He almost punched the wall, but pulled back before he did serious damage to his hand and the wall. Chelsea Connor was toxic and there was nothing she wouldn’t do to get even.
Rachel raced into the room, furious at him. “What’s gotten into you? I have small children here.”
David sat on the bed with his head in his hands. He felt his body shake with rage. “Sorry.”
His sister crouched before him and took his hands, forcing him to face her. “What happened? Is Kate okay?”
“I just called to check on her. She won’t talk to me.”
“What happened?” She squeezed his hands, but David just couldn’t tell her.
It was his doing—accepting the bet was a bad move, as was getting involved with someone like Chelsea in the first place. He was getting everything he deserved, but Kate? Kate deserved none of this.
*
Kate couldn’t sleep. The scene with Chelsea from earlier in the day ran through her head over and over like a nightmare on endless loop. But she did feel sorry for Chelsea, which surprised her, since she didn’t think she could feel sorry for anyone but herself.
When she found out she was pregnant, she worried that people would see her as a joke, the predatory woman looking for the younger man. But it wasn’t like that at all. The pregnancy didn’t make her a laughingstock; she’d been that all along.
Sniffling quietly in the dark, while Laura and Julie slept in the rooms adjacent to hers, Kate’s mind wouldn’t shut off. The guest room Julie occupied was going to be the nursery, and that made her think of David. God, she wished he was here. As upset as Kate was, she wanted him there. She wanted him to hold her. Then she wanted to slap him right upside that hard head of his.
A bet. He approached her on a bet, which he won because she slept with him right out of the gate.
“Slut,” she said to herself. “Way to be easy.”
Rising, Kate paced in a circle before taking the flight of stairs to her office. Her stomach churned and she knew there were some antacids in her desk. Sitting down and pulling open the top drawer, she flipped open the top of the Tums bottle and shook two into her hand. That was when she picked up her cell phone.
When the screen lit up, she saw four missed calls and six text messages, all from David. Her stomach objected again, but she went through the texts.
The texts were predictable—the apology, the plea, the attempt to explain. But it was the last one, the one that went past the “please call me”, that made her stop and think.
You can’t do this to us. I’m crazy about you. Don’t let my stupid mistake wreck everything. Please. I’m sorry.
She stared at what he wrote. Thought about it. Let the idea take hold. His words were desperate. The text was angry.
It meant something. He used the word us.
Kate drew in a breath and looked at the message again. Maybe, this was different. Maybe she did matter to him.
Kate thought about it for a minute, thought about the fun they had, how much they cared about each other. She thought about David’s behavior when she was in the hospital, how attentive he was, and how sad. And then there were all the things Laura told her.
It was something so basic and logical Kate wondered why she hadn’t thought about it before. For someone so smart, she’d been pretty dumb. Why was David still around if she was only about a bet?
Something warm wiggled in Kate’s heart, something small that wanted to believe in David and what they had together. Now all she had to do was be brave enough to try.
Chapter 22
‡
It was a beautiful Christmas morning, but Richard came in from the slopes in a foul mood. He’d expected to have some time with his daughter during the holiday, away from his work and away from the pull of her mother, but Marie’s screwup ruined his plans.
His fiancée was becoming more and more of a problem. She was making decisions about Laura’s education, her relationships, and her clothing. That was his job. He was the one who would make the decisions. If he wouldn’t let Laura’s natural mother be involved in her life, why would Marie think she would have any real role in the relationship? She was there for show.
He couldn’t stand the fact that he may have lost his daughter. Without warning, she’d decided to stay with her mother for the holidays. They’d obviously connected when Kate had her miscarriage. If only they’d have gotten out of there five minutes sooner. Kate would have missed them and perhaps would have been alone when she lost her kid, doing him the courtesy of bleeding out. Goddamn bitch. She couldn’t even die for him.
“Richard?” Marie called. “Darling? Are you waiting for me?”
He cringed. She wanted him to do her, again. It was all she thought about, especially now that she found out Kate had gotten pregnant when she hadn’t been able to.
Marie questioned him about Kate’s sterility, and he explained it away with some lie. Marie was so gullible, the lies didn’t even have to make sense and she believed them. She’d believe anything.
Richard never thought through the consequences of letting his marriage to Kate fail. Inititally, it seemed like Marie would be good for his career. She was a fellow academic, ran in literary circles, and was a published novelist. Granted, both women were writers, but that was where the similarity ended. Aside from her success as an author, Kate had an Ivy League education and breeding, which trumped Marie’s bohemian upbringing and academic resumé. He didn’t really notice the effect until the holiday season kicked into gear. Two people he considered friends were having their annual holiday parties, and he wasn’t invited to either. Finally, he understood the problem. Marie become more social with his friends over the summer and had behaved as she always did: she talked about herself. His friends and their wives, who always loved Kate, didn’t like Marie. Or, more sobering, they didn’t like him without Kate.
He sat on the edge of the bed and fell backwards when he heard Marie coming up the stairs. He had to think of a plan to get away from her. The more he thought about it, there was nothing remotely appealing about spending the rest of his life with her.
“Look at you! Waiting for me, my love?”
“Not really. I pulled my back on that last run.”
He looked up at her face and thought he saw a resemblance to a nasty nun he’d had in grade school. Sister Annunciata. That witch should be guarding the gates of hell by now. He took another look at Marie, with her pursed lips and her bony face, and he realized he was the one in hell.
As she crawled on the bed next to him, Richard’s mind flashed back to Kate. His beautiful ex-wife, who was now sleeping with someone else and had Laura at home with her. Richard thought he was so smart, but everything had backfired.
“If your back hurts, I guess I can take care of you this time, just lie still,” Marie said flatly. She started to work off his sweater and undo his pants. Richard draped his arm over his eyes and tried to forget about what he’d done to himself.
*
As Christmases went, it was one of the better ones. Kate had been through hell over the past year, but if she could have one gift, having Laura there with her parents and Trish’s family was worth all the heartache. After a crazy Christmas Eve that almost stranded the southern contingent in Atlanta, they stayed up late singing Christmas carols around the piano and baking cookies.
She and Laura still had a long way to go, and Kate was going suggest seeing a counselor to help them over the rough spots. Richard had done damage to both of them, and they needed to heal—together and separately. She wouldn’t try to take custody completely, he was her father, but she had to let Laura find her way on her own terms.
As Kate set the ham on the table for dinner, she thought this was as near perfect a moment as they come. Yes, things could be better, but they could also be much worse. For the first time since her husband left, Kate felt like she’d be okay. Her sister and her husband were there with their children. Her parents, still in love after fifty years of marriage, held hands, and Laura hovered protectively, making sure she didn’t do too much.