“I only thought about you. You are all I thought about, even after I left. I wanted to make babies and grow old with you, Iris. I wanted us to last forever. But I couldn’t rewind things with Huck. He threatened to tell you the truth about me, and then Nick found out about the stocks, and he knew I was the one who moved them. I couldn’t stay.”
“Because you wanted the money.”
His hands fist into tight balls, his knuckles hard and white on top of his thighs. “No! Not because of the money. It had nothing to do with the goddamn money.”
“Then, why? Why couldn’t you stay?”
Will’s jaw clenches, and he looks away.
“Tell me why, dammit!”
“Because I’d rather you think I was dead, okay?”
He slings the words like weapons, looking just as surprised to have sent them flying as I am to be on the receiving end. He’d rather I think he was dead than what? I wait for him to explain, and his defiant expression collapses into anguish. It distorts his features like a hosiery mask pulled too tight.
“I fucked up so many things, but my legacy was the one thing I wanted to do right. I wanted you to think I died on that plane, so that you’d never know the truth. I wanted you to have honorable, happy memories of the man you fell in love with, the man you saw every time you looked at me. I wanted to be that man in your memories.”
His words break my heart, and I’m as confused now as I’ve ever been. People are dead. Millions of dollars went missing. What Will did is wrong on so many levels, and I know I should be boiling over with fury. I know I should feel blame and anger and confusion and, yes, hatred, too.
And yet, looking into my husband’s beautiful, wrecked face, I can’t seem to summon up anything other than sorrow. An overwhelming sadness for a man who would rather fake his death than reveal the truth.
A sob elbows up my throat, startling us both. “I should hate you. I want to hate you. I want to be physically ill because I’m sitting in the same room as you, but I’m not. I don’t. I still love you and I despise myself for it.”
Will moves closer. He scoots down the couch until he’s on my side, sitting right here, less than a foot away. “I’ll always love you.”
This is the one thing, the only thing, I know is true. Every person has a redeeming quality. Will’s is that he is capable of love.
“So, now what?” The tears have started up again, because I already know the answer: Now he leaves. Now he disappears.
He loops a finger around mine, running the pad of his thumb over the Cartier he put there, a ring that I should give back, though I know with everything inside of me that I will wear it until the day I die. “Come with me. We’ll live on a hillside overlooking the ocean and sleep under the stars. We can disappear, just you and me.”
I’m shaking my head before the last word is out. I couldn’t leave Dave, could never do that to my parents. I could barely contemplate a move to the other side of the country, much less a disappearance. I know better than anyone what that does to the people left behind.
He smiles, and it’s the saddest thing I’ve ever seen. “It was worth a try.”
He runs his finger down my arm, and I shiver. Will is not playing fair, and he knows it. My skin has always been too sensitive.
“Stop,” I whisper, but I don’t mean it, not even a little bit.
“I can’t stop, and I can’t leave.” His hands wrap around my waist, mine wind around his shoulders. The movement is natural, like there’s nowhere else in the world our hands should be. “Not without saying goodbye to my very favorite person on the planet.”
So this is it. This is goodbye. I remind myself of all the reasons I should be glad to see him go. The money. The lies and deceit. His dying father and his dead mother. Corban and the two dead kids. Especially the kids. He is not the man I married. I want to hate him for what he’s done.
But then I look into his eyes, and he looks like my husband again, the man who slow-danced with me at the top of Stone Mountain with a dozen tourists watching, who slid rings up my fingers and thanked me when I said “I do,” who, the last time I saw him, asked me for a little girl who looked just like me. I see him, and I remember the way he used to be, the way we used to be, and my heart breaks all over again.
He kisses me and I let him. No—it’s more than that. He kisses me, and I put thirty-three days of heartache and confusion and relief into the way I kiss him back. It’s like a first kiss and last kiss and all the kisses in between, and suddenly, I can’t come up with a single reason for fighting it, this last goodbye between me and Will. I can’t muster even the tiniest pang from this gnarled and painful past month. He wants me. I want him back. I have no fight left.
I take him by the hand, pull him off the couch and lead him upstairs. We lose our clothing on the way, dropping piles of cotton and denim on the stairs, the landing runner, the floor by the bed—our bed.
When we’re both naked, he lays me down on the mattress, taking me in with tenderness, with reverence, with love. He runs the back of a finger over the ring—his ring—on a chain on my chest. “Beautiful girl.”
I hold up my arms in answer, in invitation.
We make love, and it feels like the most natural thing in the world, and also the most heartbreaking. How many times have we lain here just like this, sweet and salty and familiar? A couple thousand, at least.
And yet this time will be our last.
His mouth is on the move, traveling over my skin. Pressing kisses onto my neck, my breasts, loving every inch of me. I feel the orgasm building, swirling, circling just out of reach, and I close my eyes, fist the sheets in both hands and wait for it.
Maybe it’s about revenge, about me wanting to hurt Will in the same way he hurt me, about repaying his betrayal with a betrayal of my own. Maybe it’s about justice, plain and simple, about holding Will accountable for the fire and the money and the innocent lives shattered. Or maybe it’s a combination of both. My reasons may be muddled, but my next move is crystal clear. I don’t for a second doubt that it’s the right one.
I open my eyes, and my husband is moving above me. His head is tipped back, his cheeks slack and eyes squeezed shut with pleasure, and I know from all the times before that this is a critical moment. His critical moment. It will last another handful of breaths, at least.
I reach around to the back of my nightstand, push the panic button and hold it.
Three seconds, that’s all it takes.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from THE ONES WE TRUST by Kimberly Belle.
Acknowledgments
Writing is a solitary venture, but this book wouldn’t exist without the following folks.
My literary agent, Nikki Terpilowski, who never sugarcoats what needs to be fixed in the manuscript but says it in words that make me smile. Thank you for always being in my corner.
My editor, Liz Stein, for loving this story and taking it on as your own. Your brilliance and tenacity helped shape The Marriage Lie into what it is today. And to all the hardworking and dedicated people behind the scenes at MIRA Books, I’m blessed to be on your team.
Laura Drake, critique partner extraordinaire, and early readers Koreen Myers, Colleen Oakley and Alexandra Ratcliff. Andrea Peskind Katz, you were right. You are an excellent beta reader, and you volunteered yourself right to the top of my list.
Scott Masterson, whose voice I heard in my head whenever Evan spoke. Thanks for answering my silly questions and for feeding me one of Evan’s best lines.
The fabulous ladies of Altitude, my early readers and cheerleaders: Nancy Davis, Marquette Dreesch, Angelique Kilkelly, Jen Robinson, Amanda Sapra and Tracy Willoughby. Seeing you girls is the best day of the month.
My parents, Diane and Bob Maleski, for their never-ending encouragement and thoughtful feedb
ack. I hope this one makes you proud.
And lastly, my very favorite people on the planet. Isabella, you are a master at coming up with plot twists. Are you sure you don’t want to be a writer? Ewoud and Evan, thank you for your patience and encouragement, and sorry about all the takeout. You three have my heart.
About the Author
Kimberly Belle is the author of The Last Breath, The Ones We Trust and The Marriage Lie. She holds a bachelor of arts degree from Agnes Scott College and has worked in fund-raising for nonprofits at home and abroad. She divides her time between Atlanta and Amsterdam.
THE
MARRIAGE
LIE
Kimberly Belle
Reader’s Guide
Questions for Discussion
After the crash, Iris discovers pretty quickly that her husband had been keeping deep secrets from her. Consider his reasoning for not telling Iris the truth. Is it ever necessary or justifiable to lie to someone you love? How much is too much to hide from a partner?
Does Iris bear any of the blame for accepting her husband’s secrecy about his past? Should she have spotted the holes in his stories sooner in their relationship? In what ways could Iris have been lying to herself?
When Iris discovers that Will had a disadvantaged youth in Seattle, she begins to have a better understanding of his need to own a home that would essentially make them house poor. In what other ways do you think his past difficulties affected the life he built with Iris?
Do you think Will is a sympathetic character? Do you believe he became a good man, one who had truly left his past sins behind? Is it possible to completely leave the past behind and become a “changed person,” so to speak? To what extent does a person’s past influence or define one’s future?
Iris’s job as a psychologist plays a pivotal role in her life and in her beliefs, yet she doesn’t see her husband’s true nature. Why do you think this is? Is love really that blind, or does Iris only see what she wants to see? Have you ever turned the other way and chosen to ignore something? Explain why.
Iris has a special bond with one of her students, Ava, a beautiful teenager who, despite all her wealth and advantages, still can’t find happiness. What do you think the author’s purpose was in creating this character? How does Ava’s message relate back to the story of Iris and Will?
After the crash, Iris finds a friend in Evan Sheffield. Do you think, had they met in other circumstances, that they would have become friends? Or was their friendship a result of their shared trauma and grief? How do you imagine their relationship playing out a year down the road? Five years?
Did the truth about Corban surprise you? If not, at what point did you begin to suspect his character?
Iris says to Will, “I should hate you. I want to hate you. I want to be physically ill because I’m sitting in the same room as you, but I’m not. I don’t. I still love you and I despise myself for it.” Can you understand how she feels? Have you ever loved and hated someone at the same time?
In the last scene, even though Iris’s reasons for pushing the panic button aren’t clear in her mind, she is positive it’s the right thing to do. Do you agree? Would you have done the same in her position? In what ways does pushing that button give Iris closure?
A Conversation with the Author
You have been married to your husband for twenty years. It must be incredibly difficult to imagine your spouse dying in a plane crash. Did this make the novel difficult to write, or did having a husband make it easier to bring the character of Iris and her agony to life?
Yes, I definitely pulled from my own relationship for this story, especially that intense, giddy love that comes early on in a relationship. That’s when you’re willing to overlook any signs things may not be as they seem, signs that might stand out to you later in the course of the relationship, and having experienced this firsthand definitely helped me put Iris in that vulnerable place. What was much more difficult for me was the story line around the crash itself. My family flies a lot, and imagining losing one of them in that way—so sudden and unexpected—was not pleasant. To say I didn’t enjoy flying while writing this story is a huge understatement.
Our leading lady, Iris, is a complex character you push to the emotional limits as she is confronted with serious dilemmas and difficult decisions over and over. Have you ever yourself, or know someone who has, been in a similar situation to Iris?
Not in a situation as severe as Iris encounters, thankfully, but I think we’ve all been deceived by someone pretending to be a person they’re not. The shock of discovering you were so wrong about a friend or loved one—and in Iris’s case, a life partner—will mess with your mind and make you doubt every emotion, thought and decision that comes afterward. But despite all of Will’s lies, the one thing Iris never doubted was Will’s love, and this knowledge made her journey that much more difficult. What circumstances would force a man to leave the woman he loves behind? Iris had to know in order to move on and, ultimately, to heal.
This is your third book and quite a departure from your first two. Did you take a different approach in writing The Marriage Lie? What was your toughest challenge? Greatest pleasure?
Yes, The Marriage Lie is much more suspenseful than my first two books, and the story was much more complicated to write. One of my main characters was “onstage” for only the first and last chapter, yet he was driving the book. This meant I needed to weave in plenty of flashbacks and reveal truths about Will through third parties. Though these techniques add depth to the story—what is true, and what is not?—it was a lot to keep track of, and it required much more planning before writing the first word. That said, the actual writing part is always the same—me, my laptop and endless hours in a chair.
What was your inspiration for the story?
Honestly, the idea found me rather than the other way around. I was writing another story—one I immediately put down when the idea for The Marriage Lie popped into my head. Or I should say ideas, as it was actually two story lines that I weaved into one: the story of a husband with a past full of secrets and what that would mean for a marriage, combined with a plane crash followed by mysterious messages that seemingly come from beyond the grave. There are enough stories of spouses disappearing in real life (North Dakota governor Mark Sanford comes to mind) that most people automatically assume an affair, but I wanted to take this story in a very different direction. Will and Iris appeared in my head, in love and sweet and sincere, and that image became the first chapter. After that, the story was off and running.
Which character did you enjoy writing the most?
I loved writing Iris and Will, especially the sweet scenes documenting their love for each other, but the character who was loudest in my head was Dave, Iris’s twin brother. He’s snarky and sarcastic but with a kind, authentic heart, which automatically makes him my favorite kind of character to write.
The book is set in your hometown. In what ways did this make writing the book a more personal experience for you?
I drew on a lot of my personal life in Atlanta for this story. My kids go to a private school, where families like Ava’s really do exist, and I definitely had a point to make with her story line. On a lighter note, I got to slip some of my favorite Atlanta haunts into the story—neighborhoods and restaurants and even the new BeltLine. It’s like a love letter to my own city, and it was a lot of fun to write.
What would you like readers to take away from this story?
I really hope it makes readers stop and think about what they would do in Iris’s situation. Yes, she loved her husband, but she had to decide if she could live with what he’d done. In her job and to her students, she preaches accountability, which meant she had to hold Will accountable for his crimes, as well.
Tell us about your writing process.
I’m a planner but not a plotter. When a story spark comes, it usually comes with a pretty good idea of my major plot points and main characters. The rest I fill in along the way. I’m not a fast writer, but the words I produce each day are generally keepers, and my first draft is pretty clean. It typically doesn’t need tons of work to get it to the final, polished version.
“Powerful and complex with an intensity drawn out through each page.”
—New York Times bestselling author Steena Holmes on The Last Breath
If you enjoyed The Marriage Lie, be sure to pick up more captivating and emotional thriller reads from Kimberly Belle.
The Last Breath
The Ones We Trust
“An emotionally moving, captivating story that is a perfect book club pick.”
—RT Book Reviews on The Ones We Trust
Order your copy today!
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The Marriage Lie Page 30