At the Heart of It

by Tawna Fenske

  “I know. I was admiring it the other night.”

  Jonah sighed. “Kate. All those things you just said—the life plans, the marriage, the tattoos—the operative word in all of that is were. Past tense.”

  His words flooded her with equal parts relief and guilt. What the hell was she doing here? Was this a fact-finding mission for Viv, or for herself?

  “I’m just saying, don’t ever say never,” she said carefully. “Things change. People change.”

  “Jesus, Kate.” Jonah frowned and stabbed a big hunk of chicken. “You’re starting to sound like Viv.”

  Kate would have found that flattering under normal circumstances, but she could tell he didn’t mean it as a compliment. She started to pick at a spring roll, but stopped when Jonah spoke again. “Look, I appreciate what you’re trying to do.”

  Kate’s throat tightened. “What am I trying to do?”

  “Reassure yourself that you didn’t betray your idol by sleeping with me,” he said. “But I can promise you there’s nothing between Viv and me anymore. Nothing but a reasonably cordial working relationship and a few good memories mixed with some not-so-good ones.”

  “You’re positive?”

  His eyes locked with hers, and Kate felt certain she’d never seen him look so earnest. “I am absolutely, positively, one million–percent sure that I will never reconcile with Vivienne Brandt,” he said. “It’s a certainty that eclipses any amount of certainty I felt when I said, ‘I do.’”

  “Okay.” Kate swallowed and picked up her fork again. Guilt and relief swished around in her belly like oil and vinegar. Guilt from knowing Jonah’s certainty meant Vivienne’s heartache.

  But relief because he’d misjudged why she’d been asking. He hadn’t guessed at her motive. More importantly, because it meant the man she was falling for wasn’t in love with someone else.

  That counted for something, right?

  Even if she couldn’t have him, even if they had no business sleeping together, at least she knew Jonah’s heart didn’t belong to someone else.

  “Someone else” is Viv, she reminded herself. There went the guilt again.

  She looked up again to see Jonah watching her. “I love spending time with you like this,” he said softly. “You know that? There’s no one else I’d rather share Thai food with.”

  “Thank you,” she murmured, giving him a careful smile. “Are you going to eat that last spring roll?”

  He laughed and picked up his beer. “Help yourself.”

  She plucked it off his plate like they were old friends. Good friends. The kind of friends who shared spring rolls and old stories. Not the kind who shared anything else.

  But as she bit into the spring roll and felt his eyes on her, felt her own body respond to his proximity, she knew that was a lie.

  They could never be just friends.

  It was almost eleven by the time Kate made it back to the hotel. As she slid her key card into the slot, she heard a door open across the hall.

  “Kate.”

  She turned to see Amy poking her head out of her room. Her face was bare, and she wore a serious expression, along with fuzzy pink pajama bottoms and an oversized black sweater.

  “Hey, Amy,” Kate said carefully. “You’re up late.”

  “So are you.” Amy slipped out the door and leaned against the wall, hands tucked up inside the sleeves of her sweater. “Pete texted as you guys were finishing up at the shelter a couple hours ago. Said filming went really well.”

  “It did. Everything was great.” She waited for Amy to ask where she’d been in the hours since filming wrapped, but it was probably obvious. And it was obvious from the look on Amy’s face that she’d already guessed.

  “I didn’t sleep with him again,” Kate blurted.

  Amy smiled, but didn’t laugh. “I didn’t ask,” she said. “And I wouldn’t judge if you had. But I do need to talk to you about something.”

  Kate glanced at her watch. If she went to sleep now, she’d still get six hours. That sounded heavenly. “Can it wait until morning?”

  Amy shook her head. “No. It can’t, actually.”

  Something in Amy’s tone, in the tenseness of her expression, made the skin prickle on Kate’s arms. This was more than a conversation about Chase Whitfield’s latest request. More than a briefing about drama between the test couples or a suggestion from Viv about the direction of the show.

  Kate slipped the key card into the front pouch on her purse and turned to face Amy. Hopefully they could keep their voices down and get this over with quickly. “Okay, but let’s make it fast,” she said. “What’s up?”

  Amy shook her head. “Not out here. This isn’t a conversation for the hallway. Let me grab my laptop, and I’ll meet you in your room in two minutes.”

  Kate sighed and tried not to be irritated. Building drama was part of Amy’s job. She couldn’t blame her for not flipping the switch after hours.

  But she also knew whatever this was could wait. “Amy, I’m tired and I have to pee. Can you just spit it out now so we can—”

  “He’s married,” Amy said. “Jonah’s married.”

  Kate’s blood went cold. She’d heard that expression before, but this time she was sure she felt flecks of ice pricking her veins from inside. She grabbed hold of the door handle, unsure whether it was for balance or an urge to get away. To duck into her room, burrow under her covers, and pretend she hadn’t heard those words.

  He’s married.

  Jonah’s married.

  Amy watched, her expression wary. “Kate?”

  She nodded, even though there’d been no question asked. But she knew Amy was right about one thing. This wasn’t a conversation for the hallway.

  “Come on,” she said, fumbling for her key card again. “Come inside and tell me everything.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Kate stared at the paperwork spread out across her hotel bed, too dumbfounded to comprehend the words dotting the pages like blood spatter.

  She looked up to see Amy watching her with a nervous expression. “Say something,” Amy urged. “What are you thinking?”

  Kate swallowed, trying to get her bearings. “So the divorce papers were never officially filed,” she said. “Which means the divorce never happened.”

  “Right.” Amy nodded like a teacher responding to a pupil prone to hysteric outbursts. “As soon as I uncovered all this, I called Viv.”

  “What?” Kate knotted her fingers in the bedspread and ordered herself to keep breathing. “You called Viv about this?”

  Amy reached across the bed and laid a hand on Kate’s arm. “No, not like that,” she said. “I didn’t tell her what I found. I just asked a few questions about the divorce paperwork. She knows I’ve been working on all the due diligence. The background checks and legal stuff.”

  “Right. I’m sorry, of course.”

  “I wanted to see if I could figure out what happened. Get a handle on things so we know how to proceed.” Amy gave Kate’s arm a squeeze, but didn’t draw her hand back. “I gave Viv this totally convincing story about some other show we worked on where an actor’s divorce was filed in the wrong state and his ex-wife came after his checks and—well, it doesn’t matter. She bought it. She didn’t seem suspicious about me trying to track down copies of their divorce certificate.”

  Kate looked down at the paperwork again, willing there to be a divorce certificate somewhere in the jumble. She saw photocopies of driver’s licenses and birth certificates and something that looked like a Costco card.

  But no divorce certificate.

  “There isn’t one,” Amy said, reading Kate’s thoughts. “According to Viv, they handled the divorce themselves to make sure it stayed out of the media. It was an uncontested divorce, so all they had to do was file a Petition for Dissolution of Marriage and then have a lawyer prepare a QDRO.”

  “A cuatro?”

  “No, a QDRO—it’s legal shorthand for a Qualified Domestic Relatio
ns Order.” Amy picked up a sheaf of papers from the pile and waved it at her. “It’s a legal document for splitting up things like retirement accounts and pension plans.”

  “Okay,” Kate said, not sure she was following. “So what happened? Or what didn’t happen?”

  “According to Viv, they divvied up the tasks. They did all the paperwork together—”

  “How chummy,” Kate muttered, hating the bitterness in her own voice.

  Amy, bless her heart, ignored Kate’s snark and continued. “Apparently they worked out a big list of who’d get what. She was very proud of that—that they didn’t use a mediator or lawyers or anything. Just made this great big document splitting up all their assets and accounts and possessions.”

  “Okay,” Kate said, pretty sure she was following.

  “They decided Jonah would file the paperwork for the petition, and Viv would file the QDRO.”

  “You can do them separately?”

  “Apparently so.” Amy bit her lip and looked down at the papers. “And as far as I can find, Jonah never did his part.”

  “But—but—that doesn’t make sense,” Kate said. “Wouldn’t there have been some sort of red flag when they did taxes or something?”

  Amy shook her head. “It’s only been a year. They had to file taxes together last time, since they were still married the preceding tax year,” Amy said. “The red flag wouldn’t have been raised until the next round.”

  Kate swallowed, unsurprised Amy had done her homework. It was the only thing here that wasn’t a complete and total shock. “I still don’t get it,” Kate said. “How could you not realize your divorce wasn’t final?”

  “Viv did the QDRO,” Amy said. “There would have been a lot of legal-sounding paperwork flying back and forth. It’s possible they both just assumed it was a done deal. Viv does, anyway.”

  Kate opened her mouth to insist how improbable that sounded, but closed it again. Hadn’t Jonah himself acknowledged his own forgetfulness? His failure to keep track of documents and remember important dates?

  “Even Viv didn’t catch it,” Amy said, reading Kate’s thoughts. “When I first started asking for paperwork, she gave me all these official-sounding documents, but nothing with an actual county seal on it. That’s what raised my antennae. That’s why I contacted the courthouse.”

  “But wouldn’t Viv or Jonah or someone have realized at some point that they never saw an official divorce certificate?”

  “That’s what I asked the county clerk,” Amy said. “She said it’s not unusual. They don’t automatically send you copies. You have to pay for them. And with all the QDRO paperwork flying around—”

  “Jonah probably figured Viv had taken care of it,” she said. “He told me once before how she was always giving him honey-do lists and then doing the tasks herself if he didn’t jump on it fast enough.”

  “Sure, that’s possible,” Amy said. “All this time, Viv seemed so proud of how they managed to keep their divorce out of the media.”

  “And all this time, they weren’t actually divorced.” Kate had hoped saying the words aloud might make them easier to digest, but that wasn’t the case at all. They still sounded sharp and cold, like little obsidian arrow tips.

  Amy dropped the stack of papers on the comforter and nodded. “That appears to be the case.”

  They both looked down at the paperwork then, like the answer might be somewhere in that pile. Kate took a few deep breaths, trying to imagine how it might have all happened. Jonah with a big stack of paperwork, never quite getting around to filing his portion. Getting a stack of documents months later about the divvying up of assets and assuming it was a done deal. That it had all been handled.

  Kate looked up again. “Who else knows about this?”

  “Just the two of us, for now.”

  Kate nodded, letting the wheels turn in her brain. For once, she had no answer. No certainty about the right next move. Was this a deal breaker? A show killer or a show maker?

  Beyond that, what did it mean for Jonah? For Viv? For all of them?

  Amy sat watching her, waiting for a response.

  “We have to tell them,” Kate said.

  “Tell who?”

  Kate hesitated. “Viv. Jonah. The network execs.” She thought about the order of those names, about which needed to happen first. About their need to be discreet. “The show’s lawyers.”

  “You’re sure?”

  Kate nodded, her brain working quickly, even though she wasn’t sure. “We start with the lawyers. They’ll know what to do.”

  “I thought about that,” Amy said. “Surely the legal team has seen something like this before. Like maybe there’s a simple solution. Some way they can just file the paperwork and get it over with and never need to alert Viv and Jonah at all.”

  “Right,” Kate agreed. “Maybe it really is that simple.”

  They looked at each other for a long time. Neither of them spoke, but Kate knew they both realized there was no way it could be that simple. Not legally, anyway.

  She looked down at the copy of the QDRO. Both bore signatures from Viv and Jonah. It would be so easy to trace those words, to imitate Viv’s loopy cursive or Jonah’s blocky lettering.

  “No.” Kate’s voice was sharp as she glanced back at Amy. “We’re not forging anyone’s signatures.”

  Amy looked startled. “I didn’t suggest it.”

  “I know.” Kate took a shaky breath. “I’m telling myself. That’s a line we can’t cross.”

  “Understood.” Amy was silent a moment, studying Kate with such intensity that she wanted to look away. “Kate?”

  “Yeah?”

  Amy seemed to hesitate. “I’ll only ask you this once, and you don’t have to answer if you don’t want.”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you think Jonah knows? That there’s some reason he did it on purpose or—”

  “Stayed married to Viv?” She shook her head, waiting to feel any pinpricks of suspicion, any niggling tingles of doubt. There was nothing.

  In a way, it was a relief to feel certain about one thing.

  “No,” Kate said. “I don’t think he knows. It wasn’t intentional.”

  “Okay,” she said. “That’s what I was hoping you’d say.”

  Amy gave Kate’s arm one last squeeze before letting go. Then she picked up a stack of paperwork and began organizing it. Kate watched all the pages shuffling past, all those certificates and licenses and legal documents. Pieces of two intertwined lives.

  Amy gathered them all into a thick stack and shoved them into a big envelope the color of baby food. When she closed it and looked at Kate again, she looked determined. “If I do my job right, maybe Jonah never needs to know,” Amy said. “Same with Viv.”

  Kate nodded, wishing it could really be that easy.

  In the back of her mind, she heard Viv’s words again. A quote from But Not Broken, or maybe it was On the Other Hand. Kate wasn’t sure anymore.

  “If something seems too easy, get ready for certain heartbreak.”

  Kate touched a hand to her chest and tried to ignore the sharp ache.

  Jonah held a twenty-pound Main coon named Lucifer between his thighs and tried to remember why he’d agreed to do this.

  “I love you, Jonah.” Jossy smiled at him, then grabbed hold of Lucifer’s rear paws before he could rabbit-kick Jonah in the nuts again. Jonah shifted in his chair, fumbling for a better grip on the cat.

  “I’m having second thoughts about whether the feeling’s mutual,” Jonah muttered, though he knew damn well that’s the why he was here at the Cat Café long after business hours, subjecting Lucifer to the world’s ugliest manicure. Jonah held out his hand to accept a pink glittery nail tip from his sister. “Remind me again why we’re putting Lee Press-On Nails on a cat?”

  “Because Lucifer has a bit of a scratching issue,” Jossy said. “That’s why he’s been rehomed six times.”

  Lucifer wriggled one paw free and took
a swipe at Jonah’s cheek. Jonah ducked back, glad the military had left him with sharp reflexes. He’d never expected to use them for cat wrangling, but it was a small price to pay for helping his sister. And this asshole cat.

  “You remembered to put glue in it this time?” Jonah pressed Lucifer’s squishy pink paw pad to reveal the claws on his right hand. Lucifer responded with a hiss that sounded like a malfunctioning espresso machine.

  “Yes, I remembered.” Jossy held the cat still while Jonah wrestled the nail tip onto the cat’s first claw.

  He drew back, admiring his handiwork. “Why the pink glitter?”

  “Because the vet clinic was out of more manly colors.” Jossy stepped back to fill another claw tip with glue. “Sorry, Lucifer.”

  The cat growled as Jonah slid the next claw tip into place. “You’re seriously compromising his manhood here.” He positioned another glittery pink object over the next claw. “And mine,” he added as Lucifer delivered another rabbit-kick to his nuts.

  “Sorry, Sorry.” Jossy handed him another claw tip and grabbed the cat’s rear wheels again. “Seriously, Jonah—I owe you for this. Declawing is such an inhumane thing to do to a cat, so this is truly a kindness you’re doing for him.”

  Lucifer growled again, unimpressed by Jonah’s kindness. Jonah grabbed another claw tip from Jossy and slipped it into place, getting more comfortable with the task even if Lucifer wasn’t.

  Maybe this would be a good time to broach the subject of the computer-controlled knee. They’d discussed it before, but not recently. And never when it was a real possibility. Never when Jonah was in a position to make this kind of difference in Jossy’s life.

  He was thinking about how to bring it up when Jossy interrupted his thoughts. “Have you seen the footage yet?” she asked. “The stuff they shot at the animal shelter the other day?”

  “Not yet. Kate mentioned something during filming yesterday. Said post-production was putting together a promotional thing on YouTube.”

  “Will you get to see it before it goes out?”