Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
S leep was going to be impossible. Lucy knew it. Post-it notes were strewn on the bed around her. Each one with different things she wanted to say to Joel. Tightness pulled at her lower belly. God, she felt sick.
The sexual attraction between her and Joel was a given. They’d started their relationship on a night of Vegas fueled sexcapades, and that tension had never ended for her. Joel was the only one she fantasized about. There’d never been anyone else. She’d stayed faithful to him like she’d never taken his ring off her finger.
But it was their connection underneath the chemistry that had returned over the last two weeks, like air blown on the embers of a dying fire. The time between them in a new city, under different circumstances, had coaxed old feelings back into life.
And if they had any chance at all, he was right, they had to talk.
She pulled one of the notes off her comforter, staring at the word until her vision blurred. I miss Luca.
The baby. A little boy. When Joel finally arrived at the hospital, after she’d lost their son, she insisted they name him before she was discharged. She couldn’t stomach the thought of leaving without doing so, as if naming him would secure his place in the universe, a tangible someone to remember and talk about. So they did. Luca . But it turned out they didn’t talk about him. She could never speak his name without feeling like she was dying inside.
She’d carried him for sixteen weeks. The same amount of time they’d been happily married. The most perfect sixteen weeks of her entire existence. When she lost him, the despair had consumed her, and she pushed everything away, including and especially Joel. At the time, it had seemed easier to go back to how life was before. Before Vegas, before their wedding, before her pregnancy and their perfect dream world in the penthouse on the hill. The secret they’d kept made it easier to slip back into her old routine, so she had. As though none of it had existed. As if the sixteen weeks had all been a hallucination.
Except it hadn’t been. Those weeks of quietly laying the groundwork to build their family had halted when Joel left. It had been ignored and neglected, but it still stood. And maybe now was the time to start building again.
Setting down the note, she got up and wandered her room, wondering if they could rebuild something on top of that abandoned foundation that was stronger than a house of cards this time? What if they could try again, but better, stronger? Fewer secrets, more faith.
She stopped at the bedroom door. Was Joel awake right now? Was his mind racing between the past and present like hers? Or did he already know exactly what he needed to say? Probably. He wasn’t exactly the cue card kind of guy.
With a frustrated sigh, she glared at the post-its stuck to her bed. Who was she even kidding? There was no way to prepare for something like this. She was putting it off. Again.
No wonder he was growing impatient with her. Well, sue her for trying to protect the scar on her heart a little bit longer. She’d been completely shattered when she lost Luca. For months she felt like a porcelain doll that had been glued back together after cracking. Why would she want to go through that again? The fear was paralyzing.
But if not now, when? And at what cost?
She opened her door a crack and didn’t hear anything but it didn’t matter. He was still awake; she could sense it.
Too bad there wasn’t a way to heal without hurting. Too bad that working through pain sometimes hurt more than the initial injury. Taking a bracing breath, she stepped into the hall. She’d never get Luca back, but maybe there was a chance for her and Joel.
Ignoring the ache in her heart she padded down the hallway.
Time to find Joel and insist they talk now. After four long years of inaction, the urgency that propelled her forward was startling. Or maybe it was her heart finally giving her brain a kick in the butt.
She hadn’t realized she was holding her breath until she turned the corner into the dark living room. The couch was empty, and the light was off in the kitchen too. Turning back to the hall, she looked the opposite way from where she’d come. Joel’s door was shut tight. No light glowed from under it.
Disappointment had Lucy’s resolve slipping. She could waltz into his room, curl up next to him in bed and draw some of the comfort she so desperately needed from him. The thought of tucking herself in against his warm solid body, and resting until morning, was deeply enticing. They could talk in the morning, and until then, she could quiet her mind in the security of his proximity.
But two steps toward his door, she stopped. They might still be married, but they hadn’t lived a married life in years. Slipping in between his sheets wasn’t a privilege that was hers anymore.
On that very demoralizing thought, Lucy escaped back to her own bedroom, and flopped face down on her bed, crushing the sticky notes. She groaned into the mattress; the noise vibrating through her body. When she vibrated again, without her groan, she realized her phone was trapped under her stomach. Digging it out, her heart stopped dead in her chest when she saw a message from Joel.
Why are you wandering around the house in the middle of the night?
“Ohmigod, omigod, omigod!” she whisper-squealed as she pressed the back of her phone to her mouth. Her heart thundered so violently behind her rib cage it rattled her eardrums. Her anxiety made her text back.
Wasn’t me. Maybe an intruder?
Reply bubbles popped up immediately.
An intruder lurking outside my bedroom door?
Oh Lord. He’d heard her! So much for a dainty footfall.
How did you know it was me?
I could smell you through the door. Like cinnamon and vanilla .
And just like that, certain parts of her melted like honey as well.
Did you need something from me, Lucy?
She stared at the words. The simple message—that could have been interpreted so many ways—did nothing to slow her heartbeat.
What was she doing? What was she doing? And where the fuck was the staunch resolve she’d had moments ago when she was wandering the apartment looking for him? Fuckity, fuck, fuck.
Her fingers hovered over the screen. Brief. Hesitant. She took the leap.
I wanted to talk.
Her heart thudded when she didn’t immediately see text bubbles emerge. Don’t follow up with a panic text. Don’t follow up with a panic text.
Her damn fingers moved on their own accord.
And I was looking for a midnight snack.
When in doubt, behave like a teenager. She threw her phone onto the mattress and buried her head in the comforter. Immaturity was such a simple thing. When her phone buzzed a moment later, she faltered picking it up. What game was she playing? Did she want this or not? With her fear hammering in her pulse, she flipped her phone over again.
Why didn’t you just come in ?
Ha, well, that was easy.
Same reason you’re texting me instead of coming down the hall and asking me yourself.
Writing bubbles appeared immediately this time, then disappeared, re-appeared, and vanished. For a full minute, silence reigned. She almost thought the conversation was done, and then a soft knock rapped her door.
She flew out of bed like she’d just found a spider on her sheets, or knew one of the most important moments of her life was waiting for her on the other side of the door. She reached for the doorknob.
“Don’t open the door,” he said in a firm tone.
Her hand froze. “Why? Are you not wearing your makeup?” Shit, she was nervous joking. This was not the time, and yet, this heaviness between them called for something to lighten it. “I think it’s okay with me, Joel. I’ve seen it all before.”
His muffled chuckle reverberated through the barrier, then silence. After a few seconds, she tentatively twisted the doorknob. And the pulse that had been hammering in her throat spread everywhere. Her entire body, mind, and soul ached to be closer to him. She wanted the door open.
“Lucy.” He sounded pained. His hand slapped the door, as if he could keep it closed if she decided to pull it open. “I’m trying to do the right thing here.”
She imagined him standing on the other side, palms against the door, forehead against the hardwood, and her heart cracked under the sweetness of his admission. Yes, she wanted sex. Of course she did. Their desire was a Mack truck, impossible to ignore as it constantly barreled toward them. But more than anything, she wanted to talk. Was he afraid that they couldn’t talk face to face without the Mack truck plowing them over?
“I fucked up so badly with us before. I was gone when you needed me most, then left when we were at our lowest. I’ve spent every day since regretting it. I need to do things right by you this time.”
With so much to unpack in his monologue she didn’t know where to start, so she simply replied, “There was no way you could have known what would happen.” Nobody could.
“That girl who called that day that I left was…”
Lucy’s mind reeled back four years. They’d been sitting on the couch watching a movie, her feet on his lap as he pressed his thumb into her arch. His phone rang, and he answered before it could ring a second time. Then he’d jumped up and raced into the bedroom.
She’d assumed it was business, but when he came out, he told her he had to go immediately. That his sister was in trouble and needed him. It never occurred to her to stop him, or to go with him, or to consider what might happen while they were parted.
“That was Ivy.”
“What?” Her hand dropped from the doorknob as his words sank through her memory.
“The girl who called me that day to tell me Hope was in trouble was Ivy.”
“Okay, that makes sense. They were college roommates.”
Where was he going with this? She knew very little of what happened when he’d flown to Hope’s college. By the time he’d returned to San Francisco, the loss of the baby overshadowed everything. They’d barely spoken about his time away or why he’d been gone. It hadn’t mattered. Nothing had mattered .
“We never talked about why I left. And I know, it didn’t seem important after what happened while I was gone, but it has haunted me day and night. You alone and that shit happening to you all the while wondering why I didn’t drop everything to come back immediately.”
It was true. That night, after he’d left, she’d started spotting. She’d called him and left messages, and he hadn’t replied at first. Then, when he did, all he’d said was that he’d get home as soon as he could.
He’d arrived at the hospital before noon the next day, but it had already been too late.
“I couldn’t drop everything and leave. I wanted to, believe me I wanted to get to you more than anything. But things at USC were a mess. Hope was a mess. Ivy was… I never said anything because it wasn’t mine to tell. But today I asked her if I could share with you because it’s important to me that you know the truth about what was going on and why I didn’t come home in time. And she said okay, so—” For a long beat, the silence was thick between the wall that separated them. “Ivy was raped at a college party by one of Hope’s business-school peers, though a couple of them were in on it. Hope”—his voice hardened, syllables clipped— “interrupted things in process.”
Her stomach clenched imagining the scenario. “Oh my God.”
On the other side of the door, Joel cleared his throat. “Ivy didn’t want to tell anyone. She was adamant about that. So Hope kept her secret. But then, not long after, those assholes were caught cheating on exams, and they accused Hope of providing them with the cheating material. They held Ivy over her head. It was a fucking disaster, and Hope didn’t call me because she didn’t want to betray Ivy. Ultimately, Ivy called me, told me the bare minimum of details, and asked me to come help Hope.”
As he spoke, Lucy struggled to piece together the web of horror he’d been dragged into while simultaneously knowing his wife was at home, very likely having a miscarriage.
“Joel, I had no idea.” She wanted to open the door so badly, wanted to tug him to her and make the pain in his voice disappear, but the door was his boundary, and she needed to respect it.
“I got your first call while I was in a meeting with the college officials. Then you texted immediately after and all I could do was sit there and read it while these assholes in sweater vests told me my sister was going to be expelled.” A soft thud bumped the door, as if he’d knocked his head against it.
She pressed her forehead to her side of the wood, imagining they were touching.
“I knew the worst was happening to you, to us, and I couldn’t walk out of the room and go home like I wanted to. I’ve never felt so helpless in my life.” His voice broke.
The sound unleashed the tears that had been building behind her eyes.
“Hope was being quiet. She wouldn’t tell me anything. I didn’t understand why she wasn’t defending herself. I was going crazy trying to help her and knowing you needed me at home. Then Ivy told me what happened to her, begged me not to say anything. She wanted me to help Hope and keep her out of it. It was such a fucking mess, and all I wanted to do was get to you.”
“You did get to me. You were home the next day.”
“It was too late!” Another thud on the hardwood rattled against her forehead. “I worked through the night to get my sister cleared of the false charges and make sure those motherfuckers never hurt another woman again, and I still got home too late.”
She pressed her hand to the door, hoping his was meeting hers on the other side. That he could feel her the way she felt him. “Joel, even if you’d been there—there was nothing—” She choked on the lump in her throat. “There was nothing anyone could do to stop it.”
“Lucy,” his voice was nothing but a rasp against air. “You had to drive yourself to the fucking hospital. You told me you had to sit in a fucking garbage bag while you did it. You had no one to call. And I wasn’t there.” Thump. Thump. “I wasn’t there.”
No amount of muscle mass could have kept her upright in that moment. She slid down the wall beside the door and hugged her knees to her chest. Thick tears streamed down her cheeks as she remembered that night. How terrified and alone she’d been.
“They’d kept you overnight because you’d lost so much blood, and you were sleeping when I arrived. You woke up when I touched your hand, but you wouldn’t look at me. Then, when it was time to leave, you told me to take you to your apartment. Yours not ours. And I knew. I knew it was over. That I’d lost you.” His voice was farther down the door, and she was sure he’d slid down as well. “I thought of all the ways I wanted to fight for you. But the harder I tried, the more distant you got. And eventually I knew the only way for you to be okay was for me to leave.”
“So you did,” she whispered against her knees.
“So I did.” And that had been the end.
She tried her best to get on with life, to work, to be normal, like nothing happened, because no one had known it had .
She’d taken some sick days, but evading her mother while she was “sick” had proven harder than hiding her entire marriage. Lucy had embraced the fake it till you make it mentality with a whole new state of mind: survival.
The only thing that threatened her emotional fragility had been Joel. She’d moved back to her apartment, but he’d continued checking in, making sure she ate, wanting to talk, sitting with her in silence, asking if she would rather talk to someone else. She didn’t.
All she wanted was to pretend none of it had happened.
“I kept waiting for divorce papers to arrive,” he said. “Thought about sending them to you myself, if only to end the misery I seemed to cause you. Four years of that limbo, you were the only unfinished business I’ve ever had. But then I saw you at that wedding, and even though I know our engagement is fake, and it’s supposed to be your chance to finally achieve your dreams for your father’s company—nothing feels fake to me anymore.”
The great, self-assured Joel Morgan had never sounded more unsure. His voice was a mixture of hesitant apprehension and desperation, so unlike she’d ever heard him. He was The Fixer, the dragon slayer, the one everyone depended on, but now he sounded so helpless, and Lucy knew the ball had landed in her court.
God, this man. Only he had the power to undo her so completely that she was ready to claw out her heart and slide it under the door to give it to him.
No way could she have this conversation and not touch him, not look at him. “Joel, let me open the door.”
Before she could scramble to her feet, the door clicked open. Joel’s hand appeared around the doorframe, and Lucy realized they had been sitting back-to-back, the wall between them, this whole time .
She stared at his hand, palm down on the floor, sliding back toward her. Instinctively, she placed her hand over his. The warmth of his skin traveling up her arm went straight to her chest.
The words I love you tumbled around inside her, chomping at the bit to break free. But she held them back. Hadn’t he been explaining where they had gone wrong? They needed more than emotionally charged declarations of love and wild sex. They needed to rebuild from the ground up.
“I’m sorry I left,” he said, his voice a gravelly rumble that cut her heart in two.
The knot in her throat was painful, almost choking the words she needed to get out. “I was angry at you for years.” Anger was a strong word, but that’s what she’d been full of. She’d been nothing but a vessel of loathing and blame with nowhere to place it but at Joel. “You weren’t there, and I hated you for it. And I know—” She stared at their entwined hands and turned hers over in his, locking her fingers around his, holding on. “Now I know,” she corrected, “why. I wish I’d known sooner, but I understand why you couldn’t say anything.”
She hadn’t truly realized how much resentment she still carried with her until she’d seen him at the wedding. Turned out avoidance and separation hadn’t corrected anything, it had only masked it. Time had been nothing but a Band-Aid.
“I don’t hate you, Joel.” She needed to say it out loud, to put it out in the universe as a starting point. “I never did. I hated losing him. I hated how empty I felt afterward, how raw. Like something had been torn from my body against my will. Not something. My son. Our son. And I hated it.” A sob ripped out of her as her mind raced back in time. A familiar agony filled her heart, her eyes. For a few moments, all she could do was cry.
On the other side of the wall, Joel stayed silent, but his palm was warm in hers. Here. With her.
“And the first thing I saw when I woke up was you.” She remembered the touch of his hand, opening bleary eyes, facing reality. “I couldn’t imagine going back to how we were, playing house, being happy. Would we try to make another baby? Could we? Did I want to? What if I miscarried again? I didn’t want to replace him. I wanted him .” She scrubbed her cheeks with her free hand. “Every thought I had about the future, even the next hour, was terrifying. So I turned it on you, because it was easier to be angry with you than to think about anything else.”
“You had every right to be angry,” he countered, his voice gritty. “You needed me, my son needed me, and I wasn’t there.”
Lucy squeezed his hand. They still couldn’t see each other, but somehow this connection was so much stronger, like how sensations were heightened when you put on a blindfold. There was a safety net in the blindness to express themselves freely. If she looked at him right now, if she saw the pain she heard in his voice, it would break her wide open. “You needed me as well, but I wasn’t there for you. I’m sorry I didn’t see it in time.”
Silence stretched between them. Would they spend the rest of the night sitting there like this? With the wall and the ghost of their son between them.
“I miss him,” Joel said, the last word lost in a crack of emotion.
“I know.” Her words were choked.
He squeezed her hand.
She hadn’t talked about him in years. No one had known about Luca, there’d been no one to talk about him to. “I miss him too. I think about what he’d look like, sound like.”
“You. I always imagined he’d be all you.” Joel’s gruff tone scraped the edges of her heart, making the ache deeper. “If I ever have another, I want it to be with you.”
Maybe he hadn’t meant to say that out loud because she heard his immediate sharp intake of breath, like he was shocked by his own declaration. Could he hear her heartbeat vibrating through the wall? Then his thumb stroked her skin, and she turned her head to stare at their joined hands, letting the tears slide down her face. A baseball sized knot clogged her throat so she couldn’t talk, but she nodded, hoping he’d feel the motion in her hand.
The thought of having another child was terrifying. The fear that a miscarriage would happen again was immobilizing. But more surprising was the anxiety of having a successful pregnancy. Guilt clawed her chest every time she imagined having another baby, like that would dishonor the one she’d lost. She couldn’t stomach the idea of a little soul out there, feeling like he’d been replaced. Forgotten. Like she’d simply moved on. Even the thought made her ill. And yet…the hope, the longing to one day take that leap again… If she ever did, it would only be with him.
Part of her wanted that so badly. What would it take for them to get past this? They had marriage vows and a child between them. Both had died, but maybe there was the possibility of bringing one back to life.
“So, where do we go from here?” She asked.
Joel’s thumb found the rock on her finger. He outlined it, moved it back and forth while she waited for him to say something. To guide them into the next phase. A long silence passed .
“I should go back to my room and let you get some sleep.” He made no move to get up or release her hand.
“Or you could stay,” she offered, because the last thing she wanted was to be left alone again. The yearning to be with him, close to him, was all-consuming.
Joel laughed softly, without humor. “Lucy, you know what I’ll do to you if I stay in your bed tonight. And I just finished telling you why I want us to go slow this time. No more rookie mistakes.”
This time …as if another chance waited for them on the other end of the mess they’d created. In her brain she knew he might be right, but in her vital feminine organs the need had built to a fever pitch, and she couldn’t bring herself to let him walk away from her tonight. Her emotions were too raw, her desire too greedy. “What would you do if you stayed in my room tonight?”
“Luciana,” he groaned.
“Tell me,” she whispered. She wasn’t backing down. If he left her alone right now, empty and aching, it would hurt so much more than she was ready to admit.
“I’d do whatever you wanted me to do. Whatever you asked me to do.”
Closing her eyes, she imagined what she’d want him to do first.
“Like kiss me?”
“Yes,” came his strangled reply.
“Where?”
“Anywhere. Everywhere.”
Her eyes drifted closed, the weight of the previous topic draining out of her, and she pictured where she’d want him to kiss her first. The image of his head bending to her aching nipples conjuring first.
“I remember how you taste in my mouth. Smooth and sweet. When I’m alone in my bed, I remember those nights that you let me have every part of your body. I remember the taste and the smell, how your skin felt under my hands and tongue. Those memories have kept me alive for four years, Lucy.”
Her lips parted as a new image formed, him in his bed, alone, thinking of her. She dragged in a desperate breath of air. “Tell me how you remember it,” she pleaded.
His low groan rumbled through the open door. “I remember how you liked it when I sucked on your breast a little too hard until it hurt just enough that you’d almost need me to stop. Then I’d blow on them to soothe the ache, and watch them get stiff in front of my eyes. I jacked off to that memory a thousand times.”
Her heart slammed in her chest as he recalled his intimate details and revealed his dirty little secret to her. Her nipples responded under her robe as the memory unfolded in her own mind. “They’re stiff right now.”
“ Fuck .” He huffed out another humorless laugh. “I’m trying to be chivalrous here.”
Didn’t sound like it to her, but she wasn’t complaining.
“Joel, you have no idea how my body feels right now, with you on the other side of the wall within touching distance. Everything we just talked about. Everything you just said. I ache .” A soft moan finished her sentence.
He cursed again. His hand twitched in hers. “Where does it ache? Where would you want me to touch you if I was right in front of you?”
“Everywhere.”
“Be specific.” His tone had taken on that dominance she craved so much in her loneliest hours.
This was the voice she heard in her head when she touched herself, thinking of him .
“Bet-tween my legs.” She barely got the words out, her hand already drifting down her stomach. “I want you to touch me between my legs.”
“I know how you like it too, rough little strokes of my thumb, while my tongue plays with your pretty nipples. But my hand wouldn’t be enough would it, Lucy?” His voice was nothing more than a rasp of grit against the quiet air around them.
Lucy breathed out a quiet “no” before she could even think through what was happening. If there was a problem with them going from heartfelt confessions to erotic sex talk, she couldn’t drum up any remorse.
“You’d want my mouth too; you’d need it so badly you’d beg for it. Do you remember how you used to beg me for it?”
Lucy moaned into the silence of her room.
“I’d lick my way down your chest first, savoring the taste. You taste so fucking good. And it’s been a long time since I’ve tasted you. So, I’d take my time, making sure to stop at your hips and belly button to dip my tongue into the hollow. I’d use one finger to test how wet you were, check in and ask if you really wanted me to keep going.”
“I would, I do.” Her fingers brushed her core. “God, I’m so wet, Joel.” Her head thunked back against the wall, her eyes closing as she imagined his head moving lower between her legs. In reality, her hand clenched spasmodically against his.
“You know how I like to draw it out though, how I’d make it last. I’d sink my fingers in slowly and start with a stroke, they’d dip and press just how you like it. My fingers a little rough and deep. I remember—” His breathing turned ragged, cutting his words. “How you’d scream for me when I dipped two in and twist them up toward your belly.”
Her fingers mimicked his words, like he was giving her instructions, and she moaned as she let her legs fall open. Her robe slipped off her shoulder and the cool air rushed over her skin.
“Fuck, are you doing it, Lucy? Are you touching yourself the way I touch you?”
“Yes!” she sobbed. “I want your mouth on me, Joel. I need more.” Through the roaring of her blood rushing in her ears, she heard him curse loudly, then the scratching sound of a zipper being pulled down roughly.
His hand slammed down over hers, pressing it to the floor with weight. Was he undressing? She had no idea. The blindness drove her wild with lust.
“My mouth is right there, sweetheart. I’ve been starving for you.” His voice was hoarse, desperate.
And then, Lucy stopped thinking because her thumb found her clit. She cried out loudly, the promise of relief so sharp and palpable it scorched her.
“Oh God, oh Joel!” she whined. “I’d need to feel you. Please, please.”
“I’m with you, baby. I’m right fucking here with you. Like every other time.”
And with those words she did fall, her hand twisting to find his, gripping so tightly she was sure it had to hurt, but it matched the intensity of the exquisite relief that consumed her. White hot flashes shot behind her closed eyes like fireworks, pleasure exploding through her body, making her shake against her hand and the wall.
Joel’s own gruff grunts of relief filled the air, and she knew he’d come with her. The idea of him spilling himself into his hand or onto his abdomen only prolonging her release.
Eventually her breathing returned to baseline, even if her heart continued to thunder. Her hand went slack against his as she released her death grip.
“Jesus Christ.” Joel’s voice sounded like he’d been a smoker since the day he was born. “Lucy, I—that’s not?—”
“Shh, don’t ruin it,” she murmured, knowing the wheels of honor and integrity were cranking back into motion in his mind. “That was good. Therapeutic. Satisfying.” She patted his hand placatingly, letting him know there was no reason to think too hard. “We shared feelings and an orgasm. That’s good progress. Don’t ruin it for me by thinking too loud.” She gently pushed his hand to his side of the doorway. “Good night, I’ll see you in the morning.”
He mumbled something incoherent in return, before she shut the door between them.