Chapter Nineteen
“Y ou’ve reached Marissa. Leave a message.”
I end the call after trying her back to back, each going straight to voicemail. She should already be done for the day, but it’s possible she got stuck in a meeting.
Me: Thinking about you, baby. Call me.
A few hours go by and I still haven’t heard from her, which is unlike her. In the past month, we’ve talked every day, and often several times during any given day. I’m just about to text her again when I see the dots indicating that she’s typing. I watch as they appear and disappear a few times over the course of a minute. I press the button to call her and put the phone to my ear. “What the fuck?” I muse aloud when the call goes directly to voicemail.
Me: Why are you ignoring my calls?
Marissa: I can’t do this anymore.
Me: What’s going on? Talk to me, baby.
Marissa: Please, just let me go. It’s better this way.
Me: What are you talking about? And why aren’t you answering your phone?
My phone begins to ring in my hands and I answer it on the first ring. “What’s wrong?”
“Where are you?” she asks without answering my question.
“My office. Where are you ?”
“My apartment.” She sighs. “But I’m about to go out. Your office at home or at work?”
She sounds like she’s had a drink and the thought of her upset, drunk, and in a foreign city is making me feel like a caveman. I resist the urge to text my assistant to prepare the jet until I have more context. “Work. Tell me what’s going on.”
“I met your wife.”
Of all the things she could have said, I was not expecting that, and part of me thinks I may have hallucinated and heard her incorrectly. “Excuse me? Run that by me again?”
“She’s here in Paris. Tracked me down.” I hear the uncorking of a bottle through the phone and the sound of her pouring. “Outside our building.”
I immediately pull up my credit card app. I didn’t have alerts set up for the card Holly uses so I wouldn’t have necessarily known if she was out of the country, but normally she at least sends me a text when she’s traveling.
Probably not if she’s planning a trip for the sole purpose of accosting your girlfriend.
I scrub my jaw, my body feeling tense and anxious as I scroll through her last ten charges. She’d checked into the Four Seasons Hotel in Paris last night and done quite a bit of shopping today. Fuck.
I’m pulling up the feed to access the cameras outside of Marissa’s building when I realize I haven’t said anything. “Baby, I’m so sorry. What did she say? Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“Did she touch you?” Holly isn’t a violent person but if she flew to Paris, that means she assumes I’m still talking to Marissa and I am not sure how she’d react to meeting her in person .
“No.”
“I need more than one-word answers.”
“What you’d expect. She told me to stay away from you. Called me a whore. That I’m ruining my life by messing around with a married man I work for. Pretty much everything I already think about myself.” She sniffles and I wish I could crawl through the phone and hold her.
“Marissa, you are not a whore.”
“I don’t think your vote holds that much weight here. Also, I think she may have tapped your apartment or something so just be careful. She knew we were still talking and I don’t know how she’d know that unless you haven’t really moved out.”
I frown, wondering how in the hell Holly would know that. “I don’t lie to you. I’ve been at the penthouse.” I look around my office, wondering if maybe she’d been bold enough to leave something here and immediately call for a sweep of my office. I walk out of my office toward one of the conference rooms that has a balcony for the rest of this conversation to try and give myself some privacy. I close the door behind me, leaving me alone outside, and sit on one of the chairs. “I can’t lose you.”
“You were never free to have me, Chris.”
“Please don’t do this.” My hands begin to shake. I hear the sound of a door opening and when I look up, I see Beck staring at me. You good? he mouths and I shake my head before putting a hand up. He hovers in the doorway before going back inside. “I’m coming to Paris.”
“No, don’t!” she exclaims. “Are you insane? She’s probably still here! I’m sure she’s expecting for you to figure out—”
“I don’t care—”
“I do! You and Holly are hell bent on making each other miserable and I just can’t be involved in it anymore. There’s nothing about this separation that’s going to be amicable and you being with me is just going to make things harder for you.”
“I’ll deal with it.”
“Okay, but I can’t. And I can’t deal with any more run-ins with Holly. That was…” She trails off and lets out a breath. “Awful and I feel like shit. But I welcomed this, right? I did this to myself by getting involved with a married man. I deserve every single thing she said.”
“No, you don’t. I deserve whatever she has to say, not you.”
“I knew you were married. Maybe not the first time, but I eventually learned the truth and actively continued being with you. I’m just as guilty. I slept with her husband. I wronged her.” She starts to cry and I know there’s only so much I can do while I’m almost four thousand miles away.
“Please don’t cry. I’m so sorry, but you won’t have to deal with her again. I’ll be sure of that.” I have no idea how I’m going to deal with Holly because I am fucking furious at her for this. Part of me wants to turn off her credit card while she’s in Paris but I want her out of the same city as Marissa right now.
“Somehow, I doubt you can. I’m going to assume you had no idea that she was in Paris until I told you.” She sighs. “I’m not saying this is the end forever but you need to be single before I can go back down this road with you. Not separated either. I mean the ink is dry on your divorce papers.”
I was afraid things would come to this. I guess I was stupid to think that if Marissa was in Paris, Holly would assume we were over. Could she have really planted something in my apartment? When would she have even gotten in?
“I should go,” she says and I remember that she’s planning to go out tonight. A single girl with a broken heart, drunk, and in Paris sounds like a recipe for there to be a line of guys waiting to talk to her tonight and the thought makes me sick.
“Wait.” She doesn’t hang up but she doesn’t say anything either. “I’m sorry.”
“I know. I am too,” she says so quietly that I almost don’t hear the last part.
“For what?”
“For not walking away sooner before we both got in this deep.” She pauses before taking another breath. “I’m going to request to stay here for the full year.”
I think about the fact that I won’t see her for twelve months if I don’t go out there. It has only been a month and I already miss her like she’s been gone for years. My body has been tense and every time my phone beeps my heart squeezes in hope that it’s a message from her. If this is over, that means she wants at least twelve months of no contact.
“We can’t talk at all?” I ask her even though I already know the answer.
“What’s the point?”
“Because I love you?” I answer immediately because that seems like the only reason that should matter. She doesn’t respond so I ask the question I’ve been wanting to know. “Do you love me?”
“I don’t think it’s fair for you to ask me that.”
I hear the implication but the fact that she doesn’t say it makes me feel like she never will. “One year, Marissa. I’m not letting you stay there longer than that. If I have to come out there and get you, I will.”
“Please don’t come for me until there’s no longer a ring on your finger.”
By no surprise, I haven’t been able to get in touch with Holly for the past two days and I feel like I am ready to explode by the time I pull up to my house. She’s due home in an hour and I want to be here so she can’t avoid talking to me for another second. I walk through my house, brimming with anger as I think about the shitstorm that’s become my life. I don’t know how long I’ve been pacing when the front door opens and I hear Holly on the phone. Based on her bubbly tone, it sounds like one of her friends and when she sees me in the foyer she gasps. “Oh my god, let me call you back. There’s a situation at my house,” she says before she hangs up. She tosses her keys on a nearby table and pulls off her wide-brimmed hat.
“Christopher,” she says the word like it disgusts her. “I’m sorry, don’t you not live here?”
I cross my arms over my chest. “Where have you been?” I nod at her.
“Out.” She meets my gaze and offers a shrug but her face remains impassive.
I walk towards her. “Of the country? So, I heard. I’ve locked your credit card by the way.”
Her eyes widen and she gives me a confused look. “Excuse me?”
“As of about five minutes ago. I wanted to make sure you could at least get home.” I shrug. “But for the time being, you are not able to use your cards. Either of them.”
“You’re insane.” She pulls up her phone and while she’s trying to appear dismissive, I can hear the panic in her tone.
“For putting up with your shit as long as I have? Yes. Definitely.”
She glares at me. “Oh, this means you must have talked to your girlfriend. Did she tell you that we had a nice cup of coffee? Lovely girl.” She looks at her nails. “For a whore and all.”
I ball my hands into fists to try and temper my rage. “Call her a whore one more time, Holly, I swear to God. Why would you go out there?”
“Because you were not listening. You were still talking to her after I told you to end it with her. So, I thought I’d have better luck getting through to her. Which I guess worked if you’re here and you cut off my credit cards. I guess that means she cut you off then?”
“What did I say I was going to do if you breathed in her direction? Access to my money is the only thing you give a shit about so it seems like the only way to get my point across.”
She shrugs and I’m surprised at her cavalier attitude to not being able to blow through my money. “Fine. Does this mean you’ll give counseling an actual effort now?”
I snort. “Did you think scaring Marissa off would make me want to be with you? You couldn’t have seriously thought that. She didn’t cause the problems in our marriage.”
“No, I suspect you think I did that all on my own.”
I want to tell her that she certainly jump-started everything but I am trying to keep things from getting out of hand and turning into a screaming match. “I know I didn’t help.”
“And counseling will.”
“Do you really think going to counseling will just magically fix everything? We don’t work, Holly. I want a divorce.”
She stares at me for a second. “What is so special about this girl anyway?”
“I love her,” I tell her honestly. “And maybe that makes me an asshole for saying that to you but it’s been obvious for years that you’re not in love with me, and…”
“You think she is?” She snorts. “She’s not.” I grit my teeth in annoyance because while I know I have to take anything she says with a grain of salt, I also know Marissa hasn’t said it. “She’s young and you’re rich,” she spits out, and that nagging insecurity that I’m nothing but a large bank account with a dick attached flares up.
It’s not true. You know it’s not, I hear Marissa’s voice so clearly, it’s almost as if she’s standing right next to me.
“She doesn’t care about the money.” I want her to know that while Holly was probably quick to notice all the ways that she and Marissa are different, this is probably the biggest.
“They all care about the money. Even when they claim they don’t. I’ll be honest, I was surprised she didn’t want to take the money I offered at first, but—”
My heart plummets. “What the fuck? You offered her money?”
Holly cocks her head to the side and a snide smile pulls at her lips. “She didn’t tell you? Well well, that’s certainly not expected. I wrote her a check for five million dollars to stay away from you. She said she didn’t want it but”—she points at me—“she did keep it. Maybe she just needs time to mull it over.”
I take a step back because… what?
She begins her way up the stairs and points at the suitcase still in the foyer. “Bring that up, will you?”
My eyes snap to her suitcase, staring at it as I try to get my thoughts together. Marissa wouldn’t cash it. Even if she took it. She ripped it up. If there was even a check at all. But why didn’t she tell me? “You’re lying.”
Holly turns on the stairs and narrows her eyes at me. “I’m not but think whatever you want.”
“She’d…” My mind is racing, and at this moment I know I won’t believe anything until I talk to Marissa. “She knows I’d give her whatever she wanted; she wouldn’t take money from you.”
“And maybe she won’t. I can’t imagine she’ll be able to cash it in France, but she did take it. Maybe she’s waiting until after she gets back. How the hell should I know? Can’t say I really know how twenty-one-year-old girls think.” She scrunches her nose. “Frankly, it’s a little creepy that you do,” she says and then she’s moving up the stairs.
Me: I need to talk to you.
I text her after a series of unanswered calls. We haven’t talked in two days, since Marissa ended things, and I’ll admit that even though I’m annoyed by the events that have transpired, I want to hear my girl’s voice. I walk into my apartment and drop to my couch before texting her again.
Me: Marissa, it’s important.
Marissa: What’s there to talk about?
Me: Answer the phone.
Marissa: I’m out and this isn’t a work call.
Me: Why didn’t you tell me about the check, Marissa?
She doesn’t answer right away and that doesn’t do anything for the mounting anxiety in me or the uncertainty over whether she’s planning to cash it. I don’t give a fuck about the money. I’d give her double, triple, whatever she wanted. I just hate that she didn’t tell me. I hate that Holly knew something about her that I didn’t. That there was a part of their interaction that I wasn’t privy to and I want her to tell me it wasn’t like that.
Marissa: Because it didn’t matter.
Me: Yes, it absolutely matters.
Marissa: You can’t possibly think I’m going to cash it. Don’t fucking insult me.
Me: Why did you take it at all?
Marissa: She shoved it in my hand and walked off and it has my name on it! I figured it would be better if I had it rather than her. I ripped it up.
Me: You should have told me.
My phone starts to ring and the second I answer it, I hear the sounds of loud music and talking, and then those sounds become muffled like maybe she went in the bathroom.
“You can’t actually be mad at me. ” She laughs and I can already tell this conversation isn’t going to be productive.
“I’m mad that Holly threw that shit in my face and I was unprepared for it.”
“ You were unprepared?” she snaps. “I can assure you the shit your wife threw in mine was worse.”
I sigh, remembering the interaction that set all of this in motion in the first place. “I’m sorry. Again. I’m dealing with it.”
“That’s not my business.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it’s not!” she yells. “It’s between you and your wife.”
“Anything about me is your business. Just like you are my business.”
She lets out an exasperated sigh. “Chris, you are not getting it. You’re married. We are done.”
“Stop saying that because you know it isn’t true. You already said when I’m single—”
“You’re not though.”
Anger flares through me because she knows it won’t be forever and it’s beginning to sound like she’s not planning to wait. “I will be eventually! Stop acting like you and I are not the fucking endgame here.”
“Look,” she says before letting out an exasperated breath, “I don’t want to get my hopes up, okay? And neither should you.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means I don’t want to get caught up thinking about a future with a man who’s currently in the present with someone else.”
“I’m getting out of it,” I argue and I feel like I’m starting to sound like a broken record.
“We’re going in circles,” she says. “I’m out right now. I have to go.”
“Marissa—”
“Don’t,” she warns.
“I love you.” I don’t think she wants to hear these words but I say them anyway because I want her to know that despite this shitty situation, I knowingly brought her into, she is in fact my endgame. I want her, and at this point, I don’t care who knows it.
“I said don’t.” Her voice is tiny and I can hear the tears in it. “I can’t say it back,” she says and I’m hoping that even though she can’t say it she does feel it.
“I hate this,” I tell her.
“Me too. I have to go.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Be safe. Keep yourself out of trouble until I’m around to do it myself.”
“Goodbye, Chris.”
“We aren’t—” I start but then I hear the beep indicating the end of the call and my heart fucking sinks.