That sentence struck me to the point of wanting to hurt him in turn, doing what I had promised myself never to do: tell him the truth.
"I was pregnant," I confessed, heedless of the tears that stung my eyes.
"What the hell are you saying?"
"I was already in the second month of pregnancy when I realized it."
"Was the boy mine?"
"Of course! Who else could it be?! Zane, I never betrayed you!"
"Then why didn't you ever tell me?"
"When I found out I was pregnant, you were grappling with Fairchild Industries. It was a highly stressful time and you worked day and night. I promised myself that I would tell you about it as soon as everything calmed down. Two weeks passed and the client called you to New York. You were gone ten days. I was about to enter the third month of pregnancy, but something happened one morning. I don't know what ... I wasn't feeling well. In panic, I called Rick."
"Rick?! You should have called me!" Zane stirred at once.
"I didn't mean to alarm you! Maybe then it was nothing! Also, after your mother's death two years earlier, you had become excessively apprehensive when I was not feeling well. I was sure that if I had told you about it, you would have let go of the client and you would have run to me, blowing up the negotiation that was about to end."
"You were my wife! You counted more than any customer."
"I didn't want to give you further worries. However, that time, Rick wanted to take me to the hospital. I was sick, I needed you, but I promised myself not to look for you. I was sure I could do it alone, until ... the doctor informed me that I had had a miscarriage. When that happened, the world collapsed on me. I began to wonder how it was possible, where I had gone wrong, why it had happened to me ... My only consolation was that you were not aware of it. I was sick, but I knew I would recover, while as far as you were concerned, I didn't really know how to deal with the situation without making you carry the burden of it. You were in the middle of your career and an abortion was not what you needed. So, I decided to keep quiet."
"How could you do this to me?" Zane whispered, still incredulous. "How could you not tell me about it? I had every right to know! That was my son too!"
"I did it for you. As you can see, you are not the only one who has chosen to sacrifice himself for the sake of the other."
"Is that why you left me? Because you did not know how to go on knowing what you were hiding?"
"After the abortion, I had an awfully bad time. Guilt stifled me and you were never there. I felt alone. I would have fallen into depression if it weren't for Rick and Gwen."
"Rick! Always Rick! You know what? If you were doing fine with him, why didn't you marry him and leave for New York with him?"
"Because I loved you."
"Not enough! Or you would never have asked me for a divorce, but you would have told me the truth and you would have tried to overcome what had happened to you with me!"
"I wanted it, but you were never there! You always and only thought about work! Being with you, waiting for you every evening hoping that you had not fallen asleep in the office, keeping my pain hidden ... all this made our union more and more difficult. It was as if an impassable wall had been created between us. I had lost myself and you had not even noticed. I left you, but only because I couldn't wait any longer for you to come back to me," I explained.
"You didn't believe in me. You preferred to isolate yourself and destroy yourself and our marriage. You tell me you did not want to hurt me, but what do you think you did to me by leaving me? You broke me up and I will never forgive you for that! Your lies are just proof that I was not as important to you as I thought. You cheated on me, Audrey. You betrayed the love I felt for you."
"It's not like that," I tried to convince him, desperate to hear his words.
"Go away, Audrey."
"Zane, I apologize for making you suffer and for lying to you. Even though we broke up, I never stopped loving you. Zane ...," I confessed, looking for something to hold on to in order not to lose him.
I looked into Zane's eyes and realized I had already lost him.
He was broken inside.
I had destroyed him.
For the second time.
He would never forgive me.
I would never forgive myself.
Defeated, I headed for the exit.
It no longer made sense to stay and insist.
I opened the door and went out.
I nearly crashed into Ryan and many other employees who had gathered there.
Some of them were holding a small sign with "Congratulations!" Written on it, others a cake covered with cream and with the same writing on it. Ryan was holding Farlight's signed contract instead.
They were all ready to celebrate that incredible event, but their expressions were far from festive.
It did not take a degree in psychology to understand that they had heard all the heated argument between me and Zane.
"Goodbye, boys. It has been an honor to work with you," I barely managed to say, before I ran away, destroyed by what I saw as the second serious loss of the day.
24
Zane
"Zane, did you put down roots on that chair or is it just a rumor I hear about the corridors, where they say you haven't been out of this office for three days?" Ryan began, breaking my policy of not being disturbed.
Ever since Audrey left, I have not wanted to see anyone anymore.
"Zane, three days have passed. You can't go on like this. If Audrey ..." continued Ryan undaunted, as I remained silent. I did not feel like talking to anyone.
"Stop saying that name in my presence," I sighed feeling a new twinge in my head going through me.
"I correct myself: your ex-wife."
I electrocuted him with my eyes.
"Zane, you can also stare at me like that, but the fact remains that your secrets have come up. Having heard of her, triggered a chain reaction. More than half of your staff wants her back here with us. If before she appeared to be presumptuous and too demanding with her directives from the beginning, now that everyone knows that she was the co-founder of this agency, she earned everyone's respect. I don't want to turn the knife in the wound, but she is more loved than you. Someone has already started a signature collection to get her back."
"Fire them all."
"Forget it! Zane, I can understand what you're going through, but you can't hate her this much. She made a mistake, I don't doubt it, buts he never did anything to harm you. She never demanded anything from you. He could have taken half of everything away from you and instead preferred to leave without any demands, despite having serious financial problems."
"She doesn't deserve anything," I growled nervously.
"She deserves everything, Zane! If you have all this today, you owe it to her too. Not to mention how absurd your resolution is, since obviously you still feel something for her."
"You're crazy!" I exploded besides myself.
"Crazy?! I have known you for three years and have never seen you have a serious relationship with a woman. Not even with Trisha. I never knew about your marriage, but I always thought that someone must have broken your heart to transform you into the cynical and cold man you are today. You can lie to me as much as you want, but the facts prove me right: you could have sold your house but you never did, you could have remarried, but you never allowed any woman to get so close to you, you could have sent your ex-wife back from where she was came and instead you have named her your personal assistant, a role that has always created you enormous difficulties and continuous layoffs on your part. It was as if you could not accept that someone could take Audrey's place ... After what I learned, everything about you is much clearer to me! Even the fact that you never stopped loving her."
"It's not true!"
"So why were you always so full of energy and vitality when she was there? And now, look at you, a corpse is more alive than you!"
My head was bursting, and I n
o longer knew how to respond to Ryan. I just wanted to be left alone and bask in my pain.
"Zane, Audrey's return is the second chance that fate wanted to give you. Don't miss it or you'll regret it for the rest of your life."
I did not even answer him, and in the end he left.
I wanted to be alone.
I was terribly ill, and nothing seemed to give me peace, not even whiskey or coffee.
Audrey ...
Just thinking about her clouded my brain.
My mind did nothing but bring me back to our last year of marriage.
For the past few months, I had noticed there was something wrong with her.
It was not the same, but I was so busy with the job that I did not pay much attention to it.
Then Rick had arrived with his arrows and allusions.
Suddenly Audrey's behavior took on a new meaning: she was cheating on me but, just when I was about to set things straight, I had found her suitcases in the entrance.
I did not even remember what we said to each other.
I only remembered her last words: "I want a divorce."
That phrase kept repeating itself like a broken record in my mind.
Just like in my nightmares.
And now the matter of the abortion ...
I was about to become a father and I didn't know ...
25
Zane
A week had passed, and I still had not managed to get out of my inner hell.
I was in pieces, devoid of energy or desire to live. It was as if they had torn my heart from my chest and fed it to the wolves.
All my employees avoided me like the plague, including Ryan.
I had not slept in my bed for days.
I had come home just to take a shower, eat something other than take-out food and stuff myself with headache pain relievers.
However, even eating had become painful because I did nothing but rethink Audrey's lasagna.
Audrey ...
Who knows what happened to her?
I had told her to leave our apartment, but I had not given her a real deadline.
I was about to call my housekeeper to ask her about it when I heard a knock on my office door.
I did not even have time to reply that I wanted to be alone, that I saw a woman in her fifties with fluffy blonde hair enter.
Even though I had not seen her for over four years, I perfectly remembered who she was.
"Gwen," I whispered.
"So, you remember me? I have not seen you for years. I don't find you in great shape. It might be because of the fact that you no longer eat my muffins. You once loved them. Every morning, you and Audrey came to breakfast with me. I still remember when you made me put your engagement ring in the dough to surprise Audrey. How sweet! You were the perfect couple ..."
"What do you want?" I interrupted her badly, feeling my migraine increase dramatically.
"I came to bring you muffins and apologize," she replied, placing a pack of sweets from her pastry on the desk.
"Sorry for what?"
"Not to have come to you four years ago."
"You knew that, didn't you?" I understood immediately.
"About the child? Yup."
"Apparently, I was the only one who didn't know."
"You were in New York and I took care of your wife ..."
"Ex-wife," I corrected her instantly.
"Your wife ..." she continued undaunted. "I took turns with Rick in the hospital and out at home. Audrey suffered a lot."
"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked, remembering were close at the time.
"Audrey had made me swear. She was terrified of making you feel bad after what happened to your mother who died of lung cancer a short time ago. She said you had not yet gotten through the shock of that sudden loss, caused by what looked like a simple asthma attack. Audrey wanted to protect you. Besides, you were so busy. You don't know how proud she was of you. She admired you so much. She would have done anything not to ruin your rise to success."
"She should have told me!"
"You are right. I must have told her thousands of times, believe me, but I was not the only one Audrey confided in. While I was trying to get her out of what turned out to be a depressive crisis caused by guilt ..."
"Guilt?"
"Yes. Doctors explained that abortion could happen in the first months of pregnancy, but she continued to blame herself, claiming that if she had noticed before she was pregnant, she would have avoided drinking wine, working hard at the supermarket, sleeping little ... and so on. She had filled her head with guilt and was terrified that you might hate her because of the abortion."
"I would never have hated her."
"I know, but Audrey was not in herself at the time. She was not thinking clearly, and you were never there. You do not know how many times I would have liked to meet you at your home or in a cafeteria, to warn you. I'm sorry, Zane, but you must know that you left her alone at the worst moment of her life. I know that you didn't do it on purpose and that you loved her so much that you gave up everything for her, but the fact remains that you have been non-committed and absent during your last year of marriage. Don't deny it."
I remained silent but I nodded briefly because it was true. I had never been there that year. I was always around chasing customers or drawing contracts. I had traveled extensively during that time.
"Things probably would have worked out between you and Audrey if it weren't for Rick."
"Did she cheat on me with him?"
"Of course not! Audrey was sick. She also told me he couldn't even deal with you anymore."
"It's true. In fact, this also made me doubt her loyalty."
"The truth is, Rick used his guilt and his weakness to drive her to hate you, to push her away from you, claiming that nothing would have happened if it had not neglected her."
"Was he the one who got her to divorce?"
"Yes, it was Rick's idea. He provided her with the divorce lawyer. He also advised her to take the advertising agency away, but she refused. I'm not sure what happened, but I can assure you that Audrey was too fragile to react, she was still depressed and the meeting with the lawyer brainwashed her, in my opinion."
I could not believe what Gwen was telling me.
What he was telling me was worse than torture and I felt like I wanted to die.
How could I have missed all that?
I deserved the hell I fell into.
"I never saw Audrey again until the divorce. She was in pieces. You have to believe me. She looked like a soulless ghost. I tried to talk to her, but she said she had just come by to say hello because she was going to New York with Rick, her best friend."
"Then they left together!"
"No, the next day Audrey came back to me in tears. Suddenly she had regained some of lucidity. She told me she was wrong to trust Rick because he only wanted her company. She confided to me that night, before leaving, he had slipped into her bed for sex, but she had refused him. As far as I know, after that episode Audrey never wanted to deal with him again. She was shocked and finally realized that she had been fooled by him. She regretted having left you without giving you time to understand the situation. I told her to come back to you and tell you the whole truth, but she replied that without her, you would have been better off. She was ashamed of what she had done. She had been wrong to trust Rick instead of talking to you. I tried to convince her that not everything was lost, that you still loved her, but her fragility and sense of guilt got the better of her. That day was the last time I saw her until three months ago."
I was shocked by what I had just discovered. I could not even speak or look at her.
"Zane, believe me if I tell you that Audrey never stopped loving you."
"I am not sure."
"Really? Do you want to tell me that you have not noticed how she has been reborn in these weeks, working for you? It was enough to be able to have you back to make her want to live again. Four years ago, I left an Au
drey destroyed and full of pain. A few months ago, I saw an Audrey identical to the one I had left years earlier. It was as if time had stopped for her. Only in the last few weeks have I found the Audrey I remembered. The happy one full of ideas. Your wife, Zane."
“I'm in pieces, Gwen. I don't know what to do anymore," I confessed, unable to hold back my uneasiness.
"Be happy, Zane."
"Like?"
"Not how, but what. What is it that makes you genuinely happy and makes your days’ worth living in full? Get away from what makes you suffer and don't repeat the same mistakes."
"Audrey makes me suffer."
"Audrey or the bad memories of your divorce? Zane, focus on all the good times. You have seven years of love to bask in. Don't dwell on what happened later."
"Who tells me we won't end up in the same situation again?"
"Experience. Now you know what happened and what mistakes you shouldn't repeat."
"I couldn't stand if Audrey abandoned me again."
"If that is why, she could not stand it either. Audrey loves you. She never stopped loving you. And I know it's the same for you."
26
Zane
After Gwen was gone, I felt hungry like before.
I devoured all the muffins in the box.
With each bite, a happy memory of my marriage came back to the surface. I felt like Proust and his madeleine.
When I finished eating, I had only one desire: to find the one who knew how to make me happy like no other.
Quickly, I took a taxi and headed for what was once our apartment.
I knocked, but nobody answered me.
Remembering the old custom, I looked under the doormat and found the key.
I opened the door, but what I saw struck me violently.
The Sweet Poison of Revenge Page 9