Chapter Five
Esther
The dig was a go.
Esther sipped at her cup of coffee and then had to wait a couple seconds as her glasses de-fogged. With everything that was going right in her life, it should have been easy to push her ill-thought-out marriage to Bryant to the back of her mind. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. He consumed her thoughts as she sat in the hotel restaurant, trying to concentrate on the resumes that she had received from individuals hoping to co-lead the dig.
“Oh, thank goodness!”
Esther jumped at the voice. She looked up to see a beaming woman dragging a suitcase coming straight toward her. She plopped herself down into the chair across from Esther and her beaming grew even more bright, if that was possible.
“I was so worried that I’d missed our appointment,” the woman continued. “My flight was late and my cellphone ran out of battery. It’s crazy how everything goes wrong at once, eh? Guess it’s just Murphey’s Law.”
Esther forced a smile onto her face as she stared at the woman, trying to figure out who the heck she was. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”
The woman’s smile faltered. “I’m Kayla Tucker. The graduate student that you accepted into your management team? I called you a couple of days ago and you told me to come right over.”
“Oh. Kayla.” The name meant nothing to her. She grimaced and shook her head. “Did we have our conversation on Friday night?”
“Um… yeah.”
Esther blew out her breath. “If you’re going to be an archeologist, there is something you need you know about archeology and drinking. Sorry, I was really drunk on Friday and I don’t recall your phone call. I didn’t even have a dig on Friday. I just got the funding I needed a couple days ago.”
Kayla shrugged. “Well. Better Jack than Lucy, right? Do you want me to go over my qualifications with you again?”
“That would be wonderful.” Esther relaxed a little. “I promise that I don’t usually drink that much. I’d gotten a rejection and there was a cute guy—”
“Say no more.” Kayla laughed. “Those cute guys. They ruin everything, don’t they? Just when you think you have everything under control, they breeze in and kick you right in the face. I mean… metaphorically. Any guy who really kicks you…” She shook her head and chuckled. “You get what I mean. So, want to talk about the dig or about this cute guy? He into threesomes?”
Esther stared blankly at her.
Kayla’s face went scarlet. “I wasn’t asking! I mean, I wasn’t asking for myself. I wasn’t… I’m not into threesomes.”
“Okay. I think that we might be getting a little off course here.” Esther held up her hand and shook her head. “Why don’t you tell me a bit about yourself?”
“Actually, can you talk instead? I’ll just be over here trying to get the ground to swallow me.”
Esther had to laugh at that. She might be a little odd on first contact, but Kayla seemed like she’d be fun to hang around with. “Well, this dig is preliminary work. Ultimately, we are going to be doing deep-sea archeology. For this first dig, we’ll be looking at a few coastal sites to determine when they were first occupied and when they were abandoned.”
Kayla nodded.
“Our backer will be taking part in the dig. He’s very interested in it and—”
“Was he the one that got you drunk?”
Esther paused a moment. Well. She supposed there wasn’t any harm in answering that. “No.”
“Is he good looking?”
The image of Shane, with his muscly body and rugged good looks, flooded her mind. He was good looking. Bryant, however… If Shane was a Michelangelo statue, then Bryant was a god. There was just no comparison between the two of them.
“That’s not the point.” Esther adjusted her glasses. “Why did you decide that you wanted to be part of the program?”
Kayla leaned forward, looking even more excited now than when she was talking about the men. “It’s always been my dream to be an archeologist. Ever since I was five years old I was digging in the backyard trying to find ancient artifacts. What about you?”
“Well, I always knew I wanted to work in a branch of anthropology. It wasn’t until I was actually in college that I realized my passion was archeology.” Esther smiled as she considered her career path. “There’s just so much about human history that we don’t know.”
Kayla nodded. “Or that’s completely ignored because it doesn’t fit in the current… Well, let’s not get into that, I might scare you off more than I already have. I promise I’m not usually this loopy. It’s the flight and I haven’t slept and you know. It’s kind of like getting drunk… only… it’s… I started that without knowing where I was going to end.”
Esther couldn’t help but laugh out loud. This girl was really weird. But in an odd way, Esther felt drawn to her more for her weirdness than she would have been if Kayla was “normal”. There had to be a reason why she had agreed to let her join a program that didn’t even exist when she was drunk.
“Well, I think that’s all I need to know. You’re welcome to sign up, Kayla. Just submit your resume and we’ll see if there’s a place on my command staff for you.”
Kayla squealed. She clapped her hands together and nodded. “I won’t let you down. I promise. I’m organized and I get along great with people and—”
Bryant walked across the room behind Kayla. Esther’s eyes zoomed in on him, everything else instantly cutting out as though she had suddenly gone deaf. Her mouth filled with saliva as he turned slightly, giving her a good look at the firm butt in his tight jeans. He walked with power and grace at the same time. Like the chieftain of a warrior clan that had been taught how to dance. It wasn’t quite right, but it was the only comparison Esther could come up with at the moment.
He didn’t even look around the restaurant as he went to the bar. And sat down beside a willow-thin bombshell of a blonde whose perfect figure had to come from a corset or something. A surge of jealousy shot up Esther’s spine and she jerked. Somewhere in the tunnel vision, she realized that Kayla had stopped talking and though she tried to pull her mind back to the graduate student, she couldn’t.
Bryant kissed the girl on the cheek and they headed for the door. Esther jumped to her feet. That was it? He just arrived and decided to take that girl to his room? He hadn’t even bothered to check to see if she was there. Not only that, but he was married! If he wanted to go around sleeping with other girls more power to him, but not when he was her husband. Not when he was the one who refused to get an annulment!
“Oh… that’s him, isn’t it?” Kayla’s voice was soft.
When Esther glanced down at her, she saw Kayla was watching Bryant and the mystery girl as well. Heat rushed to her face, embarrassed that she was reacting this way. There was nothing between her and Bryant, nothing real at least.
They were almost to the elevator.
“I have to go,” she blurted out, already rushing towards the oblivious couple. Her hands shook as her vision tunneled in on Bryant again. Her nostrils flared and a hot sensation swept through her chest. How dare he?
She managed to throw herself into the elevator just in time. Bryant gave her a startled look but she spoke before he could say anything to change her mind.
“Thank goodness I caught up with you!” she practically shouted the words. “I got that STD check back from my doctor and we have to talk.”
No.
No, no, no no no no no no no no no no!
She did not just say that.
Bryant and his woman stared at her, both of them with slack jaws. The woman glanced at Bryant from the corner of her eye and edged away a little, which Esther took as a small victory. She clenched her hands and tried desperately to know what she should say next. Start laughing and try to play it off as a joke? Start talking to the girl about sex, try to scare her off some more?
“How do you like threesomes?” Esther blurted.
The woman’s face went red.
Bryant cleared his throat. “Esther, you need to stop talking now.”
She really did. But the elevator stopped and she opened her mouth again.
“My key,” Bryant said, pressing a card into the woman’s hand. “Esther and I are going to have to talk.”
The woman slipped away, leaving the two of them alone. Esther’s hands balled. So, she had gone and humiliated herself, and for what? He was still going to go sleep with her. She might as well have stayed back with Kayla. At least then she wouldn’t feel like digging a giant hole and burying herself.
They started upwards.
“What are you on?” Bryant demanded.
Esther jumped. Guilt made her stomach clench but she shoved it away. “If you’re not going to let me file an annulment, then you are damn well going to be faithful to me. I won’t have a husband that runs around with other women.”
Bryant threw his hands into the air. “It’s not like we’re really married.”
“Our marriage certificate would state otherwise,” Esther shot back. “And if we’re not really married then we can get our not-real annulment and you can go back to screwing blondes with perky boobs.”
Bryant stared at her for a long moment. He opened his mouth, then seemed to think better of whatever he was going to say and closed it again. After a moment he shook his head. “I don’t expect you to stay faithful with this sham of a marriage—”
“I do.” Esther sucked in a deep breath. “Look. I’m leaving soon to go on a dig and I need to know where we stand with each other. We either need to be married in action and legality or we need to annul it. I don’t know what is going through your head, but I’m not going to cheat.”
He opened his mouth.
She hurried to continue. “And if it’s not cheating on you, then it’d be cheating on whatever guy I was dating. You said you’re not the marrying type? I am. I am going to find the right guy for me one day and I’m going to marry him. So, this is going to come out one way or another. If we annul it quietly, then that’s it.”
Bryant ground his teeth. Esther didn’t care. He couldn’t demand that they stay married and then act like they weren’t. It wasn’t going to work for her. She folded her arms, stared him in the eye and waited.