up completely out of the blue, acting as if she’d never left.

  “Look, I’m going to get going,” I declared, desperate to regain some kind of semblance of control. No good could come of me sticking around. “You guys obviously have a lot to talk about. So I’m going to just grab my stuff and get out of your hair.”

  “Good idea,” Victoria said icily. As if I had been asking her permission. “After all, we wouldn’t want my poor daughter to wake up and . . . get confused.”

  I glared at her; was she for real? Seriously at that moment it was all I could do not to cross the room and punch her in the throat. How dare she try to make me feel like the bad guy here? She, who had abandoned her daughter for the last six months, without so much as a good-bye. She was the last person on earth who should be talking about confusing poor little Ashley.

  But I kept my mouth shut and my feet glued to the floor, my hands remaining at my side. Mostly because, deep down, I wasn’t sure she was entirely wrong. After all, I had no rights here. No claim on Ashley’s life. No matter what was going on between Mac and me, to Ashley I was just the girl who was having “playdates” with her daddy while her mommy was away. And yes, if the little girl woke up and came out here now, I was pretty sure she would indeed be confused as hell.

  I retreated to the laundry room, my stomach roiling with nausea. Hot tears stung my eyes as I pulled my clothes from the dryer. After gathering them up, I headed back to the spare bedroom to change. To my surprise, when I got there, Mac was waiting. He shut the door and turned to me.

  “You don’t have to go,” he told me.

  I gave him a rueful look. “You know that I do.”

  He sighed, raking a hand through his hair. “God, I’m sorry, Beth. I never expected . . . I mean, I promise you—I haven’t heard from her in months. I thought she was halfway across the world.”

  “I know,” I assured him. “Maybe she missed Ashley.”

  “Maybe . . .” He scowled. “But the last thing I want is for Ashley to see her here. After all I’ve done to try to get her to accept the fact that her mother’s gone. Now it’s going to start up all over again—her thinking that she’s here to stay.”

  Something in my heart froze. “What if she is here to stay?”

  He shuddered. “Don’t even say that.” He paced the room like a caged tiger, his steps eating up the distance between walls. “God, I can’t believe she just showed up here like this. Without a call or anything. She has no right. Hell, she should be the one to leave, not you.”

  I gave him a regretful look, then shook my head. I knew he was this close to falling apart and I didn’t want to make things worse for him. “No,” I said gently. “She needs to stay. And you both need to talk. I know you’re angry with her, but she’s still the mother of your child and she always will be. You really want to put Ashley first? Then you need to make peace with her.”

>   He nodded, still looking upset. “I know, I know,” he said. “You’re right of course. It’s just . . .” He looked over at me, giving me a sad smile. “This was so not the way I wanted our perfect night to end.”

  “We’ll have other nights. Countless nights,” I assured him, my heart feeling as if it was breaking in my chest. “I can even come over tonight after work if you want. We can drink gallons of fake Anejo Banjo and make a voodoo doll with her face on it.”

  He laughed, looking down at me with such affection in his eyes. “What did I do to deserve you?” he asked, shaking his head. Then he sighed. “Okay. I’ll find you at work later. And I’ll fill you in on everything, I promise.”

  “It’s a deal.”

  And with that, I walked out of the bedroom, summoning up all my courage to stroll past Victoria and out the door, my shoulders back and my head held high, without once glancing in her direction. I could feel her staring at me, but she said nothing as I stepped through the door, closing it behind me.

  Once outside my bravado fled. My shoulders drooped and the tears sprung back to my eyes. Even more so when I realized I didn’t have a car to drive home in—Mac and Ashley had picked me up to go sledding yesterday and then we’d come straight here afterwards. Meaning I had no way to get home.

  I glanced back at the house, then decided better of it, reached into my bag and grabbed my cell phone instead. I could call a cab and have them take me home to grab my car before work. No big deal.

  But it was a big deal and as I slumped down onto the curb, waiting for the cab, a thousand doubts began to pick at my brain. Like, why was she here? What did she want? Was she only here for a quick visit? Or did she have plans to stay? Did she just want to see her daughter? Or did she have designs on her ex as well?

  His wife, she’d said. As if she still retained some kind of ownership over him.

  But that’s not her call, I tried to remind myself. She could want whatever it was she wanted, but it wouldn’t change a thing. There was no way Mac would agree to get back together with her. Not after she’d cheated on him, caused him to lose his job. Broken his heart and abandoned his daughter. He hated her more than anyone on earth.

  At least that’s what he told you.

  I squirmed in my seat, not liking the direction my thoughts were heading. But how could I deny the possibility? After all, hate came from love and if Mac still cared about her at all, would he take her back if she asked him to? She was his wife, after all. And the mother of his child. Mac had sworn he’d put Ashley first, no matter what the scenario. What if he believed that Victoria being back was in the child’s best interests? Would he be willing to sacrifice his own chance at love and happiness to give his baby girl her mother back? To give their little family one more try?

  As the cab pulled up and I climbed inside, the heaviness in my stomach grew like a slow wave encroaching on a beach, washing away all the happy flotsam and jetsam last night had produced. What if Mac forgave her? What if he let her move back into his house, his life, his bed? Where would that leave me?

  I forced myself to choke down my rising grief. I couldn’t be selfish about this. If Mac did decide to get back with Victoria for Ashley’s sake, I would have to find some way to accept that. If it was truly for the best—for him, for Ashley—I couldn’t stand in their way. I loved them both too much; I wanted them to have their happily ever after—even if it meant none for me.

  But how would I ever face him after something like that? How could I possibly work with him, side by side, each and every day? How could I possibly suffer through this kind of throbbing, ridiculous, all-encompassing love I had for him—if that love was no longer returned?

  Okay, Beth, you’re getting ridiculous now, I scolded myself. You don’t even know if she wants to stay. She might just be swinging by between assignments, to see her daughter before going on to the next.

  The cab pulled up to the front of my apartment building. Opening the door, I stepped out into the beautiful, crisp California morning. But before I could enter the building, my cell phone rang—making me nearly jump out of my skin.

  He was calling! Thank God. I fumbled in my purse to find the phone, my heart pounding in my chest.

  Until I drew out the phone and looked down at the caller ID.

  It wasn’t Mac. It was my sister.

  I dropped the phone back into my bag, not bothering to answer. It was funny: Not a half hour ago, I’d considered forgiving her for what she’d done. Now I just wanted to throttle her all over again. Simply for not being Mac.

  Give him time, I told myself. He told you he’d see you at work. That he’d explain everything then.

  But deep down, I couldn’t help but wonder. And when I did arrive at the newsroom an hour later, they told me he’d called in sick.

  And at that point I couldn’t help but assume the worst.

  thirty-nine

  MAC

  What the hell are you doing here?

  I stared at Victoria, watching her make herself at home in my living room. She looked so out of place here, sitting down on my simple furniture, and something inside of me fought the urge to apologize that it had come from Target rather than Pottery Barn.

  But that was stupid. She had no right to judge how I furnished my place. How I lived my life. She had left us. And by doing so, she had abdicated her say in any of my affairs, never mind my choices in décor.

  I sat down on the easy chair across from the couch, keeping as much distance between us as I could without seeming obvious. Even just looking at her now made the rage inside of me threaten to boil over, and it was all I could do to stay calm, to quell the scream that rose to my throat. How dare she just show up here, at the crack of dawn on a Monday morning, without even a courtesy call or text? So typical of her—she never did care about other peoples’ schedules or lives. Only her own.

  But I forced down the scream. And pasted a pleasant smile on my lips. This intruder had the power to destroy my life. To turn my daughter’s world upside down. I couldn’t afford to piss her off.

  “So . . .” I said, cocking my head as pleasantly as I could in her direction. “This is . . . unexpected.”

  Her cheeks flushed. “Yeah, sorry. I know, I should have called. I was going to. After I was settled in. But the hotel room wasn’t ready yet and, well, I got anxious. And I figured maybe I could catch you before you dropped Ash off at school. I had no idea you would have . . . a visitor.”

  Now it was my turn to blush, even though she had no right to make these kinds of insinuations. We had broken up. We were through. I could have as many “visitors” as I wanted and she, of all people, had no right to make me feel guilty for it.

  “What do you want, Vic?” I forced myself to ask, not sure I really wanted to know.

  She stared down at her hands. “Jesus, this is awkward. I mean, I knew it would be. But . . .” She trailed off and then looked up, meeting my eyes with her own. “Oh, Jake. I’ve missed you so much.”

  Nausea rolled over me. “Have you now?”

  “Of course I have!” she cried, looking offended that I would even dare to second-guess such a statement. “All these months away, thinking about you and Ash. Wondering how you were. What you were doing.”

  “You know, they have these great new inventions now. They’re called telephones. If you want to know what someone’s up to, you can use them to find out.”

  She made a face. “Okay, fine. I guess I deserve that. And yeah, I know I should have called. Or emailed. Or texted. Or whatever. But truth be told, I wasn’t sure you’d answer if I did.”

  I sighed. “You might be right about that.”

  She nodded slowly, tears welling in her big brown eyes. “And I don’t blame you for that,” she said, her voice choking up. “What I did to you and our sweet baby girl. I don’t deserve anything less.” She swallowed hard. “But, Jake, I’m sorry. I’m so goddamned sorry. What I did. How I acted. The way I panicked and ran away.” She shook her head. “I’m t
he worst wife and mother in the world.”

  I stared at her, unable to speak as the apologies spilled from her lips. All this time, all these months—this was what I’d been waiting for. Maybe not consciously—but deep down inside of me in the place I didn’t like to look. I had wanted to see her again. For her to admit what she’d done. For her to want to be a family again. A mother to our child.

  But now . . . Now that it was finally happening, I was no longer sure.

  “Vic,” I tried, hating how strangled my voice sounded, “what do you want?”

  She bit her lower lip in the way that always used to drive me crazy. For a moment she didn’t speak, just stared down at her feet, as if they held the answers to the world. Finally, she looked back up. “I want to come home. I want to give our family another try.”

  For a moment, I considered it. I truly, crazily considered what she was suggesting. What would it be like to have a family again? For Ashley to have her mother back in her life?

  But in the end, I found myself shaking my head. “I’m sorry,” I said. “But that’s not possible.”

  “What?” It was clearly not the answer she’d been expecting. And, of course it wasn’t. No one ever said no to Victoria. “Jake, I’m asking for forgiveness here.”

  “And I’m fresh out. You don’t deserve it after what you did to us.”

  “You did things, too, you might remember,” she shot back. “In fact, you pretty much single-handedly destroyed my career. Everything I worked for my entire life.” She drew in a breath. “But I’m willing to let that go, for your daughter’s sake.”

  “That’s really big of you. Sadly, I’m not that generous.”

  Her face twisted into a scowl. “Is this about that little whore you had over this morning?”

  My jaw clenched. “Do not even go there, Vic.”

  She cast her gaze down, looking angry. Then she looked back up at me. “Jake, we’re a family. We have a child together! Are you seriously saying you’d choose some piece of ass over your own daughter’s happiness?”