7. Chapter Seven #2
“I know. I mean, I know now.” He dragged a hand over his face. “Angela kissed me. I didn’t expect it. I didn’t want it. I pulled away immediately, and when she tried again, I stopped her. There’s never been anything between us. I swear to you, there never will be. I won’t be alone with her again.”
Nicole waited.
His breath came faster in the silence. “Please say something.”
“I know.” She looked up at him, right into his blue eyes.
He stared at her. “What?”
“I know you didn’t want her. I know you pulled away.”
“You couldn’t have seen everything from outside.”
“I didn’t see it with my own eyes. The window was too high, and the blind was only partly open. I used my phone to see.” Nicole took it from her pocket. “I recorded the whole thing.”
Alexander went still.
She crossed to the desk, set the phone down, and opened the video again. “Watch it.”
He sat slowly. Nicole remained standing on the other side of the desk while the recording played.
She watched him instead of the screen. The first laugh made his jaw tighten.
When Angela kissed him, his eyes closed for a second, as if watching the violation was almost worse than remembering it.
Then came his own angry voice. His rejection.
Angela’s claim that he avoided home. Her belief that his family was used to doing without him.
Alexander looked stricken. The recording reached his declaration that Nicole was his life. It ended. He didn’t touch the phone.
“You heard all of that,” he said.
“Yes.”
“The girls were outside too.”
“They couldn’t see the screen. They didn’t see her kiss you. They heard voices, but they didn’t understand the conversation.”
He shut his eyes. “Jesus Christ.”
“I saw you pull away. I heard you tell her you love me. I know you didn’t cheat, Alexander. That isn’t why I left.”
He opened his eyes again. Fear had stripped away some of his control. “Then why did you take our children and leave our home?”
“Because you’re still addressing the wrong problem.”
“I’m trying to understand.”
“Are you?” Nicole placed both hands on the desk and leaned toward him. “Did you know Prim fell from the outdoor play structure last week?”
His face changed. “She what?”
“She scraped her stomach open. We spent the evening at urgent care because they thought she might need stitches.”
“Is she all right?”
“She’s healing. They closed it with adhesive strips. She was scared, and she asked for you. I handled it.”
He looked toward the office door as if he could see Prim through it. “Why didn’t you call me?”
“I did. Vicky called back later and said you were unavailable.”
Alexander flinched.
“Do you know Rose can count to ten?” Nicole asked.
He said nothing.
“She learned this week. She wanted to show you. Do you know what book Prim wants every night now? Do you know Rose won’t wear the green pajamas because she says the collar scratches? Do you know either of their teachers’ names?”
“Nicole–”
“Do you?”
“No.” The word came out rough. “No, I don’t.”
“You’re an absent father, Alexander. You’re an absent husband.
You sleep in our bed when you have a few hours, you leave notes on your pillow, and you call that being part of this family.
I raise our daughters. I keep our home. I do my work around everyone else’s needs.
You give everything you have to the studio and come back to us when there’s nothing left. ”
“That’s not what I want.”
“It’s what you do.”
“I love you.”
“I know. But I can’t live on what you feel when your choices keep saying the opposite. This isn’t the marriage I want.”
His hand closed around the arm of the chair. “Are you saying you want a divorce?”
The word landed between them. Nicole’s heart kicked hard enough to hurt. She wanted to tell him no. She wanted to take the terror from his face. For twelve years, she’d known how to reach for him when the calm shell cracked. This time, she made herself stay still.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I haven’t made that decision. Right now, I need time and space. The girls and I are staying here.”
“No.”
Nicole straightened. “No?”
Alexander pushed to his feet. “Come home. Bring the girls home, and we’ll fix this there. You can’t decide our marriage is over because I’ve been busy.”
“I didn’t say it was over.”
“Then stop this.” Fear sharpened his voice into anger. “I didn’t do anything wrong. Angela kissed me. I rejected her. I’ve been busy, Nicole. That’s all.”
“That’s all?”
“You have the nanny, the chef, the housekeepers, the driver… everything you could possibly need. I thought you had it handled.”
The hurt was so clean it almost cooled her anger.
“You thought I had it handled because you decided none of it was yours to handle,” she said.
Alexander’s face drained. “That’s not what I meant.”
“It’s exactly what you meant.”
“I meant you’re capable. You are. You’re better at all of this than anyone I know. I never thought your work was insignificant.”
“That’s what you’ve been doing for years, Alexander. Turning my competence into permission to leave everything to me.”
“I didn’t leave you.”
“You did it one missed dinner, one canceled bedtime, and one delegated phone call at a time.”
He came around the desk, then stopped when Nicole took a step back. The space she created seemed to wound him more than anything she’d said.
“I’ll be better,” he said. “I swear on my life. I’ll take the next few days away from the studio. I’ll stay home. I’ll do bedtime, breakfast, preschool… whatever you want. Just come home.”
“A few days won’t fix months of this.”
“Then I’ll take a week.”
“You still think this is about finding the right number of days.” She shook her head.
“Tell me what you want me to do.”
“Right now, I want you to give me space.”
“Nicole, please.”
“No. You don’t get to ignore what I need because it scares you.”
He looked toward the ceiling. The girls slept somewhere above them, safe in the warm, crowded house. “They’re my daughters too.”
“I know. I’m not taking them away from you. We’ll work out when you see them. But you can’t use them to force me home.”
“I’m not trying to force you.”
“Then listen to me.”
He opened his mouth.
Nicole moved to the office door and put her hand on the knob. “Please, Alexander, leave. If you don’t respect my wish now, I don’t know what will happen.”
The warning finally reached him. His shoulders lowered. The anger left his face, and what remained was worse. Grief, fear, love that still didn’t know how to become what she needed.
After a long moment, he nodded. “All right.”
Nicole opened the door and walked him through the quiet house. At the front entrance, Alexander glanced toward the stairs once more, but he didn’t ask to go up. He stepped outside alone.
She closed the door between him and the family he’d expected to bring home.