by Serena Grey
“It’s just me.” I heard Steve say, his voice a little quieter, graver than I remembered.
I swallowed, embarrassed, then my eyes went to the cases he was still carrying, waiting for me to tell him where to put them.
“What are those?” I asked warily.
“I don’t really know.” Steve told me. “Mr. Preston wanted them brought here to you.”
“I don’t want them here.” I said. I didn’t care what they were. My yearning had already turned to resentment, at David, at myself, at how eager I was to see him again.
“I could take them back,” Steve said quietly, “but Mr. Preston would just have me bring them back, or maybe bring them himself.”
For a moment, I was tempted. I imagined David in my tiny apartment, beautiful and implacable, fiercely demanding that I listen to him. I flushed, my traitorous body reacting to the image in my mind. No, I decided, his presence would only break down my resolve and fill my mind with the knowledge of how much I want him, not how much he hurt me. I sighed. There’s nothing as hard as wanting someone so much it’s almost unbearable, and knowing that being with them would be so much worse.
“Just put them down Steve.” I said, giving in.
He placed the cases on the floor in a corner of the living room, the largest part of the space that had been artfully split into a sleeping area, living area and a kitchen area. All together, it was still much smaller than any one of the three bedrooms in David’s apartment.
Steve straightened. I waited, hoping pathetically that there would be something else, a message from David maybe. “Would you like something to drink?” I offered politely.
“Some water.” He accepted, surprising me. I don’t think I’d ever seen him eat or drink anything before. I went to the counter that marked the kitchen area and poured him a glass of water, gesturing for him to sit on one of the stools next to the counter. For some reason, I wasn’t eager for him to go. Even though he wasn’t the object of my obsession, his connection to David made his presence welcome.
“Have you been with David long?” I asked, trying not to be too obvious about the fact that I just wanted to keep talking about David with the first person I’d seen in a few days who knew him too, perhaps more than I did.
“You could say that.” Steve replied with a small smile. “I used to drive him around when he was a boy.”
I didn’t know that, and my face betrayed my surprise. If Steve was surprised at my lack of knowledge about my husband, he didn’t let it show.
“What was he like?” I asked, imagining a teenage David been driven around in a chauffeured car, even then he would have been beautiful to look at.
Steve contemplated my question for a few seconds, and then shrugged. “Clever, curious, and adventurous,” He said, finishing his water, “Like most boys that age.” He paused. “He was also the loneliest boy I’d ever met.”
He looked almost sad for a moment, but his usual taciturn expression soon returned. “Mr. Preston also asked me to give this to you,” he continued, digging into the inside pocket of his jacket and retrieving an envelope, which he placed on the kitchen counter. “Thanks for the water.” He said, getting up.
After he left, I opened the envelope and found the cards for the expense account David had set up for me. I’d left behind in David’s apartment for my own reasons. The cases contained some of the things I’d also left behind, clothes and jewelry, phone and tablet. I put the cards in one of the cases and left them all in a corner of my bedroom.
That was almost two months ago. Since then I’ve heard nothing from David. I’ve taken to scouring the news for any mention of him. The few articles I’ve managed to find about his work aren’t nearly enough, but I devour them hungrily. Sadly, there’s usually nothing about his personal life, nothing about our marriage or separation, nothing about us.
I may very well never have been a part of his life.
“Sophie?” Stacey’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts.
“No, I haven’t heard anything from him.” I reply to her question. And I shouldn’t care, I tell myself. In time, I will get over him. I will forget the short time I spent as a billionaire’s wife. I will forget David Preston.
Even if I don’t want to.
“Have you tried talking with him?” Stacey persists. Sometimes, I think that she imagines that my separation is just temporary, a little hitch waiting to be smoothed out, but she wasn’t there, she didn’t see the scorn on David’s face when I told him that I loved him.
This has always been about sex.
“There’s nothing to say.” I tell her.
“That can’t be true.” Stacey urges. “He’s still your husband.” She reminds me. “Unless you mean to…” She stops talking abruptly, but already I know what she was about to say, unless I mean to get a divorce.
Heaven knows I should want that. I should want to do something about the fact that I’m still legally married to David. It’s the clear first step to moving on with my life.
Except, I don’t think I want to move on. At least, not right now, and not just yet.
I spend my evenings alone. Sometimes I read, trying to keep my mind occupied, but it doesn’t always help. Everything I do ends up feeling like a temporary measure, a small pause until my mind goes back to David, and I start thinking about how much I miss him, how unclear my reasons for leaving him have become, even to me, and how much I wish things could be different.
My apartment is empty and lonely, almost as bare as it was when I first moved in. I took over the lease from Jan and Larry’s former assistant who used to live there before he suddenly decided to go to New York to sell his paintings. It’s not David’s luxury apartment, but its fine. I could barely afford it with what was left of my savings, and although I could have gotten something bigger if I’d used even a fraction of the obscenely large amount of money David transferred to my account, I do not intend to touch his money, now or ever.
It’s not his money that I want.
Have you tried talking with him?
It’s scary how tempted I am. How willing I am to wrack my brain for excuses to hear his voice again. I close my eyes and remember the sound of my name on his lips, the feel of his breath against my ear when he would whisper something to me, so effortlessly seductive that all he had to do was look at me, and my body would go crazy with need.
Outside the only window, I can see the happy hour crowds walking along the sidewalk. I wish I were one of them. I wish I had nothing on my mind but the thought of a drink with friends at a bar somewhere. I wish I wasn’t haunted by the man who broke my heart. I wish I could close my eyes without seeing his face, his sensual lips that I’ve kissed a thousand times.
I take a deep breath. My sketchpad is lying on the bedside table. Picking it up, I go to sit on my bed, keeping my eyes from going to the cases stacked in a corner of the room. I was only tempted to open them once, and seeing the familiar things so well packed by Mrs. Daniels had brought a huge lump to my throat. Later, I’ll decide what to do with them. I’ll give them away, eventually.
I flick through the pages of the sketchpad, looking at the familiar drawings I’ve done over the years. Pencil drawings of jewelry, earrings, necklaces all worn by a woman with my mother’s face, my mother’s smile, the way I remember it from the pictures I’ve seen. Before David, doing the drawings used to make me feel less lonely, now it makes no difference.
I flip to the last drawing, a half completed one started in Italy, on a sunny afternoon by the pool with David lying beside me, his firmly muscled body gleaming from the sun. He’d caught me admiring him and put my sketchpad away, then we’d made love right there by the pool, our sun warmed skin sliding against each other, fitting perfectly together. Afterward, we’d gone into the pool and made love again in the water.
The memories are enough to make me feel hot, needy, and raw. I close my eyes and take a deep, shaky breath, putting the sketchpad away. It’s no use. I haven’t drawn anything since that d
ay. I can’t complete the drawing without being assaulted by my memories, and I can’t move on to the next one.
Soon it’s dark outside, another evening, another day gone. It takes a while to go to sleep, and when I finally drift away, my last thought is of the piercing blue eyes I love, and the face that will haunt me until the day I die.
Chapter Two
HAVE YOU TRIED TALKING WITH HIM?
The idea has taken root in my brain, growing and growing until I can hardly think of anything else. It’s not as if I’ve not been tempted before, when the loneliness seems unbearable, to dial his number just to hear his voice again, but I’ve always been able to stop myself.
This time it’s different. The need seems intensified, almost uncontrollable, so much that I’m almost sure I’m going to give in, that it’s only a matter of time.
I have no reason to talk to him, I tell myself, trying to be sensible. What would I say? What would be the point? It’s not as though the sound of my voice is some sort of catalyst that can change the fact that I mean nothing to him.
If he wanted to talk to me, he would have called me. He would have come to me. David’s not the kind of man to wait for opportunities. He creates them for himself. If he hasn’t created an opportunity to see me or speak to me in two months, it must be because he doesn’t want to.
So even though I’m dying to hear his voice, even though I want to know that he hasn’t forgotten about me, even though I want the assurance that, between his work and his business trips, there’s still a part of him that misses me the way I miss him, I’m not going to call him.
On my way out to the store, I run into Bea, the girl who lives in the apartment across the hallway from mine. She’s a recent journalism grad who works part-time as a barista in the café down the street, and writes fiction the rest of the time. She introduced herself when we bumped into each other in the hallway the day I moved in, and now most mornings we walk down to the café together on my way to the store.
“Hey you,” She greets me with a huge smile. She’s striking, with cropped burgundy colored hair and Disney-big, blue eyes in an attractive pixie face. “Looking glum, as usual.”
I chuckle despite myself. “Not everyone can be as cheerful as you Bea.”
“It’s a gift.” She agrees, nodding her head sagely.
It really is. It’s not as if she has nothing to be sad about. Both her parents died in a car crash during her sophomore year, leaving her alone without any close relatives. Once, when she was feeling talkative, she told me about Jet, the guy who used to live in my apartment. He broke her heart when he suddenly moved to New York. He didn’t tell her he was leaving until the day before, even though they’d been dating for more than a year.
As we cross the street, she starts to tell me another detail about Leticia Morse, the British heroine of the Young Adult series she’s currently writing, who solves mysterious crimes with her quick wits and intelligence, even though she’s just a teenager. Bea hasn’t had anything published yet, but she doesn’t let the rejections get her down.
“I still think you need a vampire in there somewhere,” I offer teasingly, as she explains yet another plot twist, “People love vampires.”
“Yeah, right.” Bea replies, giving the idea an emphatic thumb down. “Never.”
The café where she works is on the ground floor of a building a little further down the street from ours. A charming sign hangs over the doorway with the image of a steaming cup of coffee. The same image is etched on the glass of the door, which Bea pushes open, letting out the welcome scent of freshly brewed coffee.
I step inside, inhaling deeply. A few customers are seated at the tables drinking from steaming cups of tea or coffee. Behind the counter, Bea’s friend Luke is already wearing an apron and attending to a couple of customers on a queue. He’s a tall guy, cute, with unruly blonde hair and serious looking grey eyes. He looks up when we enter, and his eyes immediately lock on Bea beside me. His face softens as it always does when he sees her.
“Hey Luke.” I wave at him.
“Hey Soph.” He replies with a quick smile, and then he turns back to Bea. “Hey Bea.”
She says hi to him and quickly ducks under the counter, appearing almost immediately on the other side to pick up an apron hanging on the back wall, which she quickly puts on. I watch as Luke reluctantly tears his eyes away from her to go back to serving the people on the queue. He loves her. I realize suddenly, and she doesn’t know, she’s still stuck on Jet, who didn’t love her enough.
What a group we are. I think as Bea makes my coffee. We’re the walking wounded, all longing for something we don’t have, and trying to conquer the ache that never goes away.
“Here you go.” Bea says, handing me a Styrofoam cup with a thick paper belt, “have fun.”
I try not to roll my eyes. “I’m going to work, Bea.”
“Then have fun at work.” She says with a wink, unrepentant as usual.
I ignore her and wave goodbye to Luke before making my way to the door. I’m already reaching out to push it open when someone pulls from outside and steps in, almost bumping into me, and narrowly escaping a hot coffee bath. I start to apologize for almost scalding him before I realize that I know who it is.
His face is still boyish, but his brown hair is sporting a more grown up cut. He looks older and in his suit, more mature than I remember, but it’s undoubtedly Eddie Newton.
He’s looking at me, and I see a whole lot of expressions cross his face, a little embarrassment I think, and some pleasure.
“Sophie?” The exclamation is almost a question.
I smile awkwardly, remembering the last time I saw him, almost a lifetime ago. I’m still not sure why he came to my apartment that morning back in Ashford, right after David and I had made love for the first time. I remember the terse words he and David exchanged, and David’s assumption that Eddie was in love with me.
Well, Eddie does look very pleased to see me, but that’s not proof of love. Not that I know what counts as proof of love, I reason, if I had any idea I wouldn’t have allowed myself to be fooled into thinking that David’s passionate lovemaking had anything to do with love.
“What are you doing here?” Eddie asks, smiling widely as we move out of the path of the door to exchange an awkward hug.
I force a lighthearted smile and raise my cup. “Getting coffee?”
He laughs. “No, I know. I meant here, in Bellevue.”
I knew what he meant. I just didn’t feel up to answering his question. “I live here now,” I say reluctantly, hoping that he wouldn’t press further. I don’t want to answer any questions, no matter how well meant, about my life or my failed marriage.
His brows lift questioningly, but he doesn’t press it. “I work here too.” He says, going on to tell me about his new job at an investment firm.
“It sounds interesting.’ Eddie.” I say when he’s done. “I’m happy for you.”
“Thanks.” He nods. “It’s really great to see you again.” He adds earnestly.
Is it? Maybe there’s something wrong with me, but it feels awkward to me. I can hear the questions he’s not asking, and the last thing I want is to have to deal with them.
“I have to go.” I tell him, smiling apologetically as I edge towards the door.
“Oh, right.” He frowns and starts to follow me. “I guess I’ll see you around?”
Ignoring the invitation in his statement, I just smile, wave, and leave him standing there. I’d rather not see him. I’d rather not wonder how long before he asks me what I’m doing in a tiny Bellevue café when I’m supposed to be married to David Preston.
The store is only a short, fifteen-minute walk from the café. Maybe it’s because I ran into Eddie, but as I walk, I start thinking about David again, and that long ago morning back at my apartment in Ashford.
I wonder how things would have turned out if I had let him go, if I hadn’t begged him to take me with him. Would I have forgotten about
him in time, learned to remember him as no more than just the instrument of my sexual awakening? I remember the desperation I felt that morning, the knowledge that if he left, things would never be the same. Those feelings closely echo the yearning I feel now. There’s no way I’d have easily forgotten about him, I realize, then or now.
I’m close to the store when my phone beeps the alert for a text. I reach inside my bag as I walk, and take a quick look, thinking it might be a message from Jan or Larry.
It’s another alert from my bank. The first time David transferred money to me was right after he left me at the hotel. The next transfer came a month later. This is the third one for the same, needlessly large amount.
It should be obvious to him by now that I have no intention of spending his money. I haven’t used the cards he had Steve deliver to me, and I haven’t touched the money paid into my account either.
I feel a faint spurt of annoyance. Is the money his way of paying me off and assuaging his guilt over how he treated me? Does he think the money will ever mean enough for me to forget his cruelty?
The store is still empty when I enter. At my desk, I power on my computer and start to get ready for the day ahead. My movements are practiced and mechanical, my mind shut against the urge I have to pick up my phone and make the call I’ve been dying to make for too long, especially now that I have an excuse.
I manage to control myself. I process the new orders, reply to some of the posts on the Empathy Zone Facebook page, and drink my coffee, all the while thoroughly ignoring my phone.
Jan comes in after about an hour. He’s a tall middle-aged man with a pleasant, slightly lined face, and a very long blond ponytail. He’s the friendly, gregarious one of the duo, and while he waits for Larry to arrive, he spends some time telling me about the glory days of Empathy Zone, when the t-shirts they designed were worn by a couple of movie stars and famous musicians.