A slight wrinkle formed along Adrianne’s forehead as her brown eyes flitted to my bumbling husband. God! She looked twenty-five.
“Nice to meet—”
“Franz,” I cut off Adrianne, “the waitress is waiting to take our order. Let’s go.” I fought Anya’s efforts to escape from my hold while grabbing Franz’s hand.
“Noah just left. He’ll be disappointed he missed seeing you guys,” Ronin’s lies fell on deaf ears as I dragged my kids to the booth.
“I want to sit by Daddy.”
“Franz, Daddy is done eating. You can see him later.”
Two glasses. There were two glasses at his table.
Two.
Two glasses.
Two plates.
One empty pizza pan.
Noah would have made three.
On some sort of super mommy autopilot, I ordered our pizza and drinks. I stiffened, as Ronin approached our table in my peripheral vision.
He bent over and kissed Anya’s head as she played in the highchair with crayons and a coloring sheet. “Listen, before you guys arrived, I offered to give Adrianne a ride home. She lives about two miles from here, and it’s dark. But I can tell her I can’t if—”
“You should give her a ride home.” I stared at my water, jaw set. If I looked at him, he would know how much he just destroyed my world. And I didn’t want him to see that in front of the kids.
Without another word, he weaved his way toward the exit.
I didn’t eat a bite of pizza or take a single sip of water. Mommy super autopilot fed my kids, wiped faces, and paid the bill.
“Daddy!” Franz broke free from my hand the second he saw Ronin leaning against the front of the Jeep.
I unlocked the doors as if he wasn’t there. When he tried to take Anya from me, I jerked my torso.
“Evie …”
I fastened her into her seat while Ronin made sure Franz was secured in his seat.
“Move,” I said, staring at his black boots. His jeans and T-shirt-clad body rested against the driver’s door, hands tucked into his front pockets.
“I’m driving you home.”
I didn’t give a shit to the whereabouts of his car. All I knew was I didn’t want him driving me home. Looking at me. Talking to me. Anything … I didn’t want anything he had to offer at that moment.
“Evie … don’t let your mind go there. It’s not what you think.”
“What I think is I need to get the kids to bed. I have a messy house to pick up. I need a shower. Get the fuck out of my way!”
I hoped Franz couldn’t hear us. My barely restrained anger threw out the F-bomb, and I instantly regretted it. Ronin grabbed my wrist and pried the key from my hand. Had the kids not been there, I would have walked home or taken a cab.
We drove home in silence. The late dinner put the kids to sleep before we pulled into the garage. Ronin shut off the ignition and reached for my hand. I jerked it away from him and climbed out of the Jeep.
Everything felt numb except my heart. It hurt.
This happened to other people not me. Ronin loved me. Was love no longer enough?
We carried the kids into the house where we pushed their half-awake little bodies through an abbreviated nighttime routine. After we closed their doors most of the way, I took three steps toward the messy kitchen before pivoting on my heels. Ronin stopped the second I turned toward him.
“How could you?” I whispered on a breath that felt like my very last one.
Ronin deflated with a wince, slowly shaking his head. “Evie …”
“Last night …” I couldn’t even say it. In my heart, I knew it wasn’t me the previous night. Even if I felt a little rejected. But seeing him with that woman left me without any words to express my true feelings.
“Evie, it wasn’t you.”
“It felt like—”
He pressed his finger to his lips as my words gained strength. Before I could risk another word waking the kids, Ronin brushed past me, right out the front door. I followed him. We didn’t fight often, but when we did, it was outside while the kids slept.
“You’re not this stupid.” The second I shut the door behind me, he had my face cradled in his hands. His words sharp. His grip tight. “I’m not cheating on you.”
I clawed at him, trying to free myself. “Let go of me!”
He released me, planting his hands on his hips, head down.
“You said Noah. Dinner with Noah.” I crossed my arms over my chest to protect my heart, but it was too late. Ronin already stabbed it with a guilty look and a dinner date ready to suck his dick.
“I did have dinner with Noah. Just as we finished eating, Adrianne walked past the booth. Noah had to get home. Adrianne sat down, and we just got to talking. Then you showed up with the kids. That’s it.”
I paused my tapping foot. On a laugh I shook my head. “No. That’s not it because you haven’t told me who the hell Adrianne is. All I know is when you looked at me in the restaurant all I could see was this pale, guilt-ridden expression on your face. Then you introduced me to this young, beautiful woman. And I swear … I swear to god, Ronin, she had the same look on her face. You both looked like you got caught! Caught by your wife. Caught by your kids!”
“This is about last night. There’s no way you would jump to cheating had I not had … issues last night. You’re taking it personally. And it wasn’t personal.”
“Stop deflecting! You had the opportunity in the restaurant. You had that opportunity in the car. In the house. And the second we stepped outside here … and you still haven’t told me who the hell that woman was!”
“Evie—”
“Nope.” I returned a sharp headshake before he could say another word. “Try again.”
He sighed. So much pain radiated from every inch of him. Too bad. I hurt more.
“Did you fuck her?”
“I’m not even justifying that with an answer.”
Yes. The answer was yes. I wasn’t sure what hurt the most—the betrayal or his inability to say the words.
“I …” Everything died in my chest.
I love you.
It was too late. I wouldn’t beg.
Wiping the tears that showed up in place of those three words, I shrugged. “You’re wrong. I am stupid. And I’m tired. I’m hurt beyond words. So if you can’t answer me, then five years of marriage and two children clearly don’t mean anything to you.” I reached for the door handle.
“Everything,” he whispered. “Five years with you and our two children mean everything to me.”
I rested my forehead against the door and closed my eyes.
“Yesterday, on my hike, something happened. It felt like someone was strangling me. I couldn’t breathe. My life played before me like this farewell reel. You … Franz and Anya. It just seemed like my luck had ended. Then I realized it must have been Lila. Someone was strangling Lila. But then it just … stopped. And I could breathe again. I called Lila, but she didn’t answer. So I called Graham. He said she was taking a shower. He confirmed she was fine.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I whispered beneath the heavy weight of his confession. My forehead remained pressed to the door. Something in my heart wouldn’t let me turn to look at him. Not yet. Not with the image of that woman still in my head.
“Because it really fucking scared me, which meant I couldn’t tell you with any sort of certainty that everything would be fine. And I refused to put that on you … not when I know damn well you’re still grieving the loss of your mom, when you still look at me with a glitch of distrust in your eyes because I tried to blow up our marriage with a bottle of pills.”
I just … I wanted my mom. I needed my mom.
“The woman in the restaurant.” I squeezed my eyes shut tighter, but her guilty face looking at his guilty face still haunted me. “If you don’t tell me about her, I will go insane thinking only one thing. She is the reason you didn’t want me last night.”
“No!
” He grabbed my arms and forced me to face him. “You don’t get to say that. Not ever. It’s not that I didn’t want you. I just couldn’t have you in that way because something happened yesterday, and I don’t know why. I felt broken. Broken. Like nothing in my body worked right. Feelings of despair and hopelessness enveloped me, and I couldn’t shake it. I couldn’t will it away. And it scared me.”
I understood broken. I understood despair and hopelessness. Ronin telling me everything but the one thing I needed to know continued to feed my despair and hopelessness … it continued to break me, break us.
“The woman,” I whispered.
He closed his eyes for a few seconds. “I had dinner with Noah. He had to leave. She walked by my booth and sat down to talk. She is in my support group. Yesterday, I wasn’t myself after the incident on my hike. Adrianne noticed. So when she saw me tonight, she took the opportunity to ask me if I was okay. The guilt you thought you saw on our faces wasn’t guilt. It was nerves. We were nervous you would recognize her.”
“Why would I recognize her?”
“Because she’s Adrianne Craig.”
Blinking several times, I let her name swirl around in my head, looking for recognition. When the switch flipped, I felt no relief, just more despair.
Adrianne Craig was a home-wrecker for hire. She destroyed many marriages by secretly videotaping sex acts with wealthy men. Sometimes angry wives hired her. Sometimes other wealthy men hired her to bring down their business competition. I wouldn’t have recognized her because she consistently changed her appearance to keep her “business” thriving. Supposedly she quit for unknown reasons. Graham told me she tried and failed to scheme his father. He also told me she didn’t just do the job for the money; she did it to prove a point—no man was perfect. She enjoyed ruining marriages the way Graham and I enjoyed betting on sports.
“That’s …” I inched my head side to side, wiping my tear-stained cheeks. “That’s fantastic. I thought you were cheating on me. Instead, you’ve simply befriended a woman who seduces men just to prove she can. I feel much better. What is her addiction? Sex? Sadism?”
“Heroine. And befriending someone isn’t the same as having sex with them.”
“Does she know that?”
“Evelyn …” He frowned.
“Ronin, what are we if you can’t tell me that you had something happen to you that was so frightening you thought you were dying … that you thought Lila was dying? What are we if you allow a woman with a reputation like Adrianne’s to sit next to you in public where people you know, people I know, could see you?”
What are we if Graham touches me inappropriately and gifts me something like a whole damn building and I don’t tell my husband?
“I can’t always protect you with the truth.” He slid his hand behind my head and brushed his lips along my cheek.
“You can’t always save me with a lie,” I whispered. “Save us …”
“We don’t have to be perfect to be forever.” His other hand slid up my neck, the pad of his thumb tracing the line of my jaw.
“Roe, I’m scared.”
His lips brushed mine. “Me too, Evie. Me too …”
I wasn’t sure why Ronin’s vulnerability made me feel safe. Maybe in our imperfect world, where the truth sometimes felt like a weapon and a well-intended lie served as the strongest shield, vulnerability was the unspoken promise that together we would survive the war.
“I need to pick up the toys,” I breathed the words against his lips.
“Yes,” he whispered back to me.
The hand behind my head moved to my breast, cupping it so gently it elicited a painful ache.
“And clean the kitchen …” My breaths shortened, filling the air between us with unspoken needs that didn’t involve the kids’ toys and dirty dishes.
“Yes,” he repeated. Our lips touching, but not kissing.
His hand fell from my breast, tracing the contour of my stomach and the curve of my hip before sliding down the front of my shorts. I drank his breaths and he drank mine, my eyes fluttering shut as he slowly … gently … dragged his fingers across the delicate fabric of my panties—every touch wordlessly asking for permission, as if he hadn’t ever touched me there before.
After a few seconds, I swallowed my fear and let my fingers brush the soft denim, inch by inch making their way to his erection, pressed hard to the zipper of his jeans. My thumb outlined it, circling its head several times. Ronin’s chest expanded with a deep breath.
We weren’t a troubled married couple with two young kids on the other side of that door. There was no room for more truths or lies.
Not a breath for words.
Not an inch to move.
Not a thought to consider.
Just a bubble encasing a man and a woman.
Just one touch chasing another.
Just a single need.
Our mouths fused together, sending each hard breath through our noses. The kiss demanding, but our hands remained gentle, patiently waiting. It hurt too much to sort through the rubble of thoughts in my head, so I just kissed Ronin.
And he kissed me.
He slid his hand from my pants, and I tugged open the button to his jeans as the momentum—the need—spread from our kiss, down our bodies, like relentless waves thrashing in a storm. Ronin’s gaze met mine as he lowered his body, peeling my shorts and panties down my legs.
I love you.
I love you too.
The words were there, swirling like the invisible wind. They were always there.
For every night of kids in our bed, pain-driven wedges between us, sickness, and sadness … we claimed one moment for ourselves again. A moment that didn’t care about the flash of headlights from the road beyond the curtain of trees. A moment that didn’t care about the chill of the door at my back. An imperfect moment in our forever.
With half of my clothes discarded on the porch’s wood floor and Ronin’s jeans and briefs slid partway down his thighs, we fucked.
We laid down our weapons.
We made love.
And I knew in that moment that it wasn’t just Franz and Anya that I would protect with my life. It was Ronin too. He didn’t share my DNA, but he shared my soul.
I would fight for him.
And he would fight for me.
There would be truths.
There would be lies.
Never perfect—always forever.
CHAPTER FOUR
“You look good.” Lila hugged me.
I smiled.
Thoughts of Ronin over the previous twenty-four hours spread like warm rays of sunshine across my chest. I married a great man. A wonderful father. A faithful friend. After we made up on the porch in the wake of our near falling-out, he helped me clean the kitchen and living room. We showered together. And I fell asleep, hugging his chest, while he read a book under the soft glow of his reading light. By morning we were four in bed. Crowded, yet happily content.
“You look too formal for lunch with me in my jeans and a tee.” I laughed as she released me.
“I have a meeting after lunch with teachers from the NEA.” She strutted in her high heels toward the formal dining room, showing off her full recovery from the accident.
“Well, your little business suit and silk neck scarf make you look like a flight attendant for British Airways.” My flip-flop-clad feet followed the click of her Manolo Blahniks.
“Graham bought it for me.”
“Graham bought you something that’s not lingerie?”
“Yes. What were the chances, right?” She took a seat at the long table that accommodated twenty.
I sat across from her, feeling way too underdressed for lunch—a lunch I imagined being a simple sandwich and iced tea.
“Are you good? I mean … for real good? I know you have stress with the whole politics part of your life, and there’s nothing you can do to change that as long as he’s governor. But beyond that, are things good?”
&nb
sp; Lila sipped her water, gently setting the crystal stemmed glass back on the table. “I don’t like you worrying about me. It hasn’t been that long since your mom died.”
“Yes. But I do worry about you, even if … to be completely honest, I need a break from worrying about you, my dad, Ronin …”
Her eyebrows furrowed. The thick eyeliner and heavy fake lashes made her eyes look completely black. “Why do you worry about Ronin?”
My husband was right: sometimes we hid the truth to save people from pain. Was it right? I didn’t know that answer. Very few things in life held black and white absolution. I never told Lila about Ronin—not his connection to her since the accident and not his opioid addiction. It killed me to hide some of the darkest times of my life from my best friend. I did it to protect her.
What would she have been able to do with that information? Knowing he shared her pain would have only made her pain worse. Knowing that her pain caused his addiction—especially after losing someone she loved to addiction—would have destroyed her. I did the only thing I could … I raised my shield of lies to protect her from the truth.
But she was better. Her pain was gone. Maybe I could let go … let her be a friend to me again like I had been to her for so many months.
“Before I say anything, I need to know—and I need you to be honest—are you okay?”
Lila remained stone still for several seconds, completely unblinking. Then she straightened her back and made a slight adjustment to the silk scarf around her neck while clearing her throat. “Yes. I’m okay, Evie. I am your friend. I am here for you.”
I looked for the truth in her eyes, but all that gray hid the truth. After so much tragedy, I couldn’t see what was right in front of me. Grief and pain left me blind to everything I thought I knew. Ronin was right. Relationships could be perfect, or they could be forever, but they couldn’t be both.
“I would never share this with Graham. I never told my mom. And I’m only telling you because I trust you with my life.”
Lila nodded slowly. The unspoken reminder of her loose tongue at my fortieth birthday party passed between us. I saw it on her face, that flinch of regret, and I hoped she saw the sincere forgiveness in my eyes.
The Life You Stole Page 3