Big Skye Littleton by Elisa Lorello (2)

CHAPTER TWO

“What do you mean, exactly?” Skye asked Harvey as Chip meowed again. The guy wasn’t as good-looking as she’d originally thought.

“I mean he systematically pursued my wife, wooed her, slept with her, and persuaded her that he was much better for her than I ever was.”

She looked at him, incredulous. “You make it sound like it was premeditated,” she said.

“It was. Want to know how I know?” He barreled ahead without waiting for her reply. “Because six months prior he looked me in the eye and said, ‘I’m going to take your wife.’ He’d say the same thing to rival sales reps. ‘I’m going to take your clients.’ No threat, no cursing, nothing. Just those six little words. Now that I think about it, his tone was downright friendly.”

Skye was aghast. “What did you say?”

Harvey winced at the memory. “Nothing at first. I was too stunned. Business rivalry was one thing. But moving in on a guy’s wife? Then I told him he didn’t have the balls. That was my mistake. Never dare a sociopath.”

Skye tried to imagine the man who was so sweet and gentle toward her being so cold and callous to a colleague or this guy with the rough hands and the dirty boots and the pockmarked face sitting beside her. “I don’t believe you,” she said. “I can’t. It’s just not him.”

“You think I’m making it up?” he asked. “I’ve got the divorce papers to prove it.”

“Divorce papers prove nothing.”

“OK, how about depositions?”

Depositions? Holy shit.

The plane gave way to a momentary lurch. Or was that her stomach?

“When did this allegedly happen?” she asked.

“We’ve been legally divorced for about six months. Happened close to a year ago.”

Six months. That was when she and Vance first met online. Could he have been with this woman while they chatted? Was it possible . . . ?

“Are they still together?” she asked as her insides rumbled and churned and collided like boulders.

“I haven’t heard anything to the contrary,” said Harvey. He finished the last of his beverage and looked into the bottom as if disappointed and surprised to see it gone. “We share custody of our two kids, so I figured one of them would have filled me in.”

Oh God, oh God, oh God, get me off this effing plane.

As the flight attendant paraded down the aisle, Skye stopped her and asked for a ginger ale. Her face, undoubtedly the color of a green egg, apparently conveyed that the request was urgent rather than entitled. The flight attendant replied, “Right away,” and returned in ten minutes with not only the ginger ale but a package of oyster crackers and a blanket and pillow set from first class. Skye thanked her. Her mind was spinning faster than she could process time lines and replay conversations.

“I just . . . I don’t understand,” she said. “Why would he keep something like that from me? Wouldn’t it be obvious the moment I got to Billings? He gave me every indication that he wanted me there. He knew I was coming—heck, he helped me plan it. He was so excited when I told him I’d made up my mind.”

“He’s also a narcissist,” said Harvey. He said it with such conviction. As if it were common knowledge. And yet there was agitation in every word. “It was all about the challenge.”

Skye shook her head, shell-shocked. “No. No, no, no.”

For the remaining hour of the flight, Harvey stared beyond the window at the clouds shielding the view beneath them. Skye didn’t think he was ignoring her, but rather was lost in his own thoughts and giving her the space to process all that had transpired. Meanwhile, Skye searched for missing pieces. Signs she might have missed or brushed aside or excused away.

She thought of the hours they’d spent texting and messaging—how did that work, if he had been with someone else all this time? Was Harvey’s ex-wife somewhere else while Vance texted, or was she by his side? She thought of all the little tidbits they’d shared about themselves: He was thirty-eight years old. She had recently turned thirty-six. Neither really knew their family ancestry. How they took their coffee (him: bitter is better; her: sweet is neat). How she loved the feeling of sand between her toes. How he loved the first snow of the season. How she loved the smell of pine needles. How he loved the smell of vanilla. How she loved rhythm and blues. How he loved country. And then, when they were together, and he’d covered just about every inch of her body with kisses and she’d run her fingers along just about every crevice of his . . . she thought they knew just about everything two people who were about to go all in needed to know. Most of all, she had thought for sure that they knew they were both going all in.

But as she sat there, next to this guy who had allegedly worked with Vance day by day, side by side, knew where Vance lived and the people he associated with (like his now ex-wife, for one), Skye still wondered if they were talking about the same man. Had she really been so blinded by the boredom of her own existence that she’d fallen for a charlatan? Was she that hungry?

Why had he wanted her? She’d asked Vance one late night.

Because I’m the one who sees the treasure you are, he’d replied. She’d melted at the time.

Besides, I like the challenge, he’d added. How had she forgotten that part?

What challenge? she’d asked. He’d never answered her.

Harvey had said, It’s all about the challenge.

The nausea returned upon her recollection. How had she seen that as something sweet and loving rather than utterly insulting and condescending?

Skye gulped her ginger ale, wishing it would soothe more than her stomach. She took out her phone and clutched it, powerless in midflight, desperately wishing she could call Vance and ask him to explain himself; or better yet, to tell her that this guy sitting next to her was the liar and the sociopath and the narcissist. She could make use of the airline Wi-Fi and e-mail him. Or she could keep her wits about her, give him the benefit of the doubt, and wait until she got to Minneapolis before she contacted him, like she’d promised. Tapping on the photo app, she opened the album labeled “Vance” and scrolled through the countless selfies he’d sent her (she’d even saved the Weiner-esque poses, against her better judgment), and couldn’t even look at the couple selfies they’d snapped in front of the Paul Revere statue and outside Fenway Park and eating the best New England clam chowder either of them had ever tasted. She raced through the photos he’d taken of their king-sized bedroom with en suite, their kitchen with stainless-steel appliances and quartz countertops and mosaic-tiled backsplash, the street they would be living on with its idyllic streetlamps and early twentieth-century restored homes, the downtown they would be frequenting together with its gridlike street system and art installations and up-and-coming shops and eateries. Us. Our. He had used those words, not she. She finally settled on a selfie of him standing next to a luxury SUV. His, he’d said. She couldn’t believe she was even questioning something as simple as a car. She enlarged the photo to better see his salt-and-pepper hair. His neatly trimmed goatee. His striking blue eyes. She tried to look into those eyes now and see if they were shifty, eluding, fake.

Skye practically shoved the phone into Harvey’s face. “Is this him?”

He squinted and peered at the photo. Then he frowned. “Yeah, that’s him. Fuckface.” He gently moved the phone away. “I’m sorry,” he said. He was either apologizing for the positive identification or for the whole damn mess. Or maybe both.

Just because he recognizes Vance doesn’t mean he’s right, she thought.

And yet: Oh God, oh God, oh God, get me off this effing plane.