by Q. B. Tyler
My cheeks heat up as I take a sip of my wine. “I don’t blame them, Lauren. I just…I want them to like me.”
“And maybe that will take some time.” She shrugs. “I wouldn’t worry too much yet. You’re still married, so it’s not like you’ll be going to their house for Sunday brunch anytime soon.” She rolls her eyes and I scoff at her.
“Are they ever going to like me?” I sigh. “Or am I forever going to be the slut that cheated on her husband?
She’s silent. “Maybe when you start popping out their grandchildren they’ll get on board. Children may not fix everything, but grandchildren certainly do.”
“Great,” I sigh.
“Aren’t you and Hot Doc talking about children? I thought he was trying to knock you up, like yesterday.” She purses her lips in a questioning way and I have to resist the urge to smack the smug look off her face.
I ignore her comment. “First, his brother and now his father,” I say putting a hand over my eyes before running it through my hair. “I can only imagine what Mrs. Montgomery is going to think of me.”
“That you’re a whore who’s not good enough for her precious baby boy,” she says and I look over to see her picking at her nail beds.
“Rude!”
“Okay, maybe not, but…prepare for the worst. Not everyone is going to be like Mama Wells who would let Satan himself in from the cold if he needed a place to stay.”
It was true, Matthew’s mother was a saint. Fuck. I should really call her. I’m sure she’s plenty mad at me right now.
“All I’m saying is they may not love you right away and that’s okay. You have to accept that. And yes, you can cry and bitch and complain to me and I’ll bash them for not seeing what a wonderful person you are but the reality of it is, they don’t see what a wonderful person you are…right now. They see a woman that stepped out on her marriage, got herself in way too deep, all while risking their son’s livelihood.” She shrugs. “I want them to like you…to love you, and accept you, but right now…you can’t be mad if they don’t.” I nod, letting Lauren’s words soak in and I love her right now for her blatant honesty, although it’s a bitter pill. “Look, just get divorced, okay? One thing at a time.”
I slide my Chanel sunglasses over my eyes as I walk out of my spin studio, the sweat glistening on my skin. It’s been a few days since my sexy tryst at my lawyer’s office with Will, and I’m starting to feel the itch to see him again.
Settle down, Charley. No.
I take a long swig of my Smart Water and make my way to the garage toward my car when my Blackberry vibrates in my purse.
My day is instantly better at the idea of speaking to him. Coupled with the endorphins from my exercise, I’m on cloud nine. “Hi!”
“Hi, baby.”
“What are you doing?”
“Sitting in my car watching my insanely gorgeous girlfriend walk down the street.”
I stop in my tracks and I look around as the women filter out of the studio toward their slew of Range Rovers, Audis, and Beamers. “You have another girlfriend?” I joke.
“No,” he growls at me. “Just one that’s currently making me desperate for a taste of the sweat dripping off her.”
I put my hand on my hip as I scan the street again. “Where are you?”
“One street over.”
“Are you following me?”
“No, I wanted to see you. We need to talk, Charlotte.”
“Talk?” I’m immediately on high alert. Years of experience and pop culture remind me that “we need to talk” is never a good thing. The fact that he called me Charlotte isn’t helping either.
“Come,” he tells me, and as if I have no control over my own legs, I obey knowing that this is the furthest from lying low.
Getting into Will’s car in broad daylight in front of your spin studio where you spend three days a week. Smart, Charley.
I’ve barely settled into the car when I feel hands tugging me into a familiar lap and squeezing me tight. “Baby,” he breathes into my ear. I’m mildly aware that I’m sweaty and smelling of the floral aerosol deodorant I sprayed before I left the studio and I try to move out of his arms.
“Will, I…” I strain as he literally crushes me against him. “I’m sweaty and disgusting and…I should move.” I note that he’s dressed for work, and the last thing I want to do is ruin his clothes with my sweaty attire.
“No,” he growls in my ear. I can’t see his face, but his voice leads me to believe that he’s extremely anxious. “Never move,” he says softer and loosens his grip around me. I slide back to look at him and he traces a hand over my face, giving me a sad smile. He looks out the window and my heart sinks knowing that he’s about to drop a serious bomb on me.
I can feel the tension radiating off him in waves and I’m not sure I want to even know why.
“I just want to keep you safe,” he whispers.
“From what? Or…who? Is this still about Matt?” I ask.
“Everything. I…I don’t know anyone well enough in your life to trust anyone.”
“What—what does that mean?” He doesn’t trust Lauren? My mother? What does he know that I don’t?
He opens his mouth and it’s as if the words fail him because he closes it immediately. He shakes his head, before the heel of his hand finds his eye. “I hate that I have to tell you this. I hate that there is so much that I can’t shield you from,” he murmurs and my brows thread together, wondering what he could possibly tell me that is causing this much inner turmoil. “But first and foremost, this is good news,” he says and I feel slight relief rush through me. “Above all else, I’m pleased with what I have to tell you.”
“Then what—” He stops me by putting a finger to my lips.
“Because you’re going to flip.”
“I won’t flip.” I shake my head. “Just tell me.” He sighs and my body shakes with worry. It’s good but it’s bad? What in the world, Will? Spit it out!
“So, I have some news about your ex-stepfather.” My blood runs cold at the mere mention of him. What does that mean? He’s involved? Nothing about him could be good news. The goose bumps rise on my skin despite Will’s arms that are still wrapped around me. “I followed the very vague trail that you gave me about what Matt has told you.”
“Uh huh,” I say, needing him to get from point A to point B a little bit faster, because right now I can barely hear him over the loud pounding in my ears. I swallow and my mouth has already gone dry. The knot in my stomach is twisting over and over again.
“I found something. At first, I couldn’t believe it,” he says, “but it checks out. Charley, Matt has been lying to you for about a year and a half now.”
About Michael’s whereabouts? Is he closer than he told me? “Lying to me? About what?”
“Your stepfather is dead, Charley. He died from an overdose. Apparently, he got into heroin at some point…or maybe he always was, I don’t know if you ever saw that,” he rambles, “but he’s dead.”
“Wait, what?! How long ago? Are you sure?” I blurt out.
“Yes, he died about a year and a half ago. I can show you the autopsy reports, police reports, everything.” He pulls a folder from a briefcase sitting next to us.
I’m numb. Completely numb. My mind has gone blank and I don’t think I can even formulate a sentence at the moment. A smile cracks across my lips and before I know it I’m laughing. Hard. Harder than I’ve laughed in months, because really, what about my life isn’t funny?
Michael is dead. He’s been dead. And yet, earlier this month Matt told me that his PI pinned him on the east coast. Roanoke, Virginia, to be exact. And he’s been dead for a year and a half? When I tried to leave him ten months ago, at one point he even said “don’t be stupid, Charlotte, what about Michael? I need you safe.” THE WHOLE FUCKING TIME!?
My mind is screaming at me, and the laughter stops when I feel hands on my cheeks and lips. “What the fuck?” I whisper.
“I
know,” he says quietly. He shakes his head. “He let you go on being scared for longer than a year.”
“I should have done my own research…I just never…I never thought to look,” I say, still trying to root through the millions of thoughts running through my brain.
“You trusted him and he betrayed that trust.” He shakes his head and tucks an errant strand that has escaped my ponytail behind my ear. “What reason would you have to check his sources?”
“I should go,” I whisper.
“What? Baby, I think you’re in a little bit of shock.”
“No. I see things perfectly clear.”
“No, you’re in shock,” he repeats. “You were just laughing, hysterically—which is normal,” he explains. “Laughter is often a natural reaction to trauma, but it also means—”
“Don’t shrink me right now,” I say looking to the right and out of the window. I see a woman walking down the street with a man. They stop, they kiss, they take a selfie, and I find myself jealous of this woman I’ve never met.
Why isn’t my life that easy? Why can’t I walk down the street hand in hand with the man I love, kiss him, document our love on social media, and boast to the world how happy and in love I am? Why must I have a husband and a boyfriend and a mountain of lies and deceit?
I turn back to him and press my head into his neck wanting nothing more than to climb inside of him for protection from all of the bullshit that is surrounding me like a tornado. “Run away with me.”
“What?”
“We can go to Europe, and get married, and be together. And not deal with all of this.” I shake my head. “We can be together all the time. Screw the next month.”
“Charley…” He cocks his head to the side and stares at me with, what? Pity? Sorrow? Remorse? I can’t tell.
“Don’t look at me like that…isn’t that what you want? To be with me?”
“More than anything, but we can’t run away from this.”
“Why not?”
“Because we can’t, baby. You know that.”
“Nope. I have fifty grand and…I can sell all my stuff. We can go live a happy, Parisian life.” I smile. “I’m not going to be able to get a job here anyway.” I shrug sadly.
“I’ll help you,” he says, rubbing a hand down my face and I scoff.
“More help from the man that loves me. I don’t want another Matt, Will.” I raise my hand up to stop him from panicking at the comparison. “I just mean I don’t want a man that wants to spoon-feed me…my life.” I feel my lip tremble. “It’s fine if you don’t want to go,” I say softly.
“I would go anywhere with you,” he whispers as he raises my chin. “And after a good night’s sleep, and a cry, and some tequila…” he smiles, “if you still feel this way in the morning, we can talk about it. But the natural reaction for you right now is to run, and that’s normal, but you can’t, baby. You have face this. I will help you.”
“How could he just…let me be afraid? Was it all just to keep me under his thumb? Keep me reliant on him? Let me think that if I didn’t have him looking out for me that Michael would come after me?” I sniffle and wipe my nose gently. Will pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and wipes under my eyes and then my nose. “How could he do this to me?” I ask, the tears starting to fall, as the initial reaction has turned to a more genuine one. “I’m not a hypocrite, okay? I know that what I’ve done is wrong…but…this is so different!” He wraps his arms around me and pulls me back to his chest.
“I know, baby. I know.” He strokes my back, his lips finding my forehead.
I’m not sure what it is, maybe just a series of I love yous, and I’m sorrys, but I can’t quiet the rage in my head. I know that there are five stages of grief, but I find myself wondering what the five stages of learning that your husband has been harboring a secret for a year are? Shock, laughter, sadness, anger…what’s after that?
I pull out of Will’s hold and run a hand under my eye, wiping the tears away for the hundredth time. “I should go.”
“Go? Baby, you’re not in any position to drive. Let me take you home,” he says as he continues to stroke circles into my back.
“No.” I shake my head. “I’ll be fine.”
“Charley,” he says, and I look into his sad blue eyes, “I don’t want you alone with Matt. At all.”
I nod. I no longer even know the man I was married to for so long. I don’t trust Matt. I don’t know the person he is. “Are you looking into Matt as well?”
“You bet your ass I am.”
“Have you found anything?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “I don’t think he’s cheating on you, Charley. I don’t think he’s ever cheated on you.” His words are sobering, the line between lover and marriage counselor blurrier than ever before as the man I love sits here assuring me that my husband isn’t cheating on me.
“I wouldn’t care if he had.”
“I know, but…I just thought you should know. Part of me always wondered,” he says. “With the trips and working all the time…he really is married to the job. You were the mistress,” he says with a hint of humor, and I can’t help but chuckle sadly at his joke.
“I’m going to go.” I pull myself out of his grasp.
“Wait…” He holds my hand, squeezes it, and I look at him, praying that I can keep the tears at bay just until I get out of the car.
“I’m going to follow you back to Lauren’s.”
“Fine,” I say before his lips find mine in a heated kiss. It’s not aggressive or possessive; it’s loving and passionate and takes my breath away. With every stroke of his tongue against mine I feel myself getting more and more worked up as I think about Matt. I pull away knowing that I’m not in the right headspace to continue this kiss. “I’ll call you later.”
He nods and presses a kiss to my forehead. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” I murmur.
I don’t remember my walk from his car to mine, but somehow, I make it. I don’t know what to even think as I start my car and rest my forehead on the steering wheel. I sit in my car and stare into space, my mind racing a mile a minute as I recall every time over the past year that Matt handed me a bullshit story about Michael. By the time I get to his most recent lie, I’m enraged. I pull out of the space with a new mission in mind. My thoughts go back to the five stages I was thinking about earlier. Shock, laughter, sadness, anger…what’s after that?
Rage.
* * *
SINCE I EXITED THE FREEWAY and began to move through the familiar streets that do not lead back to Lauren’s house, my phone has been ringing nonstop. Will had started calling me the second he realized what my intentions were, and I’ve sent him to voicemail every time.
No. This has nothing to do with you, Will. I know you’re worried he’s going to do something to me, but honestly the way I’m feeling right now, I wish he fucking would. I dare him.
I park my car in my usual spot and sprint for the elevator, before I see the car that has been following me for the past twenty minutes pull into a spot. I hear my name shouted from behind me, and then I’m in the elevator. He calls me again and this time I answer.
“Stop. I need to do this.”
“Charlotte, bring your ass back down here right now,” he demands.
“No,” I say.
“I will come up there and get you.”
“No, you won’t.”
“Charley, think about what you’re doing.”
“I am. Fuck the money, fuck the houses, fuck it all, Will. This is so much bigger than that now. He can have every dime, but he’s going to answer my fucking questions and he’s going to do it today,” I growl as I end the call and slip the phone back into my purse.
I am well aware that I am spiraling. That I’m out of control, that I’m probably a liability. My lawyer is going to have a fit. But I don’t care. This isn’t reason, it’s instinct. I never really understood the term crimes of passion, but right now, I th
ink I’ve completely grasped the concept. All reasoning has gone out the window and I’m acting on basic urges and instincts.
Those instincts are telling me to rip Matthew’s balls from his body.
I storm through the halls of my soon-to-be ex-husband’s office without a care in the world for the scene I’m about to cause.
Hell, I might be a widow before I’m a divorcee.
“Is he in there?” I bark at his assistant, a sweet middle-aged woman, who’s probably sent me more flowers over the course of the last two years than my own husband. Sorry, Sarah, you’ve been caught in the crossfire. She nods, her eyes wide. I assume she’s taken aback, both by Matt’s estranged wife storming through the office, and her sweaty workout attire. I open the door and slam it behind me so hard that his Princeton master’s degree shakes on the wall. His head shoots up, his eyes wide at the intrusion.
“Charlotte? What the hell? You can’t just—”
“Shut up,” I growl, my voice menacingly low. “Don’t you say a motherfucking word. Or I will scream this entire building down.”
He leans back in his chair and eyes me, knowing that I’m just reckless enough to do it. I’m sure he’s worried about me causing a scene in front of his entire office. I take a few breaths, attempting to calm my nerves, when I look down at my hands and see them shaking violently. I need to punch something. A wall, a punching bag, Matt’s face. I walk toward his desk and grab what I know to be a picture of the two of us. I don’t even think before I’m sending it barreling toward the wall. The glass shatters and I know, in this moment, this is truly the end. I’ll be shocked if I don’t end up telling him everything just to stick the knife in deeper.
He still doesn’t say anything.
My whole body is shaking now and I don’t even know how to start this so I just cut to the chase. “I know Michael is dead,” I blurt out and I see his face go through a hundred different expressions in the course of thirty seconds. “You selfish, manipulative, arrogant, pathetic excuse for a man,” I say shaking my head. “How could you do that to me?” The tears form in my eyes and roll down my face. “A year and a half?” I shake my head as my lips form a straight line.