Chapter Twenty-Seven

Then

There were days when work went incredibly well and days it didn’t. I was twenty-six and working at an insurance company. I hated my job. The last company I’d worked for had been wonderful, but times grew hard and they’d closed down. I needed a new job so I interviewed at several places and ended up with only one offer — from an insurance company.

I had lost my zest for life and that obviously showed in my interviews, because I just wasn’t getting many call-backs. I regretted my decision not to go to college. I began taking night courses to help me do something that might make me feel more accomplished.

If only I knew what I wanted to do — what would bring me joy. My life decisions would be much easier to make. But I was taking some great classes at the college and I loved figuring out how to make things work, how to navigate through the business world. It was like putting a puzzle together. The pieces had to fit in just the right place or the puzzle was ruined.

Sometimes it was nearly ten by the time I got home. On that particular night it was closer to eleven. All I wanted was a glass of wine and to talk my husband into one of his world-famous foot rubs. He was fantastic at them. Maybe that was reason enough to stay married. The relationship wasn’t all bad I assured myself. We still had incredible moments together.

When I stepped through the door, his music wasn’t playing, so he might be done in the studio. As I turned down the hallway I noticed the light was still on with his door shut.

That was strange. He rarely shut the door. His studio was the largest room in the house. It was an addition the first year we were married, but he still didn’t like shutting the door and feeling closed in. I reached the back of the house and stopped with my hand on the knob to his room.

Was that a woman’s voice I heard?

My heart thudded as I stood in silence, too shocked to have any thoughts circling my brain. What was a woman doing in there? I took a few deep breaths. The worst thing I could do was jump to conclusions.

There was no mistaking the tinkling laughter of a soft feminine voice. That still didn’t mean anything. We didn’t have rules for who could and couldn’t come into the house. We didn’t live a marriage like that. We trusted each other. Our union wasn’t as perfect as it had once been, but we still had trust, that was for sure.

I began to turn the knob, knowing it was ridiculous for me to keep standing outside the door. But then I heard Mason’s voice and his words about broke my heart. “If you show me yours, I’ll show you mine.”

Tears sprung to my eyes for about three seconds, and then red-hot fury overtook me. He was in my home with some trashy bitch behind a closed door and he was openly flirting. The rational side of my brain told me there was an explanation for this. The voice of a million women who’d come before me warned me not to make excuses for him.

I turned the knob and stepped into the room. I managed to mask the wrath I was feeling, but I certainly wasn’t smiling as I walked inside. I found Mason with . . . with that woman from the gallery show a couple of years ago.

I stood there in shock. He’d never mentioned her since that night. I’d assumed she was totally out of the picture. But there she was like a nightmare that wouldn’t go away. She was wearing an indecently tight skirt with a top that left nothing to the imagination.

This time her nails were painted bright red, and they were resting on my husband’s chest as she giggled at what he’d said. Neither of them spun around at my entrance, but they both turned slowly to see who could possibly be interrupting them.

Mason didn’t even have the decency to look ashamed at what he was doing. Bella, that was her name, it was a name I’d never forget. Well, Bella glared at me, as if I was the one in the wrong for interrupting whatever they had going on.

I looked her dead in the eye. She should be hanging her head in shame, should be mortified at having been caught trying to seduce my husband. In my house! What sort of woman did that to another? I knew exactly what sort.

“What’s so amusing?” I asked.

Bella took her time removing her hand from my husband’s body. She did it just in time for me not to break her perfect fingers. I slid right up to them, not touching Mason. I was too furious for that, but I was definitely letting this woman know this was my husband.

“Mason and I were discussing the next show. We might be meeting quite late tonight,” Bella said. The look of fury had evaporated from her face, and what she replaced it with made me even angrier. She looked at me with pity as if I’d already lost him. We’d see about that.

“I think your meeting is over. It’s late,” I told her. My voice was icy cold.

Mason finally seemed to realize there was a problem. I’d never taken him for a foolish man before, but at that moment I was reassessing that thought.

“Is everything okay, Miranda?” he asked, finally giving me his full attention.

“No, everything isn’t okay,” I told him. I turned back to Bella. “You can leave now.”

My voice didn’t give even the slightest hint I was kidding. She could either walk out of my house or I was going to pull her out by her shiny blonde hair. Her eyes narrowed as she thought about challenging me.

But just as quickly as she showed her venom, she placed a mask over her expression and turned to look at Mason, sympathy in her eyes and voice. She was close to getting her eyes poked out.

“It seems you have problems to deal with,” she said. “We’ll finish later.”

She didn’t wait for his reply. For one brief second I thought she was going to stand on her toes and kiss him. She leaned forward the slightest bit and my entire body tensed. I thought I might end up in prison for murder.

But she finally turned, not sparing me another glance as she walked from the room. I looked back at Mason, and his eyes had narrowed as he stared at me. He now looked like he was the one who was angry.

I didn’t say a word as I listened for the sound of the front door closing. I thought I heard it, but I wanted to be sure. I marched out of the studio, straight to the front of the house. Bella was walking down the sidewalk to her shiny red Mercedes. I couldn’t believe I didn’t notice it sitting there when I came home. I must’ve been more tired than I realized.

All thoughts of sleep had now vanished.

“What in the hell was that about?” Mason asked as I moved away from the door and walked into the kitchen. I pulled out a bottle of wine and opened it, nearly filling a glass to the brim. I took a very large swallow before I dared say a word to him. I didn’t offer him any.

“I’m the one who should be asking that question. What are you doing allowing that woman, who obviously wants to screw you, into my house?” My voice sounded clipped and icy. I was proud I wasn’t yelling.

He looked stunned.

“There’s nothing going on between Bella and me. She’s a work associate. That’s all. She’s helped my career tremendously.” He’d seemed to realize the danger he was in because his voice had calmed.

“Really? That’s the story you’re sticking with?” I questioned.

“It’s not a story,” he told me. “It’s the truth.”

“I heard your little comment about showing her yours and her showing you hers,” I snapped. I’d drained the entire glass of wine. I refilled it, nearly emptying the bottle.

He still looked confused, then smiled. He actually smiled at me. I was now thinking of scratching his eyes out.

“We were kidding around. I have a new piece I haven’t unveiled yet and she’s been pestering me to see it. She also has a mysterious client who does phenomenal paintings but no one has seen his face. I wanted to know who he is,” he told me.

I processed his words, letting them roll around in my brain. It made sense. It was rational. But something felt wrong.

“You don’t touch me anymore — hardly ever. And then you’re in here in my house flirting with another woman. What other conclusion do you think I’d come to when you’re in the room with a sexy woman with the door shut?” I was horrified when tears sprung to my eyes.

He moved quickly, taking the nearly empty wine glass away from me and pulling me into his arms. He held me while I let go of the tears, wetting his shirt.

“I’m sorry, Miranda,” he crooned as he rubbed my back. I closed my eyes and inhaled his tangy scent, trying to take comfort in his embrace. But we’d been so cold and distant to each other for so long I didn’t feel better, didn’t feel as if he could make it better.

“What has happened to us?” I cried.

He didn’t say anything, just continued holding me. We stood like that for a long time. He’d said he wasn’t cheating on me, and though I wanted to believe that, wanted to think we were just in a slump, I wasn’t sure I did. I didn’t know what to believe anymore.

“I don’t know where it all went wrong,” he finally muttered. His voice sounded so resigned. I didn’t know what to make of it.

“What does that mean? Do you want to leave me?” I asked.

He was again quiet for a very long time. I wanted to shout more questions, wanted him to explain himself. But I waited. I’d been too fearful to ask that very question over the last few years and now it was out there. It was out in the open. Was he leaving me for another woman? Had he fallen out of love with me? Was I out of love with him?

“I don’t know,” he finally said. Though he said those words, he didn’t release me from his hold and I didn’t pull away.

I was suddenly panicked. I wasn’t ready to let our marriage go. I wasn’t ready to give up on us, and on everything we’d been through. I pulled back from him and looked at his pained face, then I closed the distance between us and pressed my lips to his.

He hesitated for only a fraction of a second. Maybe some women wouldn’t have noticed, but I knew my husband well. He wasn’t sure he wanted to do this. But finally he kissed me back. For the first time in at least five years he made love to me right there in the kitchen.

We went to bed that night and I held tightly to him as I lay awake for hours, wondering if my marriage was over. The next day we both got up and acted as if nothing had happened. We didn’t bring the subject up after that night.

And Bella never set foot in my house again. But that night something definitely changed between us. Maybe we should have let each other go. It might have saved a lot of pain down the road. A lot of pain and a lot of guilt.