Then he stepped across the hall to Chris’s office. As predicted, Chris was back, scrolling through e-mails on his tablet while Hilary pored over his calendar at the next desk.
David stopped in front of Chris’s desk. “Can I talk to you?”
Chris scowled. “About?”
David took a deep breath. Gaze still fixed on his business partner, he said, “Hilary, would you excuse us for a minute?”
In his peripheral vision, she tensed. Chris tilted his head toward the door, and she quickly gathered her tablet and planner and left.
Alone, David and Chris locked eyes over the desk.
Chris squared his shoulders. “You left before I could mention it, but I’ve scheduled a press conference for tomorrow morning. Nine o’clock.”
“I figured you would. But I just came by to give you this.” David held out the envelope.
Chris eyed it, then took it from him. “What’s this?”
David said nothing.
Chris swallowed. Then he pulled the letter out of the envelope. He read it over. Then seemed to go over it two more times, eyebrows knitted together. Finally, he lowered it and met David’s gaze again. “You’re resigning? You can’t resign. You’re—”
“Watch me. I’ve already spoken to my broker about selling my share of the company.” That much was true—he’d been considering this for the last few days, and had already looked into his options. This morning’s meeting was simply the last straw.
“I…” Chris looked down at the letter, then back at David. “How the hell am I going to run this company alone? In this condition?”
“You’d better figure it out, hadn’t you?”
Chris glared at him. “It isn’t enough to fuck up my marriage. You have to bring the company down too?”
“What do you want me to do? Keep coming in here every day like nothing ever happened, and—”
“Maybe you should’ve thought of that before you put your dick in my wife.”
“Oh really? That’s rich coming from you, Chris. Rich.”
“What are—”
“Enough.” David threw up his hands. “You know what? I’ve listened to you feel sorry for yourself and play the victim all this time, but you’ve brought this on yourself. The cancer? That was a fucked-up card that life dealt, and nobody deserves that. But everything else? The fact that you’re going home tonight to an empty house? You’re just damned lucky she didn’t leave sooner.”
Chris glared at him. “She’s not leaving. I’m divorcing her. Because she fucked you.”
“And she never would have cheated on you if you hadn’t driven her to the brink like that.” David laughed bitterly. “You know, I thought she was a bitch for a good long time, but then I realized she was just lonely and miserable because she was chained to you. Because you treated her like shit, Chris. All those years. How a good woman like her put up with bullshit like yours for this long is beyond me.”
“A good woman?” Chris snorted. “I don’t think a ‘good woman’ fucks her dying husband’s best friend whole—”
“Oh save it. Forgive me if I don’t think you have a lot of moral high ground here.” David narrowed his eyes. “You had a good woman, Chris. A much better woman than you ever deserved. Instead of holding it against her that she cheated on you one time, maybe you should be counting your blessings that she stuck with you this long. Because quite honestly, I don’t see how she did.”
Chris’s lips pulled tight. He gestured at the door with a frail hand. “Get out, you son of a bitch.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” David snapped, and headed for the door.
“You and that whore deserve each other.”
David stopped in his tracks and slowly turned around. “Oh, I’m sorry. Could you repeat that?” He glared at Chris. “I’m afraid I can’t hear your righteous indignation over the sound of realizing I’ve been raising someone else’s child.”
Thanks to his treatments, Chris didn’t have a lot of color to lose, but he definitely blanched.
David gritted his teeth. “Alexandra told me everything. No, two wrongs don’t make a right, but don’t you dare vilify Joanna when you and my wife had a full-on affair for, how long was it? A year? Two years?”
Chris stared at him as if he was, for once in his goddamned life, speechless.
David, however, was not. “And don’t throw the ‘she cheated on her dying husband’ card. Don’t you fucking dare. Do you think it makes a difference that you’re sick? Like it’s somehow worse because I didn’t have cancer when you fucked my wife?” He waved a hand. “No, Joanna wasn’t ‘right’ to cheat on you. Quite frankly, though, I think she was a saint for making it as long as she did without leaving you. And if you understood that for even a second, then you’d understand why she came to me.” He was almost out of breath now, as if the words had all come tumbling out too fast for him to stop and inhale, and his head spun as he let the dust settle.
Chris’s hollow cheeks rippled as he clenched his jaw. He snatched the resignation letter off his desk. “I’ll send this down to HR. Get the fuck out of here.”
“With pleasure. Have a nice life, Chris.” David narrowed his eyes. “Enjoy the money, the house, the cars, because you earned all of that. And enjoy it all alone, because you earned that too.”
And with that, David stormed out of Chris’s office.
He didn’t slam the door—the employees within earshot didn’t need to know what was happening—but damn, it was tempting. He closed it gently, though, and got the hell out of there. All the way down the hall, he expected Chris to follow him or call him or shout something after him, but the door stayed closed and the hallway stayed quiet except for the murmur of their employees working at their desks.
The elevator took David down to the parking garage. For the first time, he wished his reserved spot was farther away from Chris’s. Just looking at that Land Rover was enough to make his teeth grind.
And…shit. He’d left his gum in his office. Son of a bitch. This was not his day.
He climbed into his car but didn’t leave just yet. He tapped his fingers on the gear shifter. Though it felt good—and terrible at the same time—to have finally told Chris off like that, nothing was resolved. He doubted it would be. Or that it could be. But goddamn, could it stop getting worse?
And if things were this messed up in his head and his world, he could only imagine how it was for Joanna. Jesus, she would probably never be able to look him in the eye again. She wasn’t a cheater. That just wasn’t her. And regardless of what they’d both needed in the moment, he couldn’t blame her for regretting it. He regretted it too. Joanna was a married woman, for better or worse, and David would always be the man she broke her vows with.
It had taken him far, far too long to realize she was a good-hearted woman. Far too good for Chris in every way imaginable. And when she’d come to David in a moment of desperation, he should’ve talked her out of it. Waited until Chris was gone, until all of this was over, but when he’d looked in her eyes and seen that hurt and that hunger, he hadn’t been able to turn her away. She’d needed him, he’d wanted her, and…
And here they were.
And goddammit, he didn’t regret it. Joanna deserved better, she’d come to him looking for better, and he’d done his damnedest to make sure she got something better. So what if her asshole husband had found out? Chris didn’t deserve her.
David wanted nothing more than to find Joanna and tell her exactly that. But he knew her. She’d carried so much for all these years, and now this? God, she must’ve been going through hell right then.
Absently, he went from drumming on the shifter to gripping it tightly. He needed to see her. He didn’t know what he’d say or how things would pan out, but at the very least, he had to know she was okay.
Without another thought, he put the car in gear and peele
d out of the parking lot. There was no question in his mind where he’d find her—if there was a silver lining to Chris incessantly bitching about Joanna over the years, it was that David had learned her habits.
And when she was upset, there were only two places she would go. He’d try the first, and if she wasn’t there, then he could be in Tillamook in just a few hours.
Traffic was remarkably light this time of day. Forty-five minutes after he left the office, he parked at the curb in front of a little two-bedroom house in Everett.
He walked up to the door and rang the doorbell before he could talk himself out of it.
Joanna’s sister answered, and immediately scowled through the storm door. “Can I help you?”
He resisted the urge to rock on the balls of his feet. “Is Joanna here?”
Kaylie set her jaw.
“Please,” he said. “I just need to talk to her.”
Kaylie bristled. Without breaking eye contact, she called over her shoulder, “Hey, Jo. David’s here.”
Silence. Then footsteps. David’s heart thumped against his ribs.
Kaylie gestured for him to come in. He did, and when she closed the door behind him, he held his breath. Neither sister had kicked him out. That was promising. Right?
And then Joanna appeared in a doorway, hovering between the living room and the foyer. She and her sister exchanged a quick glance and a subtle nod before Kaylie made a quick escape, leaving the two of them alone.
David’s chest ached at the sight of Joanna. She looked like hell. Dark circles under her reddened eyes. Shoulders slumping beneath a faded T-shirt that was just hanging off her. Gaunt, pale cheeks. It had only been a week since he’d seen her, and she obviously hadn’t slept much during that time.
“Hey.” He shifted uncomfortably. “I, um. I wanted to see how you were holding up.”
A thin shoulder rose in a half shrug. “It’s been a rough week.” She swallowed. “David, we can’t do this.”
“Why not? Chris is—”
“Chris is dying, David,” she snapped, her voice wavering a bit. “We shouldn’t have—”
“Listen to yourself,” he said. “Yeah, on paper, what we did was wrong. But look at the way he’s treated you. How many times have you told me that his illness doesn’t negate what he’s done?”
“Two wrongs don’t make a right.”
“Neither does beating yourself up for what we did.” He shifted uncomfortably. “It wasn’t just revenge sex. You know damn well it wasn’t.”
“It still wasn’t—” Her voice cracked slightly. “It still wasn’t right. We can’t do this.”
He took in a breath, ready to argue, but as he held her gaze, he couldn’t. She was hurting too much—the extra shine in her eyes begged him not to push, because she didn’t have anything left to push back with.
David deflated a bit, a lump rising in his throat. “Okay. Okay. We… I’ll go.” He took a half step back. “But before I do, I at least wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“I’m—” She pressed her lips together and set her shoulders back, as if she wanted to appear more stoic than she was. “Are you?”
Not even close.
“I will be. Eventually.”
One shoulder rose again in another tight half shrug. “Me too.”
And with that, silence fell. With several feet of hardwood floor and tense, still air between them, they locked eyes but didn’t speak. There were so many things he desperately wanted to say, but every last one of them would make things worse.
I’m sorry I made you come back.
I should have left you in Tillamook.
I would trade every second we ever touched if it meant letting you stay there in peace.
Eventually, she folded her arms and pressed back against the doorframe. “How is Chris doing?”
“He’s…” Falling apart. Not in any condition to cope with this. “I don’t know. He won’t talk to me.” Not completely true, but under the circumstances, it was the least painful answer David could give her.
Joanna sighed. “The only contact I’ve had with him is the divorce papers.”
“He had you served?”
She nodded. “It’s kind of sad when you think about it. That was all I wanted from him. Just let me go.” Lowering her gaze, she shook her head. “I never wanted this.”
“I don’t think anyone did.” All I want out of this is you. We could do this, Joanna. We could—
“Well.” She shifted her weight, hugging herself tighter. “It’s my own damned fault. All I had to do was hold on for a few more months, maybe another year or so, and—”
“Joanna, you held on longer than most people would.”
And damn it, if her conscience was keeping her up at night like his was keeping him up, then his presence was probably making things worse. It was certainly getting worse for him—the longer he stood here, the harder it was to talk himself into walking away.
He hated Chris with a murderous fury right then. The man had destroyed David’s marriage and torpedoed his own. David had been raising Chris’s child. And the closer he got to this beautiful woman, the more he saw the damage Chris had done, and the more he wanted to personally deliver the karma Chris so richly deserved. Joanna deserved all the love and affection she obviously craved.
But the walls were up. He could see it in her rigid posture and the shine in her eyes—she was struggling to hold herself together and keep him out at the same time.
Maybe someday. Maybe after she’d had time to heal. But right now, she was far too raw, and right or wrong, her conscience wouldn’t let her near him.
David pushed his shoulders back. “I should probably go.”
Joanna didn’t look at him but gave a slight nod.
“Take care, okay?”
Another nod.
It took everything David had not to cross the room, hug her and press a soft kiss to her forehead. That touch wouldn’t be welcome now, though. And the way she looked, huddled in on herself and on the brink of either trembling or getting sick, he was sure she’d crumble under the gentlest contact.
So he just inched toward the door and whispered, “Good-bye, Joanna.”
She turned away and disappeared back into the living room. David’s stomach flipped. His guilty conscience was going to destroy him, he was sure. Chris could kiss his ass, but David was going to collapse under the weight of knowing that Joanna was in this fragile, depressed state because of him.
Staying here a moment longer was only going to make it worse for her, so he walked out and headed back to his car. He drove a block or so, until he was well out of sight, and then pulled over. Engine idling, he closed his eyes and leaned back against the seat, not sure if he was closer to puking or crying. Maybe he’d do both.
Everything he knew was gone.
His friendship was over. The business was no longer his. Even his daughter wasn’t—
No. Tiffany was still his daughter. Maybe not biologically, but he’d been her dad all this time. DNA didn’t change anything where Tiffany was concerned.
But it changed everything else, and there was nothing David could do about that.
He wanted his friend back. He wanted his ex-wife to be able to look him in the eye again.
And goddammit, right or wrong, he wanted Joanna.
But it was over.
All of it.
Chapter Twenty
“Chris is in the hospital.”
Joanna cringed, clutching her cell phone tighter. She’d heard those words so many times, and they always made her blood turn cold and her knees turn to liquid, but this time, her stomach was sick with guilt too. “What happened?”
“An infection,” Hilary replied. “It seems to be under control for the moment. He was touch and go for a solid week, but his doctor thinks he
’s out of the woods now.”
“A week? He’s been in the hospital for a week and no one told me?” Her eyes flicked toward the divorce papers on Kaylie’s kitchen counter. They hadn’t moved—or been signed—since they’d arrived three weeks ago. Oh. Right. And David hadn’t said anything, so either he was also no longer in contact with Chris, or he wasn’t speaking to her. Or both. Which meant all of them were alone.
“I was, uh…” Hilary hesitated. “I was told not to contact you.”
Joanna swallowed, tamping down the hurt and anger about the whole situation. “Why are you contacting me now?”
“Because Chris asked me to. He wants to talk to you. In person.”
“What for?”
Hilary didn’t respond right away, and when she did, her voice was soft. “He didn’t say.”
Closing her eyes, Joanna rubbed her forehead with her thumb and forefinger. “Where is he?”
“Methodist. He’s still in the ICU, but he can have visitors. Family, I mean.”
She cringed. On paper, she was still family, but it felt like fraud even thinking of walking in there and claiming to be his wife. “Could you text me with his room number? I’ll…probably forget.”
“Sure, I’ll do that. And I’ll send the visiting hours along too. They’re fairly limited.”
“They always are.”
“Mmhmm. I’ll send the information as soon as we’re off the phone.”
“Thank you.” Joanna paused. “How is he doing? I mean, all things considered.”
The silence on the line gave her chills. Hilary finally said, “He’s pretty weak. The infection was rough. He’s more lucid now, though. Ever since they took him off some of the heavier drugs and the fevers have come down.”
The hairs on Joanna’s neck stood on end. A fever could be a death knell for an immunocompromised patient. There’d been numerous occasions where a fever had signaled an infection that’d had doctors essentially telling her to hope for the best but prepare for the worst. One thing was for certain—this had been a close call.
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