Indulgence

by K. A. Berg

  My fingers tightened around the glass and I had to loosen them before I broke it . “I’m a woman who had to imagine her husband having a baby with another woman.”

  “But there’s no baby,” Penelope interrupted. “So that isn’t something to be worried about anymore.”

  “It’s still a damn hard pill to swallow, Pen. What else was I supposed to feel but pain and betrayal?”

  Her eyes were soft, and her voice withheld judgment. “Feeling that way isn’t wrong. But he didn’t betray you. Unless there’s something I’m not aware of.”

  I took a deep breath and hung my head. “No, there isn’t anything else going on. But things are different. They feel different. I don’t know why, but I’m scared. Our life could have been irrevocably changed.”

  Our dinners arrived, and after our waiter left, Norah turned to me. “Your life could have been irrevocably changed, but it wasn’t—at least not by a pregnancy. You were rattled, which is natural, but she isn’t pregnant.”

  “The crisis was averted,” Penelope chimed in. “What you need to do is look past the fear of something that is no longer relevant so you can see the damage that fear and anger and hurt did.”

  “What on Earth are you talking about?” I glared at her across the table ignoring the pork chops sitting in front of me. “What damage?”

  “Natalie, I love you, but you are the one who is making everything worse right now.”

  I opened my mouth to argue against that statement, but she held firm.

  “Nope. You need to hear this. All I keep hearing is ‘I’ and ‘me.’ What about Matteo? I imagine he feels as if you abandoned him in the worst way at the worst time. Put yourself in his shoes for a second. You wake up to a strange woman in your kitchen and your wife fuming mad. Your wife tells you that you could have knocked the chick up and, oh yeah, by the way, you could have caught a disease that would make your junk fall off as well. Then, while you’re still grappling with those bombs, you get the random woman to leave and make sure you and your wife have a plan. There is finally a second to breathe, a moment to sit with your wife and try to work through what happened, only your wife refuses to talk to you and then leaves.”

  I lived the picture she was painting. It hurt but looking at it through this lens seemed worse. I wanted to throw up.

  “Are you done?” My voice was ripcord tight as I railed against the situation she just summed up in a handful of sentences.

  “Not hardly,” she whispered. “Did you listen to him this morning, Natalie? I mean really listen? To what he wasn’t saying? He is falling apart. That man has always been there for you, no matter the cost to himself, and in what was probably the first time he really needed you, his wife and partner, where were you? He needs you. He’s been telling you that he needs you even with how angry he is with you. And, yes, he has the right the be angry with you so stop getting all affronted when he shows you he is mad. But he’s communicating his needs to you and you. Are. Ignoring. Them. He got a freaking promotion, one that I’m assuming is a big deal, and you weren’t there when that happened. You’re missing the good things because you can’t stop focusing on the one bad thing. The one bad thing that can no longer hurt you.”

  She needed to stop. I wanted her to stop. I didn’t want to hear this.

  The first tear slipped down my cheek. “Pen. Please,” I whispered.

  Her voice softened, but she continued. “It isn’t too late to fix it, though. Matteo wants to fix this. You need to work together.”

  “You can’t live in this stage of regret,” Norah said, pushing her entrée aside. “That’s what this is—it’s regret, and you need to push through. Move past this with Matteo, not alone. Let go of that fear about what could’ve been and focus on what is still here.”

  She makes it sound so easy. “How?”

  “That’s for you guys to figure out,” Norah replied. “But I think that after fourteen years, he deserves for you to try—unless, of course, that isn’t what you want. Are you thinking about leaving him?”

  Just the thought of that made my heart hurt. “No, I don’t want to leave him, but I can’t figure out how to stay with him either. I can’t stop seeing what could have been in my mind. It’s like a reel of torture that plays over and over.”

  “Well, like I said, the first step is moving past the fear. It’s no longer relevant,” Pen said. “Then I guess your second step would be to talk to Matteo. Be honest with him, trust that you two will do what you always have done and get through this together.”

  I nodded, completely exhausted as I picked up my fork and started in on the roasted potatoes on my plate. My stomach begged for food while also rebelling against the idea of it.

  Norah and Pen transitioned the conversation from my problems to this week’s episode of The Bachelor. I thought that show was dumb, and they knew it. They were giving me a few moments with my thoughts.

  My dinner didn’t have a taste. It smelled good, looked good, but I didn’t taste it at all. My mind whirled with everything these two laid out for me and it made me sick to my stomach. Everything felt so impossible. All I could see were trees, there was no forest in sight for me. How did I get past the trees to see the forest?

  “Nat?” Norah’s hand slid over to cover mine. “Hey, you okay?”

  I blinked and shook my head, trying to clear the mess. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

  “I’m going to get your car,” she repeated. “I asked for your keys and where you’re parked.”

  The waiter came by with the check, and Pen grabbed it. “I’ll go take care of this and use the restroom. I’ll meet you out front.”

  I hadn’t realized we’d finished dinner. I didn’t remember eating or drinking the rest of the wine in the bottle. Digging into my bag, I pulled out my keys for Norah. “I’m around the corner.”

  She nodded. “I’ll meet you back at Pen’s.”

  My eyes landed on the last two or three sips sitting in my glass. Why not? I was going back to Pen’s to think about how pathetic my life had become. I’m just grateful the kids are in camp and aren’t here to see this mess.

  “Natalie?” A gruff voice startled me, and my eyes darted over my shoulder to find the watcher from Immersion standing at the end of our table. For a second, everything felt surreal, and I fidgeted, trying to remember the guy’s name.

  Gerald? No. “Gerard?” I hoped that was his name.

  He smiled warmly, as if my getting his name right was the best part of his day. He nodded. “Sorry to interrupt your meal, but I saw you earlier, and when your friends left, I couldn’t resist checking on you to make sure you were okay.”

  Make sure I was okay? That was odd. This man kept getting more bizarre each time I crossed paths with him.

  Hairs on the back of my neck rose at the strangeness of this conversation. “I’m all right.”

  He looked me over as if he didn’t believe me. “I haven’t seen you since that night we last spoke. I was worried that something had happened. Everyone okay? Jackson? Emma?”

  I didn’t like the way my children’s names spilled from his lips or that he even knew their names at all. An eerie feeling settled over me. He was doing more than just watching that day in the sauna. He was listening, but more than that, he was cementing facts about my life in his mind.

  “I’m fine. Just busy. My husband and I are taking a break right now.”

  Penelope returned, looking at me as if I’d grown a second head while she was gone. Gerard’s eyes narrowed a bit and got a beady glaze to them. “I’m sorry to hear that.” He glanced at Pen and then back to me. “Well, I hope to see you again soon.”

  As he walked away, a chill ran down my spine, and I made a mental promise that if I ever ran into him at the club again, I would leave immediately. I didn’t like the way he glanced back over his shoulder at me as he returned to his seat at the bar with a buddy.

  I felt their eyes on me like a smarmy touch.

  Penelope angled her face away
from the two men watching us and asked, “Who was that guy? You looked uncomfortable talking to him.”

  Trying to match her subtly, I whispered, “A guy from Impressions.”

  Penelope looked shocked and a bit grossed out. “What did he want? Is he allowed to talk to you? Like don’t you have NDAs and stuff?”

  My fingers tightened on the strap of my purse as I slung it over my shoulder. I was ready to get out of there. I didn’t like that my two worlds were colliding again. “I think that’s why he waited for you two to be gone. He didn’t mention the club but did say he was concerned because he hadn’t seen us in two weeks.”

  She practically choked on her spit. “You haven’t done anything with that man, have you?”

  “Eww, no.” I shook my head. “But he has watched us have sex a few times. It’s open to whomever wants to watch.”

  “Okay, I think we should get out of here,” she said. “I don’t like the way he’s looking at you.”

  The interaction with Gerard left a cloud of unease that followed me back to Penelope’s. The urge to call Matteo niggled at me. He would make me feel better. Tell me things were fine and there wasn’t anything to worry about.

  Penelope was right when she had said that Matt had always been there whenever I needed him for whatever I needed.

  Was I really making things worse? I knew that silence and distance weren’t going to help, but I was stuck in this . . . I didn’t know perpetual nightmare of what-ifs and regrets. I wasn’t ready to tackle going back home yet, but maybe talking to Matt was a smaller step to start with. Maybe smaller goals were what would help.

  Pulling out my phone, I brought up the text message about his arrival in Miami. It was late there. Too late to call. Or at least that was what I told myself

  Natalie: I’m sorry that I haven’t been there for you. I am in my own hell, and this is the only way I can deal. I don’t know how to handle all of this.

  My thumb hovered over the send arrow. I hesitated. Matteo said so much this morning, and then with the girls piling it on, my apology felt pathetic, but it was all I had.

  Still, I wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t respond. When the three dancing dots appeared, I let out a slow breath.

  As his text appeared on my screen, I’d wondered if perhaps no reply would have been better.

  Matteo: I know. But it still doesn’t change anything.

  He used my own words on me. Damn, I didn’t like it. I knew what they meant. The damage was already done and it was hard to erase it.

  Chapter Thirty

  Matteo

  When I turned and walked away from Natalie the other morning, it was a thousand times harder than it seemed. I had to, though, because, while I would do anything to fix my marriage, I needed to remember to also take care of myself. I needed a time out even if Natalie looked as if she needed a hug and a thousand questions answered.

  Rather than focusing on learning all I could about the client we were meeting with and the things his company was looking for from us, I was absorbed in thinking about all the ways I’d been naïve about this whole situation. I’d thought as soon as I was able to tell Natalie that we didn’t have any permanent ramifications or reminders from that night to deal with, the switch inside her would flip, we could heal, and things would start to return to normal.

  Instead, her accusation of my being upset that Brooke wasn’t pregnant lit a fire inside me. I didn’t know whether she said it just to be a brat or she truly thought that, but either way I couldn’t stand there a second longer, telling her all the ways I needed her without her being able to understand.

  While her text may have been the spark of a match in a dark cave, it still didn’t begin to make anything better.

  I began to understand what she meant when she said that our regret didn’t change the past. She was sorry for her actions, and I was grateful for that, but it didn’t do much to help me justify or understand how she reacted.

  Knowing that someone was remorseful for their actions didn’t make it all better. It didn’t change the event that transpired. Natalie could be sorry that she shut me out, but it didn’t change the fact she cut me off. It didn’t sooth anything.

  This entire two weeks had been exhausting. My head ached. My heart hurt. I felt so empty. My emotions were shifting and not to a good place.

  The last three days had actually been a much-needed reprieve from my life.

  Our new client, Diego Rosa, wanted to form an insurance company that sold a unique insurance product—a legal services product, which is being considered insurance in the state of Florida. He wanted some help, some actuarial help and actuarial credibility, to figure out how much he would need to charge for this product in order to make a fair and reasonable profit, how to document those calculations, and justify it to the state of Florida, so he hired our firm to go through that process with him.

  A lot of work went into something like that. Financial statements had to be developed along with balance sheets and income statements. These were our best estimate of the future financial condition of the company based on the anticipated revenues and expenses of the company. These are necessary to submit to insurance regulators as part of the licensing process for a new insurer.

  Diego asked for my help in preparing an insurance rate filing for all this, plus communicating with the insurance department in an effort to get the department to approve the licensing of the new insurer and their proposed rates.

  The beauty was all in the detail of numbers. They didn’t lie. They were what they were and you either accepted that or didn’t. A new project was exactly what I needed to get lost in to distract myself from the hell of my home life.

  Our flight back from Florida landed just before ten, but with the time change, it might as well have been three in the morning. Barry and I spent the flight reviewing what was still left to be done to complete Diego’s profile, noting deadlines for submitting the required statements to the state, and a few other things he wanted me to take on in my new role. We exited the plane and made our way to the luggage carousel.

  “Thanks for all your hard work, Matteo,” Barry said as he grabbed his bag and we turned toward the exit. He was heading out front for a cab and I was making my way to the parking deck. “I just wanted to ask, is everything all right? While your work is as impeccable as always, after spending the last three days with you, you don’t seem as happy as someone whose career was just elevated to the next level should be.”

  Barry was a nice guy. I’d been working under him for about four years, and while I wasn’t going to spill all my guts to the man, I also knew I needed to let him know that nothing was going to affect my work in my new role. “Thanks, Barry. I appreciate your concern. Everything is good.”

  He nodded. “Okay. Have a good night. Get some sleep. Or drink some bourbon.”

  I couldn’t say whether either of those would help, but I replied nonetheless, “Will do.”

  Even with my frustration and disappointment in her actions, for the past couple of days, I’d been tossing around the idea of surprising Natalie with something I felt was necessary in order to move forward. We needed to move forward. Even my boss knew my life was in some kind of upheaval. It was time to start putting everything back together.

  My phone was still in airplane mode, so I reached into my pocket to turn it on, attempting to see if I could get the ball rolling with the idea I started discussing with my uncle after I left Pen’s house the other day. My uncle owned a general contracting business and was willing to help me with what I wanted to do.

  My phone let out a torrent of chimes, beeps, and dings as it came back to life.

  My eyes zeroed in on the voice mail notification. It was from Natalie.

  I clicked the button, and her voice filled my ear. She sounded desolate and slightly tipsy.

  Her voice was calm as the message started, but I could tell her mind was anything but with the way her sentences all ran together. She barely took a breath as she said,
“I know that we should have this conversation face to face, or even over the phone, but it’s on my mind and I can’t turn it off, so I need to leave this message now.” She paused for a breath. “It took me some time to realize that I wasn’t the only one hurting. I didn’t think about how you felt because I was too encapsulated in what I felt.”

  The bitterness and resentment I harbored couldn’t let me wrap my head around how she hadn’t considered that. “I also think it was too hard for me to see your side of the situation, and that maybe I didn’t do the best job of explaining why I’m having such a hard time with it all. Why I can’t just wrap my arms around you and smile because there is no child with Brooke.”

  My palms moistened as my heart rate picked up. I’d never be able to thank my lucky stars enough that those words never became a reality.

  I wasn’t sure how much more I could handle after the week I’d had. All the talk about not knowing how to fix things made my skin crawl, and I didn’t think I could sit around and listen to any more. Nat was sorry for her response to the situation, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t still looking for a place to throw blame to relieve her guilt or justify her actions. I wasn’t in the mood for any of that at the moment. I wanted to get across the parking garage, into my car, and head home.

  She took a deep breath, and I swore I held mine as she spoke. “When I woke that morning and Brooke was in the kitchen making breakfast, it annoyed me from the moment I realized what she was doing. I’m not sure why since it was a rather nice thing to do. Then I walked past her clothes on the floor, and all I could see was her with you from the night before. When you met us in the kitchen, she looked at you the way you look at someone you know intimately, which she did. But you are my husband, and she had no right to look at you that way. That was when I realized there hadn’t been any protection. I was suddenly thrust into this parallel universe. It was like she just inserted herself directly into my shoes, into my whole life, overnight. Sleeping with my husband. Cooking breakfast for my husband. Potentially carrying my husband’s child. And it was all happening in my own damn house. It was too much. I snapped. I was consumed with rage and jealousy. It seemed as if she was trying to steal my life right from under my nose, and I let it happen. Then it all morphed into a cloud of sadness and fear that I didn’t know what to do with. We can’t take it back. I can’t find my way out of the cloud.”