Chapter 19

When I had told Parker I wouldn’t go to Seattle, he had begged me to change my decision and gave me until the end of October to think about it. I promised I would, which turned out to be a good thing because after our talk, things turned weird between Holden and me. He seemed strangely reserved, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that this issue had driven a wedge between us even though we’d made up. The feeling just crept up—sometimes it was an awkward silence during supper; other times it was a goodbye kiss forgotten when he left in the morning. Summer passed, and by late autumn, when all the leaves had fallen and turned brown, I realized Holden hadn’t touched me for weeks. And I don’t just mean sex, which we’d hardly had in the last few months. I noticed it when we reached for the same apple in the fruit bowl one morning and our hands touched by chance. A tiny touch that felt like a stab to my heart. My whole body rejected his closeness.

Since he had answered my friend request, stalking Seth’s Facebook page had become my lunchtime ritual. I waited for Piper to leave our office—sometimes she went to eat alone, sometimes with Paul—then I opened the browser and logged in. I always made sure I was alone when I scrolled Seth’s timeline. Oh! He’d been tagged in two new photos. He was alone in one, with a friend in the other. The pictures were from an album with the title The Eternal City. What? He was in Rome? Oppressive jealousy spread in my chest. Damn it, while I was stuck on this hamster wheel, he saw the world. I briefly toyed with the idea of sending him a message. Something like: Get a haircut, hippie!—his hair reached over his shoulders now—or, Doesn’t Italy have any hairstylists? But I let it be. Even though he’d accepted my friend request, he still hadn’t answered my Hi message. Would he take his time with that, too?

Suddenly, the Messenger window popped up. My heart jumped into my throat. Seth! At least, that’s what I thought in the first moment. When I saw Holden had written, my heart skipped a beat. I quickly closed Seth’s profile before reading Holden’s message. It was stupid because Holden couldn’t see my screen, but I felt caught and needed to cover my tracks.

Facebook during work? Holden wrote and added a winking emoji. His words made me grin.

Stay cool—I’m on lunch break.

Don’t you have lunch plans?

Just stalking my ex-boyfriend on Facebook . . .

No. That way I get the office to myself for a few minutes.

Have you got anything planned for tonight?

Not yet. What are you thinking of?

Going out for dinner—just the two of us.

Oh, I’ll have to ask my husband first . . .

I’m sure he’ll be OK with it.

Where?

Let me surprise you. Can you be home by seven?

I’ll manage.

And wear something nice.

Now I’m curious.

You’ll have to bear it. See you at seven. Looking forward to it.

Me, too.

I closed the browser and got back to work. Did I just have a Facebook flirt with my husband? While I would have liked one with Seth?

I was home at six—just enough time to get ready. Holden wasn’t home yet. Maybe he was delayed at work? I showered, put something nice on, and styled my hair. The doorbell rang at seven on the dot.

Please don’t let it be Angela. Where the hell is Holden? I went to the door slightly irritated, and I almost had a heart attack when I opened it. Holden stood there in a suit, with a bouquet of red roses in his arm.

“Hi,” he said, smiling. “Are you ready?”

“You’re not kidding around,” I said when I finally found my voice again.

He handed me the roses, and I went to the kitchen to put them in a vase. Holden followed me and leaned against the kitchen door frame.

“Where are we going?”

“I told you it was a surprise.”

I wasn’t particularly surprised when he parked outside Del Frisco’s, but I was overjoyed. We hadn’t been back since Holden had proposed to me there—rather, nearby at the Fan Pier Park. Surely it would do the two of us good to rekindle the old feelings.

Just like back then, Holden walked around the car and held the door open. We exchanged an amused look as the same hostess who had been there three and a half years ago led us to our table. We sat across from each other in the upholstered booth and studied the menu. Suddenly, Holden stood up, sat next to me, took my hand, and looked deep into my eyes. His look reflected a thousand emotions. Disappointment, grief, anger, longing . . . love. He didn’t need to say anything. I understood. Then he took me firmly into his arms, and it felt as it used to.

Dinner was fabulous. I hadn’t had much appetite lately and only ate to keep my stomach from growling. Holden’s hug made me feel so sheltered that both my sense of well-being and my appetite returned. My steak was in a league of its own. I had a baked potato and probably the best spinach salad in my life with it. I was just starting on my strawberry cheesecake when the loud laughter of a busty blonde in a red dress two tables over drew my attention. She tilted her head back when she laughed, swung her long blonde hair, and then caressed her companion’s lower arm as she gave him an irresistible flash with her eyes. When her gaze met mine, I looked away. The intense way she flirted with her companion made me feel like a voyeur. But now her look rested on me. Was I mistaken or was she watching us? I looked over Holden’s shoulder as inconspicuously as possible and—she was really looking straight at us. Somehow, she seemed familiar. I was about to ask Holden if he knew her when she got up, came straight for our table, and placed her hand on Holden’s shoulder.

“Holdie. What are you doing here?” she asked in a syrupy sweet voice.

Holden looked up and promptly choked on some red wine when he saw who was touching him.

“Slow down,” the blonde giggled, patting him on his back while he was coughing hard.

I frowned as I closely observed the spectacle.

“Annie,” Holden coughed red-faced. “Do you remember me telling you about Monica?”

“Monica?” I asked, but at that very same moment it dawned on me. It was her! His ex, who spent most of her time with her tongue down his throat at the party where I’d first noticed Holden.

“Monicaaa,” I said stretching her name. “Nice to finally meet you.”

“You must be Annie.” She gave me a brief smile, then turned back to my husband. “I thought you were working late tonight.”

Um . . . did I just hear this right?! What did he still have to do with that skank? And how the hell did she know how late he was working?

“Um, I was planning to,” he began to explain, seeming completely uneasy. “But then I thought I’d take my wife out for a dinner.” He smiled awkwardly, then placed his hand on mine.

I jerked my hand back. “I think you need to explain something,” I said darkly.

“He has to have the construction plans for the Tirion Industries client presentation done by Monday,” dear Monica explained on Holden’s behalf. “By the way, that’s Mr. Tirion,” she pointed back to her table where a middle-aged suit waited impatiently for her return. “Business dinner,” she added with a wink.

“Unfortunately, that doesn’t answer my question.” My eyes drilled into Holden, who was still wrestling for words with his red face. “Are you two working together?”

“Um . . .yes,” he stammered. “Monica is the key account manager with responsibility for sales and care of our major clients.”

I leaned back and crossed my arms. “You never mentioned that,” I said with a smile, but only an idiot would have missed the warning in my words.

“I haven’t?” Holden asked in a far too high-pitched voice.

“No,” I answered stoically.

“I have to get back,” Monica said. “Catch you tomorrow morning, Holdie. Delighted, Annie.” She extended her hand to me, but my look was firmly fixed on my husband. When it became clear to her that I wasn’t reacting, she slipped me an affected smile and pulled back her hand. Finally, the slut turned around and headed back to her table.

“Is something going on between the two of you?” I asked directly.

“Have you got a screw loose? No. Of course not!”

“Then what reason do you have for keeping secret that you are working with your old girlfriend?”

“I didn’t keep it a secret.” He scratched the back of his head. “It just slipped my mind.”

“Slipped your mind?”

“Yes.”

I snorted derisively. “Try to think of something better, Holdie.”

Suddenly, the meal seemed indigestible. I would have preferred to throw up. The warm feeling of his embrace suddenly felt fake.

“Nothing’s going on,” he pleaded. “Don’t get all worked up.”

I felt my eye twitching. I exploded. “I’m getting all worked up? You’re working with your ex, keeping it from me, and then are brazen enough to claim you’ve forgotten it?” I hissed so I wouldn’t shout.

“I didn’t want you to get jealous and bent out of shape for no reason, OK?!” he hissed back.

“You’re shitting me!”

“Please stop it now, Annie. I put so such work into surprising you,” he reproached me as if what had just happened was my fault.

“You wanted to surprise me?” I asked as tears stung in my eyes. “Then remind me how it feels to be loved. Remind me of what it’s like to feel happy.”

I got up and left. The car keys were in my purse. Let him figure out how to get home on his own.

“I can’t imagine he’d cheat on you,” Grace said.

“How can you be so sure?”

“He’s just not the type. Or—not now. Not since he’s been with you.”

I snorted dismissively. It was the first time in ages that I’d felt anything when he embraced me—the first time in ages that I’d felt anything at all. And now this. I hated myself for opening up to him. It made me vulnerable, and he’d hurt me. More than that. Because now I had to worry he was cheating on me.

Grace bit her lower lip. “Things aren’t going too well between the two of you lately, right?”

I slowly shook my head.

“But you still love each other, don’t you?”

“Love isn’t our problem.”

“What then?”

“I don’t know.”

She took my hand. “You’re Annie and Holden—the perfect couple.”

Yes, that’s how people saw us. Annie and Holden, the perfect couple.

“Oh Grace,” My voice trailed off. “You know, I think I’ve been we for so long I’ve forgotten how it feels to be me.”

She looked at me skeptically. “You never told me you’re thinking like that.”

“I can barely admit it to myself.”

“So . . . are you thinking about separating?” she finally asked.

“At times,” I answered, and the second I said it aloud I regretted turning down the Seattle job. Even though Parker told me that if something changed, the offer would stand, I’d made a decision, and now I had to deal with it.

“Oh.”

“Yes,” I exhaled with a sigh. “And then I walk out like this morning and see that he’s scraped my car windows off—and I’m ashamed of ever having thought about leaving him.”

“Oh,” Grace said again. “Have you talked to him about it?”

“Not really.”

“You ought to.”

“I’m just not sure he’s the reason I feel this way. Maybe I just haven’t gotten over losing the baby. Or the thing with my mother. What if I need some time to myself to gain clarity? Duties, responsibility, being sensible—I’m just so sick of it all.”

“Yes, I get what you mean,” Grace said.

“You know, sometimes I just think back to when I was seventeen and in love with Seth. Everything was so simple.”

I was frightened by my honesty. Seth and I hadn’t seen each other for ten years, and now I spoke of him as if we were still in love. What if he had changed? What if he no longer was the Seth I’d known?

“Your old high-school boyfriend Seth?”

I nodded.

She looked at me suspiciously. “Are you still in touch?”

“No. Not really.”

“What do you mean not really? Are you in touch or not?”

“No, we aren’t in touch.”

But only because he doesn’t write back.