Chapter Fourteen
Annabelle
"So, the good times didn't last?" he asked, prompting me.
I took a slug of beer before I answered.
"No, they didn't last. He asked me to marry him, and I said yes.
We were in love. I wanted to be together.
I was so sure everything would work out.
We didn't do a big thing, went to Vegas for the weekend and I came back with the ring on my finger. So stupid."
I couldn't help the bitter laugh. "I knew by the way everyone reacted…
I wish we'd planned a real wedding because it would have given me time to think.
Time for my friends and my parents to talk some sense into me.
Time for them to tell me what they saw that I didn't. Maybe that's why he came up with the idea of Vegas.
Maybe he already knew they didn't like him. I don't know. I never asked."
"What happened? How long after the wedding did things change?"
"Not long. Maybe six months. Tommy got his promotion and he cut back on work. He was keeping normal hours, but the café was still open until eight. He started asking why I wasn't home to cook his dinner. Why did I have to work so late? Why did I have to get up so early?
"He wanted me to hire help, but it wasn't in the budget if I was going to pay Aiden back and buy him out. Then he wanted me to contract out the baked goods, but there was no way I was doing that. Selling my own product made a big difference in my bottom line, and I love the baking.
“He already knew all of that. We used to have long conversations about the café and what it meant to me. He never said he wanted me to work less. He never told me he wanted me to change.”
I scraped my thumbnail against the label of the beer, peeling up a thin foil strip, watching it curl and fall to my lap. I hated thinking about my failed marriage to Tommy.
Hated remembering the helpless sense of failure, of losing something and not knowing how to save it without giving up everything I loved about myself in the process. I forced myself to finish.
"Then, he wanted to invest in the café. He said if he gave me more money it would be easier to hire a manager. I could oversee things from home instead of being here all the time."
"You’d hate that," Chase cut in. "This is your place."
"I thought he understood," I said, still staring down at my bottle of beer.
"I didn't want to let him buy in. At that point, I'd finally paid Aiden back and bought him out.
The café was all mine. I was proud of myself for accomplishing so much only a few years out of college, but Tommy didn't get it.
"He was furious I wouldn't let him buy in. Things were still okay at that point, but I had this feeling in my heart, in my gut, that if I let him own a piece of the café, he'd use it as leverage. He was looking for a way to get what he wanted, which was me at home taking care of him."
"He sounds like an asshole," Chase growled, glaring at the piece of cake sitting in front of him.
"But that's the thing, Chase. He wasn't. Well, later he was.
But he didn't start that way. He didn't start out as an asshole.
Things didn't really get bad until I decided to expand and I went to Aiden for a second loan.
Since I'd already paid off the first and bought out his investment, he didn't even make me write a second business plan. "
I laughed at the memory of Aiden agreeing so easily when I'd expected him to put me through the ringer.
"It must not have been a very big loan," Chase commented.
"It wasn't," I agreed. "The space we're sitting in now used to be part of the storage area, and the apartment upstairs was a real apartment.
I lived there before I married Tommy, and no one was using it.
I didn't want to rent it out. I own the building, and I could have, but I didn't like the idea of a stranger living over my café.
"I borrowed the money from Aiden, turned this section into more seating and moved the storage upstairs.
Tommy said it was a slap in the face that I took Aiden's money and not his.
He didn't understand that I didn't want to mix our marriage with my business, especially when he was so resentful of the café in the first place. "
"He was jealous," Chase said. "He wanted you to take all the passion and creativity and drive that you pour into your café and spend it on him instead. He wanted a claim on what was important to you."
Chase had hit it exactly. "How'd you guess?"
"I know the type," he said. "I bet he was mad about the money, but more so that it came from Aiden. To a guy like that, taking money from Aiden Winters instead of him would have been like cutting his dick off."
I burst into laughter. My shoulders shook so hard, I leaned forward, almost spilling my beer in my lap before I slid it on the table and smacked a hand over my mouth, trying to hold in my giggles.
When I could finally speak I said, "That's exactly how he acted.
Like I tried to impugn his manhood by taking money from Aiden.
It just made sense. Aiden had been a partner in the business, he knew everything he needed to know, and he was more than happy to lend me the money.
I knew he'd give me a decent interest rate and he'd treat me fairly.
He knew I'd pay it back quickly, which I did.
But Tommy acted like I'd betrayed him on the deepest level. I didn't get it."
"You wouldn't," Chase said.
"What does that mean?" I asked, annoyed. "What do you mean ‘I wouldn't get it’?”
"I mean, you wouldn't get a guy like that. He's inherently selfish. He wants what he wants, and he's mad at you for not toeing the line. He thinks because he put a ring on your finger you're supposed to rearrange your entire life to suit him.
"Of course, you wouldn't get that. You're not inherently selfish. You're focused on your goals, but that doesn't make you selfish. Did you expect him to stop working long hours for that promotion just because you wanted him around?"
"No, never," I said. "He put so much of himself into his job. That promotion meant everything to him."
Chase lifted his beer in my direction, tilting the neck toward me in salute. "See? That's why you don't get it. Because your instinct is to support someone you love, to try to make that person happy. His instinct is to figure out how to make it easier for you to make him happy. Not the same thing."
I’d never thought of it like that. Honestly, I'd resigned myself to the idea that I was selfish. That I wasn't a good wife. Maybe Chase had a point.
"I didn't see it at the time, but taking the money from Aiden was the beginning of the end.
Tommy got distant. Busy. He did that passive-aggressive thing where he would ignore me to get a response and then when I didn't give him one, because I didn't know he was playing a game, he would get even more distant and then he'd explode in a rage when I didn't understand that I was supposed to come to him apologizing for…
I don't even know. He started taking little digs at me—"
I snapped my mouth shut. I wasn't going to get into that stuff. If I started to recount the things he'd said, I wasn't going to be able to hold it together. The only reason I was telling Chase this was so he could understand why we needed distance between us.
I knew him well enough to know that if I fell apart in front of him, he would not be okay with distance.
I needed to hold it together and I needed to finish the story.
I needed him to understand why I kept saying no.
Why I was going to keep saying no.
"He told me he was going after another promotion at work, and I believed him. The expansion here was underway, and I was distracted. I guess I was na?ve. I figured we were going through a rough patch and we'd get through it. Relationships take work. Even good ones. Nothing is perfect all the time.
"I thought maybe he needed time to realize that my borrowing the money from Aiden wasn't a big deal.
To figure out how we could match our schedules in a way that worked for both of us.
I thought once the renovation was done and he got the next promotion we could get into a new groove and things would be better. "
I took another long sip of my beer and pulled my knees into my chest, bracing my heels on the edge of the sofa.
"I was selfish, too. I had so much going on here, and it was easier to focus on business.
Tommy was ignoring me because he wanted me to pay attention, and I let him because I was frustrated, and I didn't understand why he was so angry with me.
He was my husband. I shouldn't have let him ignore me. I shouldn't have been distracted."
"Let me guess," Chase asked, his voice cold and cynical. "You caught him cheating."
My eyes slid closed and I winced. "Nope.
I did catch him out to dinner with another woman, but he told me she was a rep for a hospital he was working with and it was a business dinner.
He had business dinners like that all the time, and I believed him.
Until his date's best friend called me a few weeks later and told me to go to a certain hotel downtown, to a specific room, and knock on the door.
"She said her friend was there with my husband and if I didn't believe her I should go check it out for myself.
I did. Tommy answered the door with a towel around his waist and a naked woman in the bed.
I went straight home, packed my things, and moved into what was left of the apartment upstairs.
And I called Aiden to get the number of his divorce lawyer. "
"I hope you took him to the cleaners."
"Not exactly. Stephanie Marks, the lawyer who handled Aiden's divorce, and then mine, is really good. Amazing. She's a pit bull underneath the polish and designer suits. But she's expensive. I dipped into my savings. Deep. I knew he'd come after the café."
"And he did?" Chase asked, not sounding surprised.