Chapter One

Nadia

MUSIC MIGHT HAVE BEEN playing, but I couldn’t make out the song. My head was too muddled with my own thoughts and the sounds of arguing coming from the backseat. I stared at the red light in front of me, trying to relax my body and mind, but it wasn’t working. It was impossible. My hands tightened around the steering wheel. I inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly. But nothing was working.

I was used to the noise. With twin girls who were opposites one moment and one and the same another, it came with the territory. So, it wasn’t that. It was the failure, the feeling I kept trying and trying and just not measuring up I couldn’t seem to shake off lately. It left a singed sensation throughout my entire body.

“Girls, come on.” I quickly glanced at the backseat, trying to keep my voice steady, hoping and praying I wouldn’t completely lose my mind.

My girls were everything to me. I loved them before they took their first breath out in the world, but they were driving my up-the-wall crazy with their incessant fighting.

“Mom! She started it!” Becca whined, but Vivian cut her off.

“I did not!” Viv shrieked, making my eye twitch. “Mom! Tell her we can’t go to her stupid ballet lessons because I need to go to gymnastics!” she shouted. A throbbing started at my temples.

“Ballet is not stupid!” Becs retorted. I turned to look out my driver’s side window then back to the front, my eyes on the traffic light as I silently counted to ten.

“Mom! Becca said ‘stupid!’” Vivi yelled.

“Whatever, you dummy! You said ‘stupid’ first, nerd!”

“Mom!”

“Mom! Vivi started it!” Becca shouted, and I snapped.

“Enough!” I clipped sharply, daring to take a glance behind me. “I can take you to both activities, but you need to settle down. If you don’t, we won’t go anywhere,” I warned seriously, my patience almost nonexistent.

Thank God, it’s date night.

My eyes caught a glimpse of the perfect dress for tonight I had found at a little shop earlier in the week. A couple of hours out with Owen, grown-up conversation, good wine, and great food. Exactly what I needed.

What we need.

Silence finally fell over the backseat and I looked ahead just as the car behind me honked at letting me know the light had turned green. My cell rang and I answered it through the radio, smiling at the caller ID that flashed as I made my left-hand turn.

“Hello?”

“Hey, babe.” The deep tone of my husband’s voice still made me smile after so many years. Looking at myself in the rearview mirror, I thought about our date.

Maybe I could find a way to slip in a shower, shave, and have enough time to do my makeup before we had to make our reservation.

“Hey, you’re on speaker. Taking the girls to gymnastics and ballet,” I shared.

“Hi, Dad!”

“Hey, Dad!” the girls chimed happily.

“How are my girls?” he asked. I smiled at their reaction.

“Good!” they answered simultaneously. A smile played on my lips; my shoulders started to relax. My girls’ fight was now non-existent. The power of Dad.

“Oh, okay, good. Good,” he mumbled, sounding distracted as usual. He was probably working on files as he made the call. “Listen, Nadia…” By his tone, I knew. I knew I wasn’t going to like what he had to say, so I braced. “I don’t think I can make it on time tonight, babe. I’m sorry.” Again?

“What?” I swallowed hard, trying not to let the disappointment show in my face or voice.

“We had a complicated case, and then they want us to go over a couple of things afterward.”

“Can’t you guys do that tomorrow?” I asked, hating the obvious desperation in my voice.

This was the sixth date night he had canceled.

In a row.

“Babe,” he groaned, and I knew the answer; there was no point in sounding like a nag.

“Okay.”

“We’ll reschedule,” he added. I swallowed down the need to roll my eyes and cry.

“Sure,” I muttered, my chest aching. Crystal-clear disappointment flowed through my veins.

“I promise, Nadia,” he threw out carelessly. I bit my tongue. The setback settled and weighed in my chest. I tried not to wince at how little his promises were beginning to mean. When had that started? I remembered how not so long ago I could count on his promises. His word had meant something.

“It’s fine.” I shrugged, needing to end the call before I said something I might regret and couldn’t take back. Something that I shouldn’t say in front of the girls. “Look, I’m driving. See you tonight.”

“I’ll be late. Going to grab dinner on my way, so don’t worry about me, okay?”

“Sure,” I mumbled, wincing, hating the anger I was starting to feel. Dinner. I hadn’t defrosted anything, since I had planned on ordering takeout for the girls and the sitter. “Girls, say bye to your dad,” I ordered, trying to maintain some kind of control over my emotions.

There was no need for the girls to see me upset. Things happened. Dates got cancelled. It was part of life, I had to remind myself.

“Bye, Dad”

“Bye, Daddy!”

“Love you girls. Be good for your mom,” he said. I opened my mouth to tell him I loved him, but the call ended.

Without an ‘I love you.’

Again. When had that started and why was it okay for it to be our new normal? I kept driving the minivan I’d hated the moment Owen had brought it off the lot as a surprise for me. A quiet pop song by an artist the girls liked played, but I wasn’t paying attention.

I’m not going to get upset.

This wasn’t the first time something had come up. But as much as I reminded myself of it, I couldn’t ignore how it felt different this time and how I knew it wouldn’t be the last.

“Sorry about your date, Mom,” Vivian said softly.

“Yeah, Momma, that sucks. Your new dress is really pretty,” Becca pointed out, since my dress was hanging by her side. I blinked tears away and swallowed down the disappointment. How many times had I done this last month? More like the last seven years, a small voice whispered, and the heaviness in my heart only grew.

How much longer did I have it in me to keep doing it?

“It’s okay, babies,” I told the twins, meeting their eyes in the rearview mirror before looking ahead. “It’s okay,” I repeated this time in a whisper directed at myself.

***

It was after ten o’clock when I found myself sitting on the porch swing in our darkened backyard, a mug of tea in hand, even if what I really wanted was a glass of wine. Or tequila.

Tequila sounds damn good.

I heard the door open and close and watched my husband walk into our home from where I was sitting outside. I observed him throw his suit jacket on the back of the couch, and I knew if I didn’t pick it up when I got back in, it would be a wrinkled mess by morning and would add a dry-cleaning trip to my week. Why can’t he just hang it? I breathed in deeply, trying not to let it annoy me. He walked to the kitchen, grabbing a glass of water before looming in the doorway of the French doors that led to the backyard.

“Hey,” he said, looking around the yard and then finally at me. Even with the distance between us, the fact that the light behind his back made him nothing than a shadow, I knew every angle and line of his face. Probably better than I know my own.

“Hey.”

“Why are you sitting in the dark?” he asked. I kept looking at him. My heart picked up speed. It didn’t fail. Anytime I looked at him, even after all these years, I thought he was exquisite. Tall with broad shoulders and a slender waist, he almost blocked out all the light behind him as he folded his arms across his chest. I couldn’t make out his strong forearms or the ink on his upper arms, but I knew them. Memorized each line of every beautifully inked mark on his tanned skin. Each tattoo a memory. God, he is sexy.

“The bulbs died,” I replied. His hands fell to his sides.

“Shit, that’s right. I told you I would change them.” He had. But he had also been busy. Again.

He is always busy.

“I will. This weekend.” He threw out another promise I knew he had no intention of keeping. It irked me. When did his promises become nothing but empty words?

“It’s okay.” I smiled, shrugging at him. “I can stop at Home Depot tomorrow and bring the ladder out and change it before the girls get out of school.”

He sighed and shook his head. “Come on, Nadia, it’s a little late for you to bust my balls, alright?” With a shake of his head, he headed inside. Obviously, the conversation was clearly over and he had no problem leaving me sitting stunned in the darkness. An ugly feeling I had been trying to beat back the last couple of months settled in the pit of my belly.

A feeling I had been trying to shake off for a while that had not wanted to be ignored, no matter how hard I tried. He’d been snapping at me. Growing further away. From me. From us.

Somewhere between having the twins and the last eight years, we had lost our way.

Not that I could blame him completely. I was just as guilty. I had lost my own path. What was it that people said? How can someone else love you if you don’t love yourself? Not that I don’t love myself. I just wasn’t sure who I was anymore.

Standing, I took a cleansing breath, slipping my feet into flip-flops, and walked into the house. Locking up the French doors behind me, setting the home alarm, hanging his suit jacket, finishing up the couple of dishes in the sink before heading upstairs.

When I reached our bedroom, Owen was already in bed, his hair wet from a shower, sitting with his iPad. From the color of the case, it was his work one. What a surprise.

“Hard day?” I asked in a soft voice, my eyes on him. He grunted his answer and shrugged, never once looking away from his fucking tablet to look at me. I had to blink tears away, tears that choked me while disappointment and something else flowed through me. Something that felt a lot like fear.

As a gifted plastic surgeon, Owen was highly sought after. I knew that. I admired him and was proud of every one of his accomplishments. I knew the dedication and hard work it took him to get where he was now. I knew because I had been by his side from our first day as freshmen at UCLA, to the day he graduated from medical school, through his residency. Celebrating every milestone in between and after.

Though now, I wasn’t sure he even wanted me around anymore.

Living in LA, he perfected the already perfect in Hollywood and those in the eye of the media. Not for the first time I wondered if he was tired of my imperfections. Not that he’d ever uttered a word to me. Not directly at least. He only did it with snide remarks or what he thought were jokes.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked, snapping me out of my thoughts. His green eyes were on me, a look on his face I wasn’t familiar with. When had that happened? How could I not know what a look on Owen’s face meant? I used to know all his expressions and moods. Is there someone else out there who knows them better than me? Could there be someone else?

“What?” I pretended not to hear his question, swallowing the ugliness that kept rising from my gut and felt somehow attached to my heart. Something that left me feeling like I was choking and drowning all at once.

“What were you thinking about right now, Nadia?” he asked, tilting his head. I shook mine, giving him a fake smile I knew didn’t reach my eyes and sure as hell wasn’t real.

“What do you mean?”

“You looked like something was wrong,” he pointed out, and I wanted to roll my eyes.

“I’m surprised you noticed,” I let slip, and he frowned.

Shutting my eyes, I shook my head. It was late. We both had long days and it wasn’t the time. It’s never the right time for us to talk. Opening them, I looked at him and gave him a weak smile. “Nothing, Owen. I was just thinking about tomorrow.”

“Everything okay?” When he kept studying me, I wanted to yell that everything was not okay. I wanted to throw my arms in the air while I told him every little thing he had done in the past how many years that bothered me. I wanted to pick something up from my dresser and throw it at him. I wanted to see that he still gave a shit about me. About us. Instead, I shook my head and broke the tense silence between us.

“They changed Vivi’s practice, so now it falls on Becca’s. I can get Viv there a couple minutes early and she’ll be okay. I’m just thinking about how to manage pickups, since they get out at the same time,” I shared, which for some reason left me feeling like I was suddenly under a microscope. Like he was judging me.

His green eyes stood out against his ruggedly handsome face, and I couldn’t read him. It made me sad. There was a time when I only had to look at him and knew exactly what he was thinking. When was the last time I’d been able to see that? Know what he was thinking just by looking at him? It had been so long I couldn’t remember what it felt like.

When did we turn into what we are?

“What about calling your sister?” he suggested, and I needed to look away.

“I…” I didn’t want to ask anyone for help. I wanted him to say he could do it. They were his daughters. We were his family. But he was too fucking busy and what he did was so goddamn important. But I couldn’t get myself to say that. “I thought about it, but I remembered they left to the beach for the long weekend with the kids.”

“Must be nice,” he mumbled under his breath. My eyes twitched.

My jaw clenched as I ground my teeth grind together in hopes not to say anything ugly. My sister and her husband made it a point to spend time with their kids. She was always on me about how Owen needed to spend more time with them. Time flies and before you know it, the kids are gone, flying from the nest. Her words were so clear in my mind, and just like that, I got it. The ugliness I had been choking on suddenly started to melt away and my jaw relaxed. It disappeared into the sunset, leaving something else behind in its wake. Something different. Something that made it easier to breathe.

“I was actually thinking I might do that as well,” I lied. I hadn’t been thinking about getting away, but the idea quickly percolated in my head. I could get away. Take the girls and give myself some time to think. The timing was perfect.

“Hmmm,” he grunted, never looking up to see me, his attention completely back on his fucking work.

“We could go to Santa Barbara next week. The girls start summer vacation,” I suggested knowing for the first time when I said ‘we,’ I didn’t mean with him.

“I don’t know if I can get time off,” he told his iPad. I shouldn’t have been surprised. Not really. Something cracked inside, breaking away from me, and I couldn’t get myself to care enough to stop it.

As I stared at him, everything inside of me froze.

The one and only man I’d ever loved, given myself to, was sprawled out in our bed. Freshly showered, acting like I was painted on the walls. He hadn’t bothered asking how my day was. Or how he could help. Nothing about me or my day.

Nothing.

Instead, he had gone straight to the bedroom after cancelling our date and snapping at me. He had showered and went to bed. I knew there was no way he had missed listening to me washing dishes and locking up downstairs, yet he hadn’t uttered a word about how he could help. Not even an offer to keep me company.

And this was far from the first time he had done this.

Blinking, watching him, I felt lighter. I knew exactly what I needed.

“I know. It would just be the girls and me,” I continued, not knowing where this plan was coming from. It wasn’t like I had been planning it. It just bubbled up. But the more I thought about it, the more I liked it.

Really liked it.

“You could come get them for the weekend,” I suggested, hoping he would pick up on the subtle hint of what was happening before giving him my back.

While I grabbed my pajamas out of the dresser, the idea of going away right now made more and more sense. Whatever thin thread I had been holding on to with both hands had obviously snapped. And instead of letting it unravel me, I felt free. Things were always better with a plan. Taking the girls away to the beach for the summer sounded perfect.

“What do you mean, get them for the weekend?” he asked, but I didn’t look at him.

“I would stay,” I informed him, flying by the seat of my pants. When was the last time I had done something crazy and just for myself? The idea of an adventure on the horizon and all the things I could do with the girls made my heart skip a beat. It was exactly what I needed. Santa Barbara would be the perfect opportunity and place.

“Like a girls’ weekend? Is Simone going, too?” My best friend, Simone, would love it, but she and her husband and kids were leaving for France for a work thing they had turned into a family trip.

“No. Simone’s going to Europe, remember?” I doubted he did. The idea of him remembering anything I said almost made me want to laugh.

Maybe I was having a nervous breakdown. Would I know if I was?

“Right… So you’d what? Stay by yourself?”

“Yeah, why not?” I glanced over my shoulder.

“And you would come back?”

“I was thinking you could bring them back up. They have a month off from gymnastics and ballet.” Talk about perfect timing. Why hadn’t I thought about this before? The idea left me happy, almost giddy with joy.

“Babe, I don’t think you remember, but the house is a mess.” He had a point.

It was a mess. We bought it when the real estate market had crashed with daydreams of fixing it up together. Like a team. We hadn’t, though; we hardly went to see it. And when was the last time we had been a team?

“I can work on it,” I said. “The girls can help.” Excitement fluttered in my belly. Ideas popped into my head, one after another. I heard him grunt and shift in bed, but now it was me who wasn’t looking at him.

I was too deep in my mind, thinking about what DIY projects I could handle myself. Because I was, I missed the concern in his eyes as I walked into the bathroom without a look over my shoulder, smiling like I hadn’t done in a very long time.