by Laura Carter
It hurts like fuck.
Chapter 23
Drew
I walk for a while before I flag a cab, trying to make sense of what just happened.
I can’t.
I replay every conversation we’ve ever had, searching for a clue. She said she had left a long term relationship. I knew she had a past and that she was keeping something from me. But a husband?
My phone rings. My heart leaps until I see the caller is Sarah. I end the call and turn off my phone. I don’t want to see her. I don’t want to explain that I fell in love with a woman who made me commit adultery, who lied to me, who ripped out my fucking heart.
Drink. That’s what I want. I want to go home and drink until this pain disappears.
That’s where the driver is headed, until we drive by Edmond’s place, and my hurt turns to anger. She said Edmond saved her. Did he know?
I throw bills at the driver, not bothering to count them, and storm like a raging bull into the restaurant. I walk right by Beatrice at the front desk and into the kitchen.
“Two steak. One rare, one blue.” Edmond catches my eye and probably sees the murderous look on my face. “One halibut. One lamb, pink.”
“Yes, Chef.”
“Chef.”
He moves from behind the counter. Rather than asking me why I’m here, he says, “Drew, you can’t be in here.”
“You knew. You fucking knew.”
He holds up a finger. “Keep your voice down. This is my work. And hers.”
I squeeze my eyes shut to stop the burning sensation. “How could you know she’s married and not tell me?” My anger wanes, and I’m looking at my friend through clouded eyes.
How can it hurt this much?
Edmond looks at me with sympathy. Something I’ve never seen when he’s looked at me before. I realize I’m standing before him, not as a hot-shot attorney in the city, not as the friend he knows, but as a broken man. “There are things you don’t know, Drew.”
“So fucking tell me,” I snarl.
“It’s not my story to tell.” He looks at the clock on the wall. “Give me an hour, all right? Go to the Irish bar around the corner, and we’ll talk.”
I don’t know whether I want to throw myself on the floor like a child and beg someone to make the pain go away, or whether I want to put my fist in my friend’s face. So I turn my back on him and leave.
I contemplate going home. The last thing I want is to be in a bar full of people. But I need to know what Edmond has to say. If nothing else, I’ll have a drink in my hand sooner if I go to Paddy’s than I will if I go home.
* * * *
She lied to me. She laughed and smiled and made love to me, and the whole thing was one goddamn lie. I wrestled with fear and doubt. I went against everything I’ve told myself is important.
She’s made a fool of me. And I let her. I fell for the lie.
I plant my empty shot glass on the bar. “Another.”
“You might want to slow down, pal,” the Irish guy behind the bar says as he refills my glass.
“You have no idea how fast or slow I want to drink.” I want to drink myself into oblivion. I want to drink myself into a stupor of ignorance. I think I want to drink so much I don’t remember anything. Not the bagel truck. Not her dimples. Not the way her skin feels against mine.
“I know you’re starting to slur your words, and this is number ten.”
I slap a hundred-dollar bill down on the bar. “I’m not paying you to count. I’m paying you to pour.”
Two hands come down on my shoulders. “He’s all right, I’m hanging around.” The voice is Edmond’s. He orders a beer and takes a seat on a bar stool next to mine. “Drinking yourself senseless isn’t going to make this disappear, Drew.”
“Now you want to fucking tell me something.”
“Don’t take this out on me, Drew. You’re better than that.”
“Better than that? Am I? I’ve been fucking someone else’s wife.” I mean the words to sound fierce, but they stick in my throat, catching on the emotion that’s been balled there since I saw her standing next to her husband. Her fucking husband.
After downing my shot, I wiggle the empty glass in the air, catching the attention of the staff. Edmond says nothing. He doesn’t defend himself. He doesn’t defend her.
I stare at my glass, turning it between my fingers, contemplating smashing the thing into the reflection of a man who barely looks like me in the mirror behind the bar. That man looks pale and red-eyed. He’s skewed by the fog of liquor. And he let this happen to himself. One of his best friends let him get here.
Gripping the glass tightly in my fist, I grate the question through my teeth. “Why didn’t you tell me she’s married?”
Edmond swigs his beer and puts the bottle down on the bar. “I won’t fight with you, Drew.”
I scoff. “Maybe I’ll be the judge of that when you tell me why the fuck you lied to me.”
He shakes his head, and I wonder whether he’ll walk away. Maybe he should. Maybe I’m done with the whole damn farce anyway.
Or, maybe I need to hear what he has to say because our friendship might otherwise end right now.
My glass is topped up—the only thing stopping me from crushing it in my hand. I throw the liquor back and relish the burn in my throat and chest that momentarily masks what else I’m feeling inside. I will it to travel directly to my head and kill my thoughts.
“I don’t know everything. I don’t have the full story.” Edmond’s words bring me back from darkness. “What I can tell you is that marriage is why she left London. She hasn’t seen him in months. Not since she’s been here.”
“Then why is he here and dressed in a towel in her apartment?” My words are almost a bark.
“I can’t answer that, and I can’t answer everything for you. I’m here because I want you to appreciate it’s not as straightforward as you think it is. She came to me on Tuesday and said she didn’t know what to do about what’s going on with you two. I told her to tell you about her husband. That’s where it stopped. I’m not sure what she decided, and I don’t know how it happened that he’s here now.”
I snort and knock back my scotch. “It seems fucking obvious to me. He came here for her.”
Edmond sighs, his cheeks puffing out. “I hope not. And I hope she doesn’t go back with him.”
I try to sit straighter but wobble on my stool and have to brace myself with my palms on the bar. My scotch fog makes piecing everything together difficult. “But she might.”
He nods silently.
“If she doesn’t want to be back with him, then how did he find her?”
“I have no idea, Drew. He turned up at the restaurant this afternoon, and she left. I can’t say what he’s doing here, but I’ll tell you this: Becky is not the person she was when she came to me in London. She’s stronger and she’s happier. You helped her with that.”
I know that’s true. At least I thought I did. Then, I also thought she was falling in love with me. “She lied to me.” My words have about as much strength as I feel.
“I know. And I can see you’re hurting, my friend. You need to talk to her.”
“Maybe I do.” I push up to stand and find my legs unsteady beneath me. “Maybe I don’t. She could have talked to me for the last four weeks and she didn’t bother. Why should I give a fuck now?”
Even as I say the words, I know why. Because I love her. As messed up as it is. As fake as we’ve been. As fucked up as all this is. I love her.
Edmond puts a hand on my shoulder to balance me. Though I’m sour at him, I’m grateful to him for being the only thing keeping me upright. “Before you make any decisions, you need to go home and sleep this off.”
“Or maybe I go there and tell him a few things. Let him be crushed by her too.”
&nbs
p; He shakes his head. “You need to let them talk, Drew.”
“So they can work things out?” I drag my fingers through my hair, pulling on the roots. “Jesus.” The word leaves me on an exhale. I was ready to give her everything. Give her all of me. And she’s let me down more than anyone else in my entire life.
“Go home to bed and see how you feel tomorrow.”
I flop back down onto my stool and hold up my empty glass one more time. “I think I’ll still feel like someone punched me in the gut.”
I rest my head on my forearm on the bar and shut my eyes, willing myself to blankness. The last thing I hear is the sound of Sarah’s voice. “I’ll take care of him, Edmond. He needs me.”
* * * *
I stir and try to open an eye but pin it closed again when the light of my apartment feels like it’s piercing my eyeball.
“Good morning, sleepy.”
I roll onto my back on my leather sofa and try to piece together last night. Paddy’s bar. Scotch. Home. More scotch. Sarah taking off my jacket and shoes on the sofa.
“I think I’m dying,” I groan, dropping my hands over my face.
“You look like shit.”
I can well imagine, if the throb in my head is anything to go by. “What are you doing here?”
“Besides bringing you these?”
I open one eye again and see Advil and a coffee in Sarah’s hands. “You’re an angel.”
“I know.” She takes a seat on the sofa opposite mine as I drag my sorry ass up to sit.
“What time is it?”
“Six.”
I groan again, dragging a hand over my face.
“Becky called me last night, I’m guessing as soon as you left her place. It didn’t take long for me to work out where you were. I figured you’d think about taking this all out on Edmond. I also figured you’d turn to your nemesis—Johnnie Walker Blue Label.”
For all the good it did, because that same pain in my chest and in my gut is back. “She’s married.”
Sarah crosses her legs and purses her lips. “She told me.”
I close my eyes because I don’t want to see her sympathy, and I drop my head back on the sofa. “How could she lie to me about that?” My eyes burn behind my lids and my throat tightens. “How could she make me fall in love with her and not tell me?”
“I’m so sorry, Drew. I really am. I can only imagine how you’re feeling. But…she called me and told me she’s going to London.”
I swallow Advil as I bring my head forward to look at her. “So, she’s gone back to him.”
“That’s not what she said. She just said she had to go to London.”
I can’t remember the last time I cried. I was probably a kid. But now, I have to stand and walk to the window to distract myself from doing just that.
“Drew, I think she told me because she knew I would tell you. I could be wrong. She might be going there to… I don’t know why she’s going there, but I think she wanted you to know. I think it’s a cry for help.”
“Or she’s going back to him.”
“It’s possible. But she’s been here for months without him. She hasn’t spoken to anyone about him. In my experience, some things are too painful to talk about. She walked away from him.”
It comes back to me now, my conversation with Edmond last night. I turn to Sarah. “Edmond said she was in a bad relationship. She told me she didn’t want to be in a relationship because she was figuring out who she was. Maybe she figured out and wanted him back.”
Sarah nods. “Perhaps. I can’t answer that.”
I stare out to the horizon, searching for the answer. Looking for anything to tell me what in hell I’m supposed to do.
She’s married. She loved a man enough to marry him. Maybe I should respect that. Let them work it out. God knows, if she was mine, there’s no chance I’d let her go.
But she isn’t.
With a sound that’s somewhere between a wail and a growl, I thump the windowpane with the side of my fist. I see Sarah flinch from the corner of my eye, and I turn my back on her completely, resting my fists on the window and hanging my aching head between my arms. “I don’t want her to go back to him, Sarah. I can’t give her up. At least not without a fight.”
She startles me when she speaks, her voice coming from right beside me. “Drew, I get the feeling it isn’t as simple as her having a husband she’s been hiding from you.”
With a sense of renewed purpose, I nod. “I need to talk to her.”
“I was hoping you would come to that conclusion sooner rather than later.” She moves to the sofa and reaches into her handbag. “Go and get cleaned up. You’ve got an early flight to catch.”
I take the envelope she’s holding from her. “You booked me a flight to London?”
“I know you better than you know yourself, Drew Harrington. She’s staying at Chateau Belmont, where Edmond’s restaurant is.”
Chapter 24
Drew
The good news is, by the time I get to Chateau Belmont, I’ve slept off my hangover on the flight. The bad news is, now that I’m sober, I’m wondering what in the hell I’m doing here. I came for an explanation. I came to fight. But what if I’m too late? What if there’s nothing to fight for?
I follow a bellhop through the pillared entrance of the hotel. The inside is even more grand than out. Black and white floor tiles gleam. Green marble pillars hold up the high ceilings. Everything is mahogany and trimmed in gold. The place smells of polish and vanilla all at once. I’d expect nothing less luxurious from the hotel that’s home to Edmond’s restaurant.
“Good evening, sir. May I help you?”
The porter stands behind me with my luggage as I check in with a suited woman who has immaculately combed back hair and insanely red painted lips.
“Our concierge will take your bags to your room, sir. If there is anything we can do to make your stay more comfortable, please do let me know.”
“Actually, there is one thing. Can you tell me which room Becky Fletcher is staying in? She used to work here, in the restaurant. I’m...a friend from New York.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I’m not at liberty to share that information with you. I’m afraid it is hotel policy.”
Hotels and their damn adherence to rules. “Fine. Could you at least get a message to her for me?”
She smiles, revealing perfect white teeth. “Of course, sir. Would you like to write it down?”
She hands me a note pad and a pen. As I hover the pen over the paper, I haven’t a clue what I’m here to say. Except…
I’M HERE.
I WANT TO KNOW EVERYTHING.
I’LL BE WAITING IN THE BAR.
DREW
I nudge the note toward the receptionist, my heart hammering in my chest, my palms hot. Will she come? If she comes, what will she tell me?
Jesus, I could lose her for good. Maybe I already have.
As I sit at the bar—nursing my first scotch, needing to kill my nerves but remembering too well how my body ached from the after effects of the same taste just hours ago—it occurs to me more than once that I might have lost my mind. I’ve chased a woman halfway across the world, and I have no idea what to say to her or what she might say to me. I keep thinking about the way she looked at me when I saw her husband. She gave nothing away. She looked sorry, sure, but she didn’t necessarily look like she wanted to be with me instead of him. She didn’t tell me in that look that she didn’t want to be with him.
Was her telling Sarah that she was in London a message to me? Was it a cry for help, or was she telling me we are over? Were we ever more than friends in her mind?
This is it. I could have flown here, sat at this bar, waiting to hear from her the words we’re done.
To everyone else I must just look like a man sitting in slacks
, his shirt tucked in beneath his jacket, having a drink. Normal. I feel anything but normal. I feel like a nervous wreck.
It’s nine on the dot when I lean my wrist toward the bar lamp and check my watch. I order a second scotch on the rocks and wait.
As if I’m tuned in to her presence, I sense her before I see her. I take a slow breath to calm the anxiety running through my blood and making me dizzy, and I turn on my stool. Her hair is pulled across one shoulder. Her gray dress is elegant and plain, yet hugs every curve of her body. Her black heels make her already fine legs to die for.
Her lips are straight, telling me nothing, as she walks across the bar toward me. I get off the stool and look down at her slightly, despite her heels. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
I want to fist my hands in her hair and kiss her pink lips, but there’s so much passing between us. Such a mess. I have no idea whether she’s single or married. I have no idea whether she still wants to be friends. I pray she wants something more.
One thing I do know, I love her just as much now as I did yesterday.
Becky orders a martini, and I get another scotch. Then it’s just us, with no legitimate distractions.
“So…” is all I can think to say. When I really want to scream, “Tell me, goddamn it! Tell me you’re not with him. Tell me it wasn’t all a lie! Tell me you love me.”
She sucks in a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Drew. I should have told you about Mike.”
“You should have.” My words are abrupt.
She nods. “I never meant to hurt you.”
I snort. You fucking ripped me apart.
“Please, don’t be like that. I’m…I’m so pleased you came here. I didn’t expect you to, but I hoped you would.”
I swirl the scotch in my glass. “Why?”
“Because there are things you need to know, and there are things I had to come here to fix before I could be truly honest with you.”
I don’t know whether she expects me to talk, but when I don’t, she sucks in another breath and continues.
“I ran from London. I ran from Mike.”
My pulse judders. Perhaps my heart stops. She ran from him.