“David and I have a . . . connection. I wish I could show you how I’m feeling, Luce, because it’s impossible to describe. Bill has always been good to me, and I love him, I do. I don’t want to hurt him. But with David, it’s different, it’s—”
“Of course it’s different,” Lucy interrupted. She held up her fingers to tick off each point. “David is gorgeous. Wealthy. Charming. Experienced.” Her hands flew up in exasperation. “He knows exactly what you want to hear.”
“You set him up with your sister,” I pointed out.
“That’s something else entirely. He knows she’s not the type you just fool around with.”
“And I am?”
“No, but that’s irrelevant because you’re married. You’re married,” she repeated. “What are you doing?”
I just stared at her, my mouth hanging open slightly.
“He is a total player,” Lucy continued, her face contorting with disgust. “I set him up with Dani so he could see that there are women out there worth settling down for. But he’s not the type of guy you leave your husband for. Jesus Christ. I mean, does he think of you as some sort of challenge?”
She had pinpointed my greatest insecurity and shoved it in my face. David was a player. He had women falling all over him, and I knew he’d taken advantage of that. What made me different? Was it because he’d had to chase me? Without evidence to deny Lucy’s claims, I remained quiet and wrung my hands in my lap.
“I’ve talked to him.” We both turned to Gretchen. “I’ve talked to David,” she said, “and this isn’t a game for him. He is crazy about her. He loves her. He told me.”
My skin prickled as I thought of my David—sexy, tall, and strong, with an enormous and loving heart. It gave me the strength to beat back the doubt creeping in.
“That’s utterly ridiculous.” Lucy’s hard-edged voice cut into my thoughts. “He’d say anything to get what he wants,” she told Gretchen. “What makes her different from the hordes of women he sleeps with?”
“It’s different because every time we’re in the same room,” I said, “I can barely stand not to touch him, to feel him, to look into his eyes. In his arms I feel safe. I feel loved. Not the way Bill loves me, but in a way that I could almost open up my chest and give him my heart.”
They both gaped at me, not bothering to hide their surprise. Lucy visibly grasped at words. “I . . . wow,” she said softly. “I never thought I would hear something like that come out of your mouth. It’s so . . . not you. It’s romantic and—and emotional.”
I sighed my relief and nodded.
“But I don’t think you’ve thought this through,” she said slowly, shaking her head. “You met David—how long ago? When I announced my engagement . . . oh, God, I’m going to be sick.” She put her head in her hands. “This is my fault.”
“Technically, I met him the night we went to the ballet. Remember?” I said. “Andrew’s firm had tickets. David was there, and we had this . . . this moment. I never thought I’d say this, but it was like we were meant to meet that night.”
Gretchen smiled. “It’s really romantic, Luce, if you think about it.”
Lucy looked up finally and pinned me with a glare. “Have you slept with him?”
My eyebrows joined with confusion. It was true, what I was doing to Bill was awful, but this was Lucy, the idealist. Couldn’t she see the romance of David and me? “I mean, yes, we—”
“Oh my God,” Lucy said.
“I couldn’t not,” I said, pleading with her to understand.
“That’s bullshit,” Lucy said. “You’re stronger than that. You’ve always been strong.”
I frowned. “Which just goes to show how hard I fell for him.”
“Stop. Just stop. You’ve been lying to all of us, including my sister, for what? Seven fucking months?” She scoffed. “Is seven months even long enough to know that you’re ready to give everything up?”
I hesitated. “How long did it take you to fall in love with Andrew?”
The way her face morphed had me shrinking in my seat. “If you think messing around with someone like David is anything close to what Andrew and I have, then you know nothing about love. That’s ridiculous.”
“Come on, that’s not fair,” Gretchen said defensively. “Have you ever seen Liv this passionate? About anything, even Bill? You know this is the right thing, you just don’t want to say it.”
Lucy averted her eyes as I looked from her to Gretchen. Had she just said I was doing the right thing?
“This is not right,” Lucy mumbled, crossing her arms. “Bill loves you, he trusts you, and this is how you repay him?” She paled, her face almost green. “You made a vow to him. Doesn’t that mean anything?”
My chest grew heavy, and a lump formed in my throat. “Of course it does,” I said, just above a whisper. “I love Bill, but things just aren’t right with him.”
“So you go to counseling,” she cried. “You don’t fuck someone else.”
I tried picturing David’s face from the night before, the way he’d looked right after I’d told him he was my home. But I couldn’t remember in that moment, and I began to waver. Had I thought this through? Did I owe my marriage another chance? What was I thinking, agreeing to leave my husband of five years for someone I barely knew? Tears pooled in my eyes, and I bit my lip to hold them back. Gretchen scooted her chair closer to mine and hugged me from the side.
Lucy cocked her head, peered at me, and sighed. “Look,” she started gently, “you don’t have to do this. You said you haven’t told Bill?”
“He only knows David and I slept together. He’s known for weeks, but he never even asked if I had feelings for David. I do—”
“Then it’s not too late to call this off,” Lucy said. “I can see that you’re really wrapped up in David, but we’ll help you through it. Couples survive affairs all the time. We’ll get you through this with Bill.” She took a deep, bracing breath. “And it will be so hard for me, but I promise not to say anything to Andrew about you wanting to leave. Bill doesn’t have to know.”
“But,” I said. “David . . .”
“Forget him,” Lucy urged. “Is he worth losing everything?”
With a stuttering breath, I nodded slowly.
Her face fell. “Everything?” she asked blankly. “Everything?”
I didn’t know what she wanted me to say. Everything was what David had promised me the night before. Believing him was a leap of faith. For the first time in years, my heart and my instinct overruled my sense. This risk could leave me with nothing. But it could also gain me everything.
I just stared at Lucy until she rose from the table.
“I can’t,” she said, snatching her purse from the back of her chair. “I can’t watch you do this.”
“Lucy, wait, please,” I begged as she turned to leave.
She looked back and fixed steady eyes on me. “Don’t tell Bill. If you decide to do the right thing, call me—I’ll be there. But I won’t sit back and watch you throw everything away.”
After she stormed away, I turned to Gretchen. “What am I doing? Am I making a mistake?” I never let myself get swept up in the moment—because there were consequences. Last night, I had. Had I truly considered the fallout I was facing? I fought back tears. “Oh, God, Gretchen. What if I can’t go through with it?”
She put her arms back around me and held me close. As we sat in silence, the doubt Lucy had planted began to take hold inside me, feeding off the guilt and shame I’d been harboring for months. Gretchen separated from me finally and brushed a piece of my hair from my forehead. “I want to say something, but I’m afraid it will come back to bite me in the ass.”
I swallowed and nodded that I understood. Before I could respond, she continued.
“I’m going to tell you anyway,” she said, “because I love you, and I think you need to hear it.” She sighed and picked at her nail polish, obviously deep in thought. Seconds ticked by until she eventually
spoke again. “You’re not making a mistake,” she said softly.
“What?” I asked.
“Bill’s not right for you. I never thought so. You’re my best friend in the world, and all I ever wanted for you is to find happiness again, for someone to open your eyes to all the love out there.” She sat back in her seat. “When you said ‘yes’ to Bill’s proposal, I couldn’t believe it. I could not believe that he was the one you chose when you could have anyone.” I started to laugh, but she snapped her fingers at me. “Anyone, Olivia. I mean it. And not only that, but you deserve more than what Bill gives you.”
“But Bill has given me so much,” I said. “And all he asked for in return was the same—security, love, and eventually, a family.”
“He loves you.” She nodded. “He’d never intentionally hurt you. But that’s not a reason to commit the rest of your life to him. Sweetie, you picked him because he was safe, like I said before, and because he couldn’t hurt you. How could he, when you never let him close enough to?”
“But maybe I should’ve. Maybe I owe him a real chance,” I said. “And maybe Lucy’s right about counseling.”
“And maybe,” Gretchen said, “he never gave you a reason to let him in. The last few weeks that you and David weren’t speaking, you thought it was over between you two. If Bill had left you when you told him you cheated, do you think it would have hurt as much as losing David did?”
Shame descended as my gut told me it wouldn’t have hurt nearly as much.
“I want to see you with someone you love so much, you can’t bear it,” she said.
“How do you know David’s that person?” I asked.
“I’ve only seen a fraction of what you’ve been through this last month. Only what you’ve let me see. And just that little bit was heartbreaking. But it also gave me faith that you were within reach again.”
“Within reach?”
“You’ve been so closed off since your parents’ divorce, honey. You have to let go of that. You have to take this chance on love. I know I had no right to call David and tell him to go to you last night. I know that Bill will hate me forever if he finds out.” She bit her bottom lip and glanced at her plate. “But I needed to see for myself if David was going through the same thing as you. And I could hear in his voice that he was. I mean, I don’t know if he threw cereal against the wall,” she said with a small smile, “but it wouldn’t surprise me if he had.”
I laughed lightly, even though the pain was fresh. Two nights earlier, I’d thought I’d die on my couch of heartbreak, shame, and grief. I knew if I’d seen Gretchen the way she’d seen me, I would’ve done the same thing. Now, like she’d promised me months ago, she was helping me move the heavy couch and all its baggage in my head and put garbage by the curb where it belonged.
She rubbed my arm. “Like I said, I might regret saying this, but I think you’re making the right choice.”
“Breaking Bill’s heart, leaving my apartment, telling my parents I’m a cheater, divorce . . . you think it’s right?” I asked.
“My gut tells me yes.”
I sighed, and though it weighed my heart with shame, I said, “Mine, too.”
Her smile broke. “So what happens now?”
My heart began to pound. Bill was on his way home a day early from his work trip to St. Louis. He’d be back tonight. At eight o’clock. I’d been avoiding his calls, so all this I knew from an e-mail. I swallowed dryly and glanced at the clock on the wall over Gretchen’s head: six forty-five.
“Bill gets home in an hour.”
“Will David be there when you tell him?” she asked.
I shook my head. “I told him he couldn’t be.”
Gretchen took my hand. “Are you sure about that? I’ll bet David’s freaking the fuck out.”
“He is.” David had made it very clear he didn’t want me to feel alone in this, but I couldn’t think of anything worse than Bill having to face me and the man I was leaving him for at the same time. “But I’m sure,” I said. “This is something I need to do on my own.”
2
My nerves had been humming steadily since leaving the restaurant. With a wave of nausea, I jumped up from my kitchen table, ready to run to the bathroom. As the urge to vomit passed, I sat down again and flattened both hands in front of me.
Though dark and chilly out, the rain had finally let up earlier in the day. Gretchen had agreed to come home with me and had just left my apartment to wait downstairs until Bill and I had finished talking. I looked over at the door—and my small duffel bag beside it—for the hundredth time.
I knew I should focus on what I’d say to Bill, but David’s presence in my mind was, as usual, too big. It almost felt as though life hadn’t quite begun until I’d found myself wrapped in his big arms. Last night, I’d jumped—launched—myself into them, securing my body to his as though losing him meant death.
Then we’d fought in the rain. He’d wanted me that moment. He’d wanted me to get my things and come home with him. Then he’d demanded to be there when I told Bill.
To all of those things, I’d said no.
Now that I’d made the decision, Bill needed to know the truth before anything further happened. David hadn’t been happy when I’d told him I’d be going home with Gretchen tonight because I didn’t feel right going straight to his place.
In the end, I’d won the argument, but I could see it had cost David to give in. He’d made it clear that he’d be eagerly awaiting my call with an update.
I jolted from my thoughts with the jingle of keys outside the door. In slow motion, one slid into its slot as my heart slid into my stomach. I saw, but barely registered, my husband enter the apartment and set down his stuff. He said something, but a dull buzzing in my head drowned it out. That, and the deafening pounding of my heart.
Bill came closer, his face drawn with . . . something. Concern? My hands began to shake and white spots pierced my vision. Air no longer entered my body, but I had no way of controlling that. I blinked . . . I blinked . . .
Darkness. My world moved, slowly at first and then faster. I was being shaken, and that didn’t help my nausea.
“Liv, wake up,” Bill said, his voice frantic. “Are you okay?”
I opened my eyes and took in my surroundings. I was in Bill’s arms, on the kitchen floor as he stared at me, his eyebrows furrowed with anxiety.
I just looked back at him, studying his features, inches from my face, for what might be the last time. His soft brown hair. Crooked nose. Light and mild eyes. I wanted to tell him I loved him, that everything would be okay, and that I’d never meant to hurt him. I wanted to tell him I was leaving because he deserved to be loved in a way I wasn’t capable of. I wanted to tell him I was leaving because we both deserved better. But I didn’t know how to say all of that, so I just said, “I’m leaving.”
“You fell off the chair,” he replied. “You might’ve hit your head.”
My eyes remained on him. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “For everything. But I’m leaving . . . you.”
I hit the floor with a thud, wincing when my elbows connected with the linoleum. Bill stood and looked down at me, blinking with obvious disbelief. “You’re what?” he asked. “Leaving me? What does that mean?”
I eased off my back and onto one elbow. Everything I’d planned to say vanished from my thoughts, and now I just searched for anything.
“I’m done with the games,” Bill said quietly. “Just say it. You are leaving me . . . even after I gave you a second chance.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said as I got to my feet. “The last few months, the terrible way I’ve treated you . . . I tried to forget him, to make things work between you and me.”
“You have a hell of a way of making things work.”
“I didn’t want this,” I said.
“The affair has been an adjustment,” Bill said, rolling his neck. “Maybe I’m doing it wrong. There are probably better ways of handling it. I’ve done a lot
of thinking since you told me, though. I see there are things we could work on.” He seemed to pause to collect himself, then cleared his throat. “I want to try, Livs. I don’t know if I’ll ever get over this, but I want to try.”
“Bill,” I whispered, fidgeting in the middle of the kitchen. “I love him.”
Bill’s jaw flexed, and I read the shock in his eyes. “You love him?”
“Yes.”
His entire body jerked. “You never told me things had gotten that far.”
“You didn’t ask,” I stated.
“I didn’t ask? Oh, excuse-fucking-me.” He began to pace the kitchen. “It didn’t occur to me that a logical person like you could fall in love with someone like that.”
Someone like that didn’t fall in love—only lust. Gretchen had reacted the same way at first, and Lucy believed that, too. I crossed my arms. “I think it did occur to you,” I said, “but you didn’t care enough to ask.”
Bill stopped and rubbed his fingers over his forehead. “Of course I care,” he muttered.
“I know you do,” I said with a sigh. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
“And what about me?” Bill asked, looking directly at me. “Don’t you love me?”
I swallowed the rising lump in my throat. “It’s not that simple.”
His hair flopped over his forehead, and he pushed his hands through it. “What’s more simple than that?”
I drew in halting breaths. “Bill, I love you, I always will. But this isn’t working—”
“It’s not working? I don’t understand how that’s my fault. It was working, then you slept with another man, and now it’s not working. How am I the one who gets screwed?”
“There are things,” I said slowly, “that I didn’t know I wanted. And now I see that you and I have never been right together.”
“Right? You wield that word like it has magical powers. Like saying it gets you out of all sorts of shit. The houses we’ve seen weren’t ‘right.’ Having a kid now isn’t ‘right.’ Nothing is ever ‘right’ for you.” He resumed his tread around the kitchen, his dress shoes slapping the tile. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe your version of right is wrong? Is it right slumming around with a slick jerk like David Dylan and ending a perfectly good marriage for a fling? You really need to look at the facts here, Liv. You’ve always been able to do that because you’re sensible.”
Cityscape Affair Series: The Complete Box Set Page 55