CHAPTER 44

CHAPTER 44

CAT

We were in the kitchen, surrounded by a quartet of staff who had rallied, making the twenty-minute drive at three thirty in the morning without complaint. There were a few wrinkled uniforms, and our chef had yawned twice during the last ten minutes, but we already had french toast sizzling in skillets, our guesthouse fridge stocked, the beds turned down, and fresh flowers being clipped for arrangement. I inhaled the scents of coffee, butter, and roses and had a moment of nostalgia for my own early mornings back in high school. I’d leave the house by five thirty, two hours clocked feeding horses and mucking stalls before school each day. My father would always shuffle into the kitchen before I left, a few minutes stolen over coffee and buttered toast, his proud smile boosting my spirits on the way out the door.

I’d come a long way from that scratched kitchen table and slightly burned toast. I met William’s eyes from across the room, and he smiled, setting down his fork and moving over to me.

Pulling me into his arms, he pressed a kiss on the top of my head. “I love you.”

I returned the sentiment, my hands stealing around his waist.

“This is so crazy,” he said quietly. “What if this guy had come to our house instead of theirs?”

“Then our security system would have gone nuts, and we would have been in the panic room and on the phone with the cops before he even got in the front door.” I rose on my toes and kissed him. “Assuming I could keep you from storming downstairs and trying to tackle him.”

“I am an excellent tackler,” he admitted. “And it’s been a long time since I got to use anything other than my sharp tongue in a confrontation.”

“Well, it’s a very talented tongue,” I teased, grinning up at him. “I can personally attest to that.”

A throat cleared, and we both turned to see Matt standing at the open side door, his arms limp at his sides. William frowned and stepped toward him. “Are you okay?”

“Is there anything going on with you and my wife?”

My gaze snapped to William, who stayed silent. “William?” I prompted, dread coating my heart at the anticipation of what he would say.

“There are no feelings between Neena and me,” he said finally.

“No feelings?” Anger whipped, sudden and fierce, as my insecurities and emotions were validated in that simple yet horribly evasive response. I came around the counter and stood beside Matt. “What does that mean?”

“Have you ever touched my wife?” Matt asked, each word pushed out as if he were having trouble breathing.

“Yes.” William’s response ripped my attention from Matt’s health and to my husband. “Once. It meant nothing.”

It meant nothing.I choked on the words, vaguely aware that we had an audience, the kitchen staff falling quiet as my husband pissed all over our marriage. He had risked our marriage over something that meant nothing? What did that say about us? Our life? Its worth to him? I gripped the edge of the counter to keep myself from sinking to the floor, my response silenced by Matt’s next words.

“You might want to tell my wife that.” Matt’s upper lip curled in a sneer, the expression foreign on his consistently cheerful face. “It may mean nothing to you, but from what I just saw in my bedroom, it means a lot to her.”

“I can’t believe he didn’t tell us what was in their bedroom.” William stood at the bank of side windows in our dining hall, his hands on his hips, and watched as Matt’s car moved around a forensic van and down their drive.

I stood at the entrance to the room and waited for William to turn, waited for some acknowledgment of what he had done to our lives. He stayed at the window until after the car disappeared, his profile stubbornly turned away, his face hidden.

I used to think of him as a god. When had he fallen? When had he changed, so definitively, from the man I had married? Was he really this weak and helpless against basic human desires? It meant nothing.

“That was not how I expected you to find out. If you ever found out.” He turned his head to the side, his profile visible but his eyes still elusive. “I’m sorry you had to hear it like this.”

“So, you . . . what? You had sex with her?” I knew. I knew before he even opened his mouth. I could taste it in the air. Could taste her in the air, feel her presence as if it were clogging the air ducts. “Tell me you didn’t.”

“Cat.” My name was a broken syllable on his lips, and when he turned to face me, his face was a mess of emotion.

“Please,” I begged.

“I’m sorry.”

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe—

“It just happened. She—”

I picked up the closest item, a glass bowl we’d picked up in South Africa, and threw it across the table, the delicate piece shattering across the polished surface. It felt good, the ability to destroy something. “She what?”

“She’s been relentless. I tried to hold her off, but I—”

“I told you,” I hissed, pointing at him, my voice rising. “I told you that she was obsessed with us. I told you she was getting too close. And you told me to trust you. You acted as if I was crazy. You let her do this to us.”

“I fucked up,” he said quietly, trying to reach for me. “I have no excuse. I—”

I shoved at his chest. “She tried to have Matt killed. You realize that, don’t you? And she poisoned me at their house. I could have died. Did you know what a lunatic she was?”

He sank into the window seat and cupped his head. “I didn’t know anything, Cat. I was being selfish, and insecure, and stupid.”

“And risking us in the process,” I said quietly. I hesitated. “Tell me you used protection.”

He didn’t answer, and his silence confirmed what I already knew. He had been bare inside her. What if she was pregnant with his child? Had he thought of me once during the act?

I thought of the way he’d walked back in the door after work each day and kissed me on the lips, as if everything were normal. “Do you love her?” This question was softer, and it was the one I was most terrified to voice.

“No.” He stood up and moved toward me, his face breaking. “I don’t . . . I don’t even know what the hell I’m doing—was doing—with her.” He grabbed my wrist, and I stepped back.

“I can’t—” I inhaled sharply. “I can’t do any better than us, William. We’re happy. We’ve been strong. If you can’t be faithful to me now, what will happen in our hard times?” I felt the tears in the moment before they came and rushed to finish before I broke into sobs. “You were my everything.”

“Cat,” he said softly, his voice breaking in a way I’d never heard from him. Not when his father had died, not once in our fourteen years together. “Cat, please. This was a stupid thing.” He gripped my arms, pulling me against him, my struggles failing as he forced me to look into his face. “I need you to forgive me. I can’t live without you. Please.” It was a gruff, fierce plea, his voice shaking with the intensity of it. He dropped to his knees, clawing me closer. “Please don’t leave me.” It was as much an order as a beg.

I didn’t move. I didn’t respond. I watched him, and when he looked up at me, I studied the depths of his eyes, the love and heartbreak in them.

Of course I wouldn’t leave him. That was why, after all, I had done all this.