by Nina Singh
He turned to fully face her again and leaned his hip on the sink behind him. “I don’t know how to tell you this, sweetheart, but I was thinking more along the lines of home fries, scrambled eggs with bacon, and thick country toast soaked in butter.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Those hardly work well with even the briskest of teas.”
“And a strong cup of steamy, dark-as-coal coffee.”
Angel let out an exaggerated gasp and clapped a palm to her chest. “I can’t believe you said the C word.”
He grinned. “Real bastard, aren’t I?”
“I suppose I should go see if I even have a stash of that contraband on the premises.”
“Hey, you offered breakfast. If that means you take a walk to Java Jay’s, then I’ll see you when you get back.”
“More forbidden words.” She performed an exaggerated shudder. “I can’t be around you any longer.”
“Sorry, sweetheart. I was never much of a tea drinker.”
“Well, you needn’t goad me with the competition.”
“Would you rather I lied to you?”
“Only if you do it with sincerity.” She brushed by him with an exaggerated huff. He snapped her playfully with a towel as she walked out.
Minutes later, the delicious aroma of coffee reached his nostrils, followed by the scent of clearly greasy breakfast home fries. His stomach grumbled. Oh, yeah, it appeared his wife had undergone quite a few changes.
The scene that greeted him in the country-style contemporary kitchen caused an ache deep within his chest. Angel stood over the granite counter, still wrapped in the thick terry robe, fixing breakfast for the two of them. Her collar had fallen off her shoulder. For a moment, he imagined it slipping farther down, lower and lower, exposing the creamy skin of her smooth back. He took a deep breath and made his way to the round wood table in the center of the room.
She turned and acknowledged him with a smile that didn’t look very convincing. The events of the morning hadn’t been forgotten.
“Voila.” She bowed and lifted the cover off a large serving plate to display a heaping serving of eggs, toast and potatoes.
“You did this?”
She glared at him. “I am in the business, sir. You needn’t look so surprised.”
He figured it would be safer to dig in than risk further reply. He sank his fork into a mound of eggs and barely allowed himself a chew before he swallowed. Early-morning deception tended to give a guy an appetite.
“Mmm, that’s great, Angel.”
“Glad you like it.” She leaned over the table to serve herself. His gaze shifted automatically to her exposed shoulder. She looked up in time to catch his stare and shifted uncomfortably. Slightly embarrassed, he looked away.
He gulped down some of the coffee. It wasn’t terribly fresh, but the caffeine jolt was more than welcome.
Angel lifted her hand, and he handed her the salt shaker before she had a chance to ask for it. She took it without looking up.
“R.J., what in the world do we do now?”
“First of all, I guess we need to set up our trip,” he said, stalling. “I understand it’s a very pretty area.”
“Um...” Angel replied, still chewing. “Especially closer to the Black Sea coast where the Bays’ property is.” She smiled. “You should see how beautiful these rows and rows of plants are. Mila’s Bloom is a gorgeous shrub. It grows so lush and full. There are some black tea orchards right around that area, too. And the beaches are beautiful.”
“Well, I’ll be able to see it firsthand soon.”
She set her fork down. “So, we’re really going to go through with this. I guess that European expansion is a lot more important to your bottom line than I had thought.” She put her fork down and waited for him to answer.
He ignored it. “Then we can see about the flight arrangements.”
“What about your responsibilities? Are you going to be able to get away for so long?”
“I have a right-hand man. I can trust him with my life.” He stopped and added, “And with my business.”
“Sounds like quite a guy. Can’t wait to meet him.”
There was no need to tell her Tom already knew about her. No need to talk about the reckless, drunken rant he’d gone on one night when he’d been particularly missing her. He cleared his throat.
“What about you—who’ll take over for you here?”
She swallowed. “Shanna’s more than capable of handling things while I’m away. And she loves having Max stay with her, so she’ll do that, too.”
“You two make quite a team.”
“We do seem to complement each other.” She smiled and picked further at her plate. “Well, our backup in the States seems settled.”
He stopped eating. “That’s it, then. Looks like we’ll be going undercover.”
As true man and wife, no less.
CHAPTER FIVE
WHEN IT CAME to late-night wallowing, Shanna Martin always came prepared. Evidence of the fact sat scattered all over the coffee table in the form of candy, ice cream and various other sugar products.
Shifting her legs under her, Angeline tore open the chocolate-covered almonds and popped three of them into her mouth at once. A nearly empty pizza box sat precariously on the arm of the sofa next to her.
“So, you and R.J. will be playing house for a while, huh?”
She started to deny Shanna’s depiction but then sighed. “Pretty much.” It took an amazingly short time to suck right through the chocolate candy straight to the nut at the center.
“How are you going to make sure the Bays don’t become suspicious?” Shanna asked as she stirred her root beer float.
“Shan, I don’t know anything anymore. How did this get so convoluted? It was supposed to be one night of playacting until we could get the Bays to listen to reason.”
“Instead, you’re traveling in a few days to one of the most romantic spots on the planet with your estranged husband.”
“Exactly! How did all this happen?”
Shanna looked like she was on the verge of a giggle, then had the sense to squelch it.
“My life seems to turn completely upside down every time that man is in it.” Angeline stopped to wash down two chocolates with cola.
“So now what?”
“So now it’s happening all over again. So much for our well-thought-out foolproof plan. We should have been over with this whole thing by now.”
“Is that what bothers you? The fact that we’re way off plan?”
Angel swallowed and gave her a quizzical look.
“Or is it something else?” Shanna asked while taking great effort in squeezing just the right amount of chocolate syrup onto a pint of French vanilla ice cream. Then she handed the sundae to Angel.
“Isn’t that enough?”
“There seems to be more to it. You look almost angry. Surely not at R.J. He’s being very generous. What’s going on?”
“Oh, he’s generous to a fault. Doesn’t seemed bothered at all that we’ll be spending so much time together.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
Her blood sugar having reached full tilt, Angel wasn’t cautious enough not to take the bait. “What do you mean, mmm-hmm?”
“I mean, there’s something else bugging you about this whole thing.”
“What are you talking about? We’re misleading two wonderful people to help grow a business that employs numerous hardworking, deserving women. Not to mention the whole fiasco of a sham marriage. All of that is bugging me.”
“Right.” Shanna put her drink down and turned to face her friend. Uncomfortable with the scrutiny, Angel studied the smeared fudge on her spoon. “But, you’re definitely not the objective, savvy businesswoman you usually are, An
gel. Tell me what’s up.”
She blurted it out without really wanting to. “It just hurts, Shan. To see how unaffected he can be about the whole thing. He acts like it’s not going to bother him at all, pretending we never broke up.”
“Like you’re wondering how much the marriage meant to him in the first place.”
Feeling the tears pool beneath her lids, she could only nod.
Shanna moved closer and gave her a reassuring hug. “Baby, you know he cares for you, he loved you.”
“I don’t know anything of the sort. Maybe he only loved the fact that I was willing to risk everything for him.”
“You don’t believe that. Anyone who saw the two of you together could see the intensity whenever you even looked at each other.”
“Yeah, the intensity of foolish youth thrown together with a healthy helping of ordinary, basic lust.”
“I know you don’t want to minimize it that way. Everyone could tell back then that no one else existed for the two of you when you were together.”
Angel hmphed a laugh. “That didn’t stop several people from trying to come between us. They ultimately succeeded, didn’t they?”
“Did they?”
“You need to ask? We split up, remember?”
“Angeline, the only people who can split a couple up are the two people in it.”
Angeline paused as the force of each word hammered home. It was true. Somehow she had failed miserably with the one man she’d ever felt anything for.
“You never talked about it, you know,” Shanna continued. “You never talked about the specifics of your breakup, I mean.” She paused. “And I didn’t want to push.”
It was true. Shanna was one of those friends who would never prod, just always be there to listen if you needed. It was one of the many reasons they’d stayed such steadfast girlfriends since childhood. Angeline gave a small shrug. “We just grew apart.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know, we just argued about everything. And the last straw broke when he wanted to move to the West Coast, to be closer to the tech industry. I couldn’t drop everything I was doing and follow him to another city.” She felt her lip quiver and hated herself for it.
“You were his wife. Couldn’t you two work out some sort of compromise?”
“How? I had an idea and a business plan. I’d already put in a large investment.”
“And R.J. had a problem with this?”
“He wanted me to look into setting up my business out there. But that was just too risky. Besides, this is my home. R.J., on the other hand, wanted to completely break free from all our Boston connections.”
“Doesn’t sound like either of you was willing to budge.”
Angeline sighed. “It was a very difficult situation, Shanna. I was trying to start my own business.”
“Angeline, lots of couples go through what you described. Not all of them end up in splitting. So why did you two break up?”
Angeline snapped her head up to look at her. Random thoughts skittered around her brain like insects. There seemed to have been so many things that went wrong before all that, so many disagreements that escalated. Eventually, even the fire of passion hadn’t been enough to keep them together. And there was always the looming specter of her father and his disapproval. She’d initially thought they’d be able to survive it all. Toward the end, she’d realized she didn’t even know if she was fighting for her marriage or fighting against her dad. Eye-opening moment, indeed.
“It certainly didn’t help that my father was against us from the beginning. Threatened to cut me off if I married R.J. Then held true to his word. As always.”
“You married him anyway.”
“I’d fallen in love,” Angeline said, grabbing another candy, then slamming it back down on the counter. Suddenly, she didn’t feel like eating anymore. “And it’s not like my father and I had much of a relationship in the first place. Hence, all the hours I spent at your house as a kid.”
Shanna smiled. “We were happy to have you.”
“I’m glad someone was. My father treated me as barely more than a nuisance. Something changed in him after my mother left us. He grew cold, distant. I was little, but I still noticed.”
“You look a lot like your mom.”
She had considered that, of course. “A reminder of her he didn’t want.” She shook her head in dismissal. “This is all old news. Nothing to do with what’s happening between R.J. and me now.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Did it ever occur to you that R.J. may have felt guilty? For coming between you and your father? The only family you had?”
Her pulse hitched. The truth was, she hadn’t really examined R.J.’s motivation. She’d been too hurt. But that theory made no sense. “So his response was to give me an ultimatum about moving away with him to the West Coast?”
Shanna leaned closer, her head practically on Angeline’s shoulder. “Maybe he knew you well enough to know you’d turn it down. Leaving the ultimate decision in your hands.”
Shanna’s words felt like a jolt through her chest. Could that have actually been R.J.’s intent? All this time, she hadn’t once considered he might have made his West Coast ultimatum in order to give her a way out.
Shanna gave her a look of sympathetic understanding at her silent answer. “That’s what I thought,” she finally said. “Neither of you stopped to consider what you were really throwing away. Pride and youth kept getting in the way, I imagine.”
She watched as Shanna started clearing the mass of junk food in front of them. Had she been uncompromising? She thought back to the woman she was three years ago. Starting and expanding TeaLC had been the ultimate goal. It had been thrilling to investigate the growing tea market, to research the best distribution channels. She’d worked so hard. Sacrificed so much. While her friends were traveling the world after graduating or immersing themselves in social functions, she was poring over project charts and earnings projections. She’d given up so much, her youth, her friends. Her husband. Had it all been worth it in the end? These days, the only thing exciting about TeaLC appeared to be the Works program.
Had she really not stopped long enough to see what her husband was dealing with because he’d married her?
She pulled herself short. Why was she doubting herself all of a sudden? For doing nothing more than pursuing a dream. He’d been at fault, too. If Shanna was right about R.J.’s intentions three years ago, he should have been honest with her from the beginning.
Shanna made a studious effort of studying her scarlet-red fingernail. “Apparently nothing was resolved by the two of you breaking up. You’re going to have to address that, even if this is only a short-term ‘marriage of convenience.’”
Angel had to stop herself from jumping up and pacing around the living room like a nervous cat.
Shanna continued. “Who knows, maybe that’s the reason all this is happening. Maybe the universe is finally answering your need to face some of this stuff head-on. Before you finally move ahead and sign those divorce papers.”
Angeline began clearing the table, as well. “Don’t you go into one of your New Age, karma-based, transcendental philosophical lectures on me. All this is happening because I’m trying to buy tea from the two sweetest but most stubborn people on the face of the earth.”
Shanna threw a chocolate drop at her. “If you say so. But something tells me there’s much more to it.”
Angel spread her arms wide in a frustrated gesture. “Oh, like what? Perhaps fate has chosen this way to bring us together again? Come on, Shan. Even you can’t believe that, romantic that you are.”
Shanna shook a spoon in the air. “Don’t be so sure. We romantics believe in love above all.”
“Despite all the horrors we see at the TeaLC Works program? All those women who
commit to the man of their dreams and end up with a nightmare instead?”
“Those women are moving on with their lives. They’ll find real love, too. Eventually.”
Angeline gave a weary sigh. “And us?”
“Darling, there’s only one of us who hasn’t had it happen to her yet. And my turn is right around the corner. I can feel it.”
Angel ignored the first part and grinned. “Whoever he is, he’s a lucky man.”
Shanna winked. “Well, I’ll be sure and tell him that when he shows up. Now, I should get going and you should go to bed. We have a pretty full day tomorrow. Don’t forget you have that formal dinner in the evening with the Women in International Business.”
Angel tried to rub some tension out of her brow. “That’s right. I’m not so sure how social I’m going to be. I can just see the conversations now—‘Angeline, why don’t you tell us about your current overseas projects?’ How would I reply?” She placed her hands on her hips and looked up at the ceiling as she thought of a mock answer. “Well, I’m in phase three of ‘Operation Marriage Scam.’”
Shanna laughed. “Don’t go giving away all our trade secrets.”
“And I suppose, before the day is out, I should call R.J. about our trip.”
“Looks like you’ve got a pretty interesting day ahead of you.”
Angeline dropped herself back down on the sofa. “That’s the problem. Things have just gotten way too interesting since my ex returned.”
* * *
Angel stepped out of the double doors of the World Trade Center. Cool harbor wind licked her face and offered some refreshing air. The business dinner had been a chore. She hadn’t been able to concentrate. All she could think of was the trip.
She still hadn’t called R.J. to talk, had put if off all day. She looked down at her watch. Seven thirty. A walk would soothe her tension. She could grab a cab right afterward and then call him. The wind was crisp and she was wearing heels, but the air would do her good.