Chapter 22 #2
I walked past him into the house. The hallway smelled like barbecue and baked goods, the walls lined with family photos of happy people.
Anna was in the kitchen. She said nothing, but her face said enough.
I walked through the kitchen, guessing my way through the back door, into a yard that was green and strung with lights, still decorated with balloons and paper lanterns from the celebration.
Miley was on the porch steps, holding a glass of lemonade, laughing.
Laughing at a man I didn’t know. Young, tall, sitting beside her, leaning toward her with interest he wasn’t hiding. She was smiling at him, the real smile with the overlapping tooth, the one she only gave when she forgot to hold it back.
She was giving that smile to someone who wasn’t me.
Jealousy hit me so hard I stopped walking. Hot, territorial, and completely irrational. I didn’t know this man. I didn’t care. Miley was smiling at someone else and every primitive instinct I had wanted to cross that yard and put myself between them.
He saw me first and stood, confused. Miley followed his gaze. Her smile vanished. The laugh died. She set down her glass and stared at me, her face cycling through shock, then pain, then cold anger.
“What are you doing here?”
“I came to talk.”
“I left a letter.”
“I read it. Every word.” I stepped closer. “And you’re wrong about almost all of it.”
“Then there’s nothing to discuss.”
“There’s everything to discuss. Five minutes, Miley. Give me five minutes.”
The young man looked between us. “I’ll give you guys some space.”
“Thank you,” I said. Civil. Or so I hoped.
He retreated. From the kitchen window, Anna and Jace stood side by side, watching. Jace still held the tongs.
Miley crossed her arms. “I’m listening.”
“Seraphina came to see me at the office. She’s back from London.
She wanted to talk about what happened, and I agreed because there was a conversation we never finished.
” I held her gaze. “We met at a hotel bar. Neutral ground. I ordered water. She ordered wine. We talked for less than ten minutes. That’s all it was. ”
“Someone already sent it to me last night. I mean the photos—”
“Were taken by someone Esmeralda hired to follow me. She may have even orchestrated the meeting. Seraphina showing up wasn’t coincidental, Miley.
Esmeralda knew destroying our marriage destabilizes me before the next board vote.
” I watched her face. “Seraphina told me the truth about Dominic. One night. A mistake. Not an affair. And I told her I didn’t love her anymore. ”
“How convenient.”
“She asked me if I still had feelings for her.” I pressed my hand against my chest. “I said no. Because the place where she used to live, right here, is occupied. By someone who leaves sticky notes with angry faces on my door. Someone who makes me breakfast every morning even when she’s furious with me.
Someone who found me sleeping on a closet floor and never once asked why. ”
Her arms were still crossed but her lips were trembling. She was fighting it. Holding the anger like a guardrail because without it she was standing in the same terrifying place I was.
“You’re an actor,” she said. “How do I know this isn’t another performance?”
“Because I’m terrified.” I let her see it.
All of it. The fear I’d spent thirty years hiding behind composure, control, and the careful architecture of Christopher Vale, the performance.
I let it fall away in a backyard in Charlotte, surrounded by string lights, paper lanterns, and the smell of barbecue.
“Actors aren’t scared of their lines, Miley.
Right now I’m standing in a stranger’s backyard with no script and nothing to offer except the truth, and I’m more scared than I’ve ever been in my life.
More than the board meetings. More than Esmeralda.
More than sleeping in closets and waking up in the dark. ”
She looked at me, her eyes wet. “You knew?”
“You left the scent of citrus and coconut behind. I’d know it anywhere.”
Her arms dropped. Her eyes filled even more.
“The divorce papers,” I said. “They weren’t what you think.
I asked Trisha to draft them to dissolve the contract.
So I could marry you for real.” I watched her face change and kept going because if I stopped I wouldn’t start again.
“I bought a ring, Miley. I called my grandmother to help me pick it because Trisha’s taste is questionable and I wanted it to be perfect.
Yellow gold. Round cut. Simple and beautiful. Like you.”
The tears came. Her shoulders shook and her breath came out in gasps. “Why did you do that for Vicky?” she asked through her hands. “The job. The lawyers. She called me screaming. You didn’t have to get involved with my sister’s case.”
“Because I love you. And your problems are my problems.” My voice broke on love. “That’s not a contract clause, Miley. That’s just the truth.”
Her face was wet and red, her eyes swollen, and she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
“If you break my heart again…” she started.
She didn’t finish.
I crossed the three feet between us, pressed her face into my chest, wrapped my arms around her, and held on. Tight. Tighter than I’d ever held anything. She grabbed fistfuls of my jacket and sobbed into my shirt while I pressed my face into her hair and breathed her in.
“I’m sorry,” I said into her hair. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Seraphina before I met her.
I’m sorry you found the papers without knowing what they were for.
I’m sorry I came home late and kissed your forehead while you lay there with a broken heart I didn’t know about.
I’m sorry for every minute of this that hurt you. ”
She pressed closer. I held tighter.
From the kitchen window, Anna was staring at us with tears streaming down her face. Jace remained indifferent. Annoyed, even.
The young man appeared at the back door and saw us tangled together on the porch. His face fell, telling me everything about his intentions. He turned and went back inside.
Anna’s voice: “Caleb, honey, come here. There are plenty of women in the world.”
“I know that, Anna,” Caleb replied, annoyed.
“Good. Because that one’s taken. Very taken. The man flew across the country in wrinkled clothes.” Anna smiled.
Jace appeared in the doorway, looked at me and then at Miley in my arms.
“You’re staying for dinner,” he said.
To say I was surprised would be an understatement. He’d worn that poker expression the entire time. “We don’t want to impose,” I said.
“You already did. Mrs. Wilson is already making enough food for twelve and there are six of us.” He looked at Miley, then at me. “Take your wife inside. She’s shivering.”
He went back to the kitchen. I heard him pat Caleb on the shoulder as he passed. “You’ll be fine, kid.”
I looked down at Miley. She looked up at me. Her face was a disaster. Tears, red eyes, nose running. Her hair was in a ponytail that had given up.
“How did you even know where I was?” she whispered.
“Trisha. She can find anyone once her heart is set on it. Nobody’s safe.”
She laughed, pressing her forehead against my chest, and my arms wrapped around her instinctively.
I was never letting her go again.
We went inside. Mrs. Wilson handed me a plate before I could introduce myself. Mr. Wilson shook my hand.
“So you’re the movie star.”
“Former.”
“Good. Actors are trouble.” He handed me a beer.
Caleb was polite. Distant. He sat across the table and didn’t look at Miley. Anna glared at me when she caught me watching him too closely and mouthed “Be nice.”
I was nice. Very nice. The nicest man at a table in Charlotte, eating barbecue with my wife’s best friend’s family, while a college kid nursed a crush he was trying to hide. Jace Hunter sat at the head of the table looking at me like I was a fly he’d decided to tolerate.
Under the table, Miley’s hand found mine. Her fingers laced through mine and squeezed.
I squeezed back.