Javi’s stomach dropped. How could Karrie have married him while believing that he’d cheated on her? He never would have done that. He gripped his knees, felt like his head would explode. But he didn’t stay anything because he couldn’t afford to make this worse.
Weaver asked, “Did you have a romantic relationship with this woman before your marriage?”
Javi honestly didn’t know how to answer that. He’d never touched Maya while he was with Karrie. He wasn’t the kind of man who crossed that boundary, not when he was committed. But he couldn’t say that their relationship had been completely platonic. They’d flirted with each other. And, on some level, he’d been aware that Maya had feelings for him. Did that make him a cheater?
He didn’t know. “I had feelings for another woman before our marriage, Karrie. I think that happens to most people. But, I promise you, I never acted on them physically. I wouldn’t have done that to you.” He turned to her. “But I did want her. I wasn’t honest with you about that. I wasn’t even honest with myself about that.”
“Then why did you marry me?” Karrie’s eyes were wet, and her voice came out as a whine.
“Because you’re everything I thought I needed in a wife. You’re beautiful. You come from a good family. And you loved me without asking too much of me.” He looked down at his hands. “I wasn’t a very good husband to you. I didn’t give you what you needed.”
“I loved you. I love you.” Her voice was small and quiet.
The counselor sighed. “Do you love him, Karrie?”
“What are you talking about? I don’t feel like myself anymore. I feel like a ghost walking around because I don’t have my husband anymore. I only cheated on him because I didn’t know any other way for him to pay attention to me. I liked that someone actually looked at me.”
“That’s on me, Karrie.” Javi had never taken responsibility for his part in his divorce while it was going on. The lawyers hadn’t wanted him to talk to her at all, and he’d complied. He’d been a coward. “I didn’t see that marrying you despite the fact that part of me knew it wasn’t right was bad. I’m so sorry. I want you to be happy, but I don’t think I’m the man that can make you happy.”
“Don’t say that.” She was full on sobbing now.
Weaver leaned forward in his chair and handed Karrie a wad of tissues. “I don’t usually like to give advice. That’s not my job, but I think you need to hear what Javier is trying to tell you. View this as an opportunity to move on into a life that really fits.”
Javi said, “If you need more alimony, I’ll find a way to make that happen.”
“Money is not going to fix this! Nothing you can do would fix this except leaving her and coming back to me.” Her wrecked face broke his heart.
“I’m sorry, but that’s not going to happen.”
“I know. But sorry doesn’t do shit.”
“I can’t help that I’m in love with someone else. All I can do is to be honest about it.”
“Why her?” Karrie’s tears seemed to slow, and she hugged herself around the waist. “I’m so much better than her.”
“Don’t say that.” Javi shook his head. He wasn’t dumb enough to talk about all the reasons that Maya was everything to him. Not here. But he wasn’t going to let Karrie talk shit about her.
“Why not? She was always in love with you. She actively rooted for us to break up.”
“You blame this woman for your divorce?” Weaver looked a little confused. He and Karrie had never talked about Maya, not in or out of therapy. Karrie had actively disliked her, called her tattoos “trashy” and her New York accent “classless.”
“Maya had very little to do with the divorce. The real issue is that we shouldn’t have gotten married in the first place.”
“You lured me here so I would think we’re getting back together and drop the petition.” That had been a stupid move. Of course Karrie saw this as some sort of scheme to get one over on her.
“I wanted to talk to you, try to give you some closure so that we can both move on.”
“I can’t move on. I moved to this swampy shithole of a city to be with you. And now that I’m back here, and I can’t even go out without seeing a member of your family or hearing about you with the tramp who took you away from me!”
Karrie stood up and grabbed her purse. Weaver moved to the edge of his seat. “Javi, was that your intention with dating this woman?”
“Her name is Maya, and I’m with her because I can’t not be.” Javi dropped his head back. “Actually, I’m not with her right now because Karrie said something to her the other night that made her run away from me.” Javi felt like he couldn’t stay sitting much longer. “What did you say to her, Karrie?”
Javi lifted his head and looked at Karrie, who crossed her arms over her chest defiantly. “I’m not going to tell you anything that will help you get her back.”
“Shit. Karrie. I don’t know what you want from me.”
Karrie grabbed the doorknob and pointed a finger in his direction. “I don’t want anything from you, but what I’m owed.”
“And what’s that?”
Weaver stayed silent, seemingly content to let them work things out, even though they’d devolved into accusations and anger.
“You. You made promises.”
“You want to talk promises?” Javi stood up and pointed a finger at her. “You broke promises first. But I don’t give a shit that you’re not going to help me clear things up with Maya. I’m going to get her back because I have to.”
“Fuck you, Javi.” He could count on one hand the number of times he’d ever heard his wife curse. “If you don’t want me around, you’re going to have to pay to get rid of me.”
Then, she walked out.
Javi buried his face in his hands. Weaver patted him on the shoulder.
“What can I do?” Javi asked himself more than the marriage counselor.
“I think she needs to do the work that it looks like you’ve done.” Weaver sat back and looked at Javi—looked through him. “You seem like a different person. Before, you didn’t want to be here. You clearly didn’t want to be in your marriage.” He paused again. “I’m not supposed to say stuff like this. But this new woman? I think she’s right for you.”
“She drives me fucking crazy.” Javi stood up and jammed his hands in his pockets. “She’s not even talking to me right now.”
“What did you do?” Weaver said with a half-smile.
“I didn’t tell her how I felt. The same stupid shit that got me married to the wrong girl.”
“How are you going to fix it?”
“I guess I have to be honest.” Javi stood up from the couch and walked over to the window that overlooked the street.
“What would you say—honestly—if she were the one in the room with us?”
Javi stopped in his tracks. “That I love her. That I fucked up by not telling her about how I’d planned to deal with Karrie, not treating Maya like a partner.” Karrie had only been able to get into Maya’s head because he hadn’t made it clear that he was all in with her. He was afraid of screwing up again, of being hurt again. “I would promise to be better, to make sure she knew that she’s my number one priority.”
“That’s actually pretty good.”
Javi laughed and looked down at Karrie’s car. It was parked on the street, in front of Javi’s Porsche, and she was sitting in the driver’s seat. Bent over the steering wheel. It made him feel like shit.
“What am I going to do about Karrie?”
“What are you going to do?”
Therapists.
He sat watching, wondering what he could do to help Karrie move on until she got out of her car, opened her trunk, and pulled out what looked like a tire iron. She walked with a purpose toward his car. Javi watched, his eyes wide, as she took her first swing.
Her whole body bent with rage as she propelled a blunt object towards his mos
t prized possession. She’d complained when he’d bought it. She’d claimed that she wanted him to drive something safer, but she’d probably been disappointed that he’d spent that much money on something not for her.
His windshield didn’t shatter from the first few knocks, but his car alarm started blaring and Weaver joined him at the window.
“It doesn’t appear that you’ll be getting closure today, does it?” Weaver’s question was sardonic.
Javier stood there in shock for a few beats. He’d never seen his ex-wife with that kind of passion before. He started to sweat, thinking about what it would cost to fix the car. He wasn’t about to call the cops but a domestic dispute might actually help in the petition. He hated himself a little for thinking of it, but it wouldn’t really solve the problem.
He heard her muffled curses through the thick window and over the distance across the street. Maybe Karrie needed to get this anger out of her system. His paint job and windows seemed like a small price to pay.
Javi turned, walked out of the office, and ran out to the street. By the time he got within a few yards of his increasingly mangled car, she had dented the hood, the driver’s side door, and shattered the windshield. She brought the iron down on the hard top, which started to chip, shards of the black paint chipping off with each dent.
She didn’t seem to notice he was there, but yelled something like “sonofabitch” or “fucking asshole,” every time she connected with the car. Her fury flew out of her in waves.
He held his phone in his hand and contemplated calling the police again. Instead, he called up the camera application and started taking video. She got in several more blows before she dropped the tire iron to her side. It clattered on the pavement and she backed away from the car, sweating and panting.
Then, she noticed him. He didn’t back away because she didn’t pick up the tire iron to come after him. She stared at him, her anger still palpable, then burst out crying again.
He kept filming. “You done?”
Her shoulders slumped and she walked away from him, back towards her own car. Seeing her defeated was the last thing he wanted, even though he didn’t want to owe her more money.
He’d married her to avoid something like this, but, now that it had happened, he felt nothing but relief.
Javi stopped the video. “You know judges watch YouTube, right?”
She either didn’t hear him or wasn’t about to pay attention because she slammed her door, turned on the ignition, and drove away.
Javi wished he could laugh about this with Maya. She would absolutely love this shit, after she finished threatening to disembowel her for messing with him. The ache in his chest came back, this time even worse.
He didn’t know how to get Maya back, and he didn’t know if he could figure it out.
So, he called Cole to pick him up and maybe get him drunk.
Chapter 20
Maya was caught between two bad options. She wanted to get her canvas pulled so she could paint all night. Just like she had for the past week, ever since Felix had forced her out of bed by dumping a bucket of ice water on her. But, the frame was too large for her to stretch the canvas herself. So, if she wanted the job done, she’d have to enlist help. And talking to people was the last thing she wanted to do.
She beat the nails into another wood frame, her last piece for her first solo gallery show. After she was done, she sat on the small chair in the makeshift studio and wished that she’d never given up smoking. Or that she liked weed as much as Felix. Maybe she should start smoking pot. If she was high, she could paint and not feel like she was going through a physical withdrawal every time Javi-fucking-Hernandez popped up in her thoughts.
She was about to get up and go in the house to see if Felix was back from his catering job. She needed a few more minutes of staring off into space and wondering if there were any Eternal Sunshine pot strains. If she told him to shut up and help her, he would do it. For about another week. Then, she’d have to talk about her feelings with him. He’d make her.
She heard female voices and footsteps approaching the door a few seconds before Carla and Alana walked in. Shit. Felix must have let them in the house.
“See, I told you. She looks just as bad as Javi.” Carla talked about Maya as though she wasn’t even there. Nice.
“Javi’s pretty close to catatonic, though. She’s not that bad.” Alana’s statement dragged her part of the way out of her miserable fog. Just because Javi wasn’t happy, that didn’t mean he wasn’t back with Karrie. He’d have to be catatonic to put up with that bitch.
Carla walked over to where Maya was sitting and waved a hand in front of her face. “You there?”
“Yes, why are you here?” Maya didn’t mean for that to come out as a whine, but it did. She wanted to be alone until she stopped hurting. So, forever.
“We’re here because our brother’s miserable.” Alana motioned for her to look at herself. Maya looked down; she was a little dirty and paint stained, but that was nothing new. “You’re clearly miserable. If you weren’t, you would already have made fun of Carla for her outfit.”
Carla’s jaw dropped. “These are Stella McCartney, and they’re perfect.”
“They’re $200 yoga pants and, thus, worthy of ridicule.”
“What are you both doing here? Javi is back with his wife. Can you please go torture her?” Both Carla and Alana broke out in peals of laughter. “Seriously, what’s going on?” Maya didn’t have the energy to shower or eat; she certainly didn’t have the energy to decipher these two today.
“Javi is not with Karrie.”
A curl of hope made its way into Maya’s throat and lodged itself there, but she might have been hallucinating, so she said, “They sure fucking looked together at the bachelor auction.”
Carla blew her bangs off her face. “First of all, I’m not sure she got an invite for that, but I’ll take responsibility for her being there. Also, she stiffed the charity, so she doesn’t get to take him on his date, which I picked out with you in mind.”
“I still don’t see how any of this is relevant to them not being back together.” She saw the texts. He’d wanted to talk to Karrie, and he’d denied being with her.
“It has everything to do with it,” Alana said. “Karrie schemed to win Javi in front of you. She’d heard about you two getting together and decided to make a last-ditch play to get her meal ticket back.”
“But they’re not together.” Carla pulled out her phone and shoved it in Maya’s face. “Here. Look at this.”
A video of Karrie smashing Javi’s car with a tire iron for over a minute followed. She thought she heard Javi laugh in the background. Maya didn’t know whether she wanted to laugh or cry. She looked to Alana, who watched the video and snorted in amusement.
“That was right after he told her they are never, ever, ever getting back together.”
“I’ll say. But I still don’t see what this has to do with me. It’s not like he apologized for groping his ex-wife in front of me.” It had been humiliating. He knew that her mother had been the other woman and yet he’d let her feel that way in public.
“Your brother threatened him with bodily injury, which I thought was poetic given how Javi treated Cole when we first got together,” Alana said.
“He what?” Felix hadn’t even mentioned that Javi had stopped by, which they’d definitely have to talk about at some point.
“Yeah, I had to hire Felix’s catering company for our wedding to get him to give us the location of his house.” Alana put her hand on Maya’s hair. “He upsold me to the lobster buffet. The least you can do after you cost our parents that much money is talk to my brother.”
Maya didn’t shake her off, even though the mention of their parents brought up another reason why she and Javi were probably better off apart. “Your parents already hate me. That’s not going to help.”
Carla snickered. “If our parents hated anyone for
spending money, I would be in trouble. Daddy doesn’t like that Javi got divorced. And he’s a snob. Also, a little racist. But he’ll get over it.” She pointed at Alana. “He’s gotten over being sexist enough to put Alana in charge of the company along with Javi.”
Alana nodded. “And our mother likes you a lot. It’s going to up her street cred with the Junior League ladies so much to have an artist daughter-in-law.”
Maya shook her head. This was too much. She needed some time to process. But looking at Javi’s sisters, she didn’t get the sense that they would leave without tying her up and throwing her in the trunk to bring to Javi—or at least an agreement that she’d talk to him.
“Does Javi know you’re here?” Both sisters shook their heads.
Alana crossed her arms over her chest. “We’re not leaving.”
Maya sighed. She stood up and rubbed her hands on her pants. “Well, if you’re not leaving, you should make yourselves useful.” She handed a gesso brush to Carla. “You’re going to prime that canvas.” Then she grabbed Alana by the arm. “You’re going to help me stretch this one. If you won’t leave, you’re going to make yourselves useful.”
“But these are $200 yoga pants.” Maya and Alana both raised one eyebrow in response to Carla’s protest. “Fine. Can we at least drink wine after this? I didn’t think that doing work for free was part of the ‘save my idiot brother from himself’ agenda.”
“Sure. But you’re buying. I’m broken up with my rich boyfriend.”
Alana grabbed Maya’s hand. “Not for long. We’re going to fix this.”
Maya wasn’t going to cry like a little bitch, but Javi’s sisters liking her, wanting her to be with him, gave her hope that it was fixable.
Chapter 21
Javi found his father in his library, which he also used as an office now that he was nominally retired. His father was frowning at something in the Wall Street Journal, but put it down when Javi walked in. One of his most vivid memories was waiting until his father read the entire paper in the chair across from him when he was in trouble growing up. The fact that his father set aside the paper was a positive sign that eased some of the tightness in his chest.
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