Chapter 30
[Cadence]
Today was one of those days where everything had fallen into place and life felt wonderful.
I’d spent the morning playing hide-n-seek with the girls.
Then Zelle went to a new friend’s house.
Winnie was at afternoon camp, and June was taking a nap.
Ford had physical therapy this morning and he planned to go to Stone’s house afterward.
And I was still riding the high of our date the other night.
I was looking forward to a few hours alone to write some lyrics. Ford was my new muse.
Typically, my bedroom door is closed because my favorite Gibson is inside, and I don’t want June accidentally playing with the classic guitar I wrote most of my songs with.
Exiting the bathroom, I notice my bedroom door is open, though, and inside is Ford wearing a T-shirt with the sides missing, the back discolored with sweat.
With his back to me, he’s staring down at my phone set on the nightstand beside my bed. The one he hasn’t been in yet as I’m always sneaking into his room. Beside my phone is the small rubber duck he gave me months ago to watch over me. That duck has been damn lucky for me.
However, the hunch of Ford’s shoulders and his concentration on my phone suggests he isn’t interested in the romantic gesture he gave me.
“What are you doing?” I try to keep my voice on an even keel, but the tone is still hard. I don’t want to accuse him of invading my privacy, but he’s invading my privacy when all he had to do was ask me any question and I’d answer.
Ford picks up the device which has a passcode on it, however, a simple swipe upward reveals the most current message notifications.
“Who is Evan?” His voice is level but accusation rides beneath the surface. Ford slowly turns, holding up the phone and turning it so the screen faces me. “And who is this fucker that wants to know if you’re sleeping alone?”
Ford’s voice is stone cold. His judgement first; questions second set me on edge.
“You shouldn’t be in my room.” He’d been very insistent that I could have my own space in this home. A Sylver-free zone.
“It’s my house.”
The statement is a trigger.
It’s my house and if you aren’t going to follow my rules then you can leave.
I was seventeen years old. Enya was away at college. Our older brother was God knows where.
I’d countered that threat with my own. Fine, then I’ll leave.
Don’t think you can come back.
My parents never had to worry. I wouldn’t. I hadn’t. I’d owned many places on my own, but nowhere has felt like a home the way this house has for a few blissful weeks.
What was I really doing here, though? Ford was on the mend. His girls were doing great. Violet, his niece, was helping more often than I was. I didn’t have a purpose here, and my production team was waiting.
Stepping forward, I reach for the device, but Ford lifts his arm higher, having the unfair advantage of being taller than me. I might climb him like a tree if I didn’t feel the anger vibrating off his body, ruffling his limbs.
“Fine. I’ll leave.” Turning toward the closet, I take a step intending to grab my suitcases, but Ford catches my arm.
“Talk to me.”
“Oh, now you want to talk?” I counter.
Ford collapses on the edge of the bed, not releasing my arm while lowering my phone to his lap. “Cadence,” he groans. “Evan. Explain.”
With a heavy sigh, and an equally weighted heart, I drop my chin and stare at Ford’s bare feet. “He was a mistake. A huge one. One I made long before I met you.”
Silence slowly swirls between us as his thumb rubs my inner forearm and my heart thunders. “He was someone I used to know.” Sheepishly, I lift my head. “Someone I thought I loved.”
Ford’s face remains stoic. His jaw ticks. His cheeks hollow out sharp and fast, but he stays focused on me.
“It had all been a lie.” I close my eyes, roll my lips inward, knowing what I say next changes everything between us. “He was married.”
Ford drops my arm like I knew he would, pulling his hand away from me like touching my skin has somehow infected him.
“I didn’t know,” I quickly defend, the argument sounding weak even to me. How had I not?
“How?” Ford’s voice is gritty and eerily quiet but still anything but calm.
“We’d been at an industry party. I’d bumped into someone quite literally and his drink spilled on my dress.”
The blame was mine. I’d turned too quickly, caught my heel on the rug, and lurched forward.
Evan was in my path, and I reached for anything to break my fall, his arm being the nearest thing.
The drink in his hand met my dress. He’d apologized when I’d been the one who tripped.
We had an awkward exchange with him trying to dab my dress with a paper napkin.
I suddenly looked like a wet T-shirt contestant in a silk gown.
Giggles happened. Blushes, too. Innocently enough, he’d offered me his jacket, so I didn’t have to exit the place with erect nipples and a giant wet stain.
“I’d apologized for being a klutz. He offered to buy me a new dress, and a drink.” I’d thought he was charming. “It wasn’t until later I learned who he was and how he was married.”
Turned out, Evan Lauer was an English actor invited to be opposite me in a music video. He was tall and handsome, and one thing led to another in the London countryside where we shot the short film.
“He’d been coming out of a London restaurant, her on his arm with a giant ring, and a swollen belly.
” I mimic the bump over my own stomach. “She was pregnant.” She was far enough along for it to be evident it happened while I was with Evan.
We’d been meeting for months as I lingered in the Box Hill area, an easy commute for Evan to visit me.
“I felt sick,” I admit. Bile rushes up my throat once again.
“So he cheated on his wife with you.”
There was no denying the truth. I’d been the other woman and I hated myself. The way Ford clarified my position, it was evident how he felt. In a comparison of failed romances, I was the Romero Valdez in my tale.
“I never asked him to leave her,” I quantified. “He’d told me he would, but I didn’t want that. I didn’t want him.” How had I been so duped as to think he loved me? How could he abandon his pregnant wife? How could I trust a man who had done what he’d done to someone else?
For weeks, I couldn’t get showers hot enough, scalding my skin and scrubbing at my flesh.
I didn’t want a single trace of Evan on me, and after a quick jaunt back to London, abruptly leaving my new-mom sister, I haven’t been back to the UK.
At that time, Evan contacted my manager, demanding to know where I was, threatening to expose me.
Ford stares down at my phone. He’d been cupping the device in his hands while I explained myself. Suddenly, he tosses it to the mattress, like a potato straight from a microwave burning his palm. He rubs his hands down his face and tips back his head, swallowing hard.
“So now what? He’s been calling you? Sending texts? I’m assuming Evan is the anonymous person getting through to your number.” Ford tilts his head forward, eyes narrowing. “But you said only five or so people know this phone number. Block him. Get a restraining order. Change your number.”
“I can’t,” I snap. I have my reasons for not changing the seven digits.
Ford is right, though, in some manner. “I would block the number only Evan keeps changing the phone he’s calling from.
I do have a restraining order, but it’s tricky.
Those orders are public record, and in registering one, I had to explain my side of the story.
Do you know how difficult it is to be the clueless other woman?
No one believes that story. I’m the seductress.
” I jab a finger to my sternum. “I’m the cheater.
I’m that woman who doesn’t care about other women or values vows. I’d steal any man I want.”
There’s no denying I’d wanted Evan. His looks.
His charming personality. His lies. I fell for it all.
He’d known who I was, but it hadn’t mattered.
He was a well-known actor in the UK. I believed we shared the same dreams, to escape the grind of our grueling industries and the harshness of the media’s perception.
We talked about living a quieter existence, simplifying our lives, but there was nothing simple about our positions.
My giant career and his blossoming one. He was finally getting recognition for his talent, and he had blockbuster after blockbuster headlining his name coming out in an eighteen-month period.
But behind the screen, he lived a fairy tale with his wife and their pregnancy.
I’d been a dalliance in the countryside, like some historical romance gone wrong.
“Not to mention, I had to prove Evan was stalking me. And with what? A handful of anonymous phone numbers and a few innocuous texts. Not much could protect me other than Evan coming close to my person.” I wave a hand down my body. “And actually threatening me.”
He’d been close. Too close in Phoenix, but I’d avoided him. He shouldn’t have even been in the United States. He’s a British sensation, but I quickly learned he’d been filming in the US since January.
“Is he a threat? Are my girls in danger?” Ford stiffens on the edge of my bed.
“No.” The answer is instantaneous.
“Are you?”
I shake my head. “Evan is stupid, but he isn’t dumb, and he isn’t a fighter.” He’s a fucking weak man with no morals who cheated on his wife, unfortunately with me. “He’d never fuck up his career by coming after me.”
Still, he’d pulled that stunt in Arizona. He’d sent me flowers. He’d been seen in Nashville, and that’s when I headed here.
“Who else knows about this guy?”
“Enya.” She’d been the first person I told after Evan. When I fell apart and he’d gone ballistic last June trying to find me. “Sebastian. My former manager. My new one, Lana. And Stone.”
“Stone?” Ford snaps.
“He’s the local sheriff. I felt obligated to let him know my situation before staying in town.
” Didn’t want to be the innocent lamb drawing out a big bad wolf, although Evan is the sheep.
I am the alpha. He wasn’t going to get near me, and he needed to get over himself.
His wife had their baby last fall. He should be blissfully happy and move on.
“Who told you?” I’m curious how Ford suddenly knew about Evan other than snooping through my phone.
He turns his head, eyes catching on the rubber duck that I take everywhere with me, and place on my nightstand, so I see it when I fall asleep at night and wake to it watching me in the morning.
Here’s to watching over you. As if a bath toy can do that. As if anyone does.
“Sebastian. He came to warn me.”
“Warn you about what?”
Ford can’t look at me, but I see the uncertainty and distrust in the set of his shoulders. “You.”
His words are like a bat cracking in half after connecting with a hundred-mile per hour pitch.
Shards of pain erupt inside me. Think before you act, I’d told Winnie.
My thoughts were blank. I’d spilled my story, holding nothing back but Ford was like everyone else, making their assumptions, giving into their judgments, and pointing a finger at me.
No tears came to my eyes, only the sting of his rejection and disappointment. I thought Ford would be different, but his unspoken accusation remains. I’m the problem. My new brother-in-law must think the same.
My hands tremble a little with the rush of adrenaline, fight or flight kicking in.
Flight always wins. Because now I felt unwelcome in a place I thought might be a home for me.
How wrong I’d been again. My heart, already fragile, has been splintered in all the places Ford once healed. His silence does the trick.
There wasn’t anything to be done other than pack my bags and leave. Sadly, I couldn’t even go to my sister’s home, because I’d been betrayed by my new brother-in-law.