Bex #2
It gives the impression that our marriage is imploding, and it ends with Theo’s interview, the one he just did yesterday, after what I’d thought was a perfect afternoon together.
“Most marriages don’t last,” he says to the camera. “I suppose it was stupid to hope ours would. We have nothing in common.”
My stomach drops to the floor.
He said those words after our run, after we’d floated beside each other in Porto Moniz. He said those words and then came back here and fucked me like a man who hadn’t run twenty miles earlier in the day. Even I was surprised by how insatiable he was.
Insatiable, after telling Lars we have nothing in common. That our marriage won’t last.
Maybe he was so insatiable because he knew it was the final time.
I slip out the door while they’re all congratulating one another.
I don’t even know where I’m headed until I discover myself at the beach, my feet sinking into the sand.
I take a few steps forward and then just…
crumple, face pressed to my knees. I’m not sure why, after everything I’ve been through in the past year, this is the thing that’s simply too much.
“What’s going on, Bex?” Katrina asks, appearing out of nowhere and dropping into the sand beside me. “Did you guys break up?”
I dig my toes into the sand. “We’d have to be together to have broken up.”
“Oh, please,” she says with an exasperated exhale. “You think you’re fooling anyone at this point? You’ve been into each other for months.”
“No, we weren’t,” I whisper.
“Oh? Then who filmed you pressing the champagne button in London?”
“That doesn’t mean we were together.”
“I suppose you’ll try to tell me that hickey on your neck the last day of the Paris trip was a curling iron burn now?”
I stare at her. “I had a hickey?”
She shrugs. “We’ll edit it out. Just tell me what’s wrong.”
I exhale heavily. “If Lars was so certain we were together, why’d he go out of his way to make sure we weren’t alone in Norway?”
She grins. “Because he’s incredibly evil. He thought Theo might be more irritable on camera if you weren’t able to sleep together. So you broke the sink instead.”
In spite of everything, I laugh. I’d suspected we weren’t fooling him with that one.
“I don’t know what’s wrong,” I admit. “Theo got a call this morning and was all weird about it. He said it was work but it wasn’t.”
“What do you think it was?”
What I’m thinking it was sounds too crazy to admit, because I know Theo and she does too and he just wouldn’t, couldn’t, be with someone else.
Could he?
I swallow. “Theo was seeing someone when we met. They were going away together for the holidays. I don’t know the details, I’m not sure how or when it ended, and, well…” I shrug.
“You think he went back to her?” she asks softly. “Without saying a word to you first? That doesn’t sound like Theo.”
No, it doesn’t. But it does sound like the behavior of the guy my dad used to describe.
Theo, the great business partner who was always off with a new woman, one he would never commit to.
And maybe that was just a role he was playing, but I’ve got no reason to believe I’m the person who convinced him to stop playing it.
She looks at me. “Why haven’t you just asked him?”
My eyes fall closed. “I haven’t wanted to know. I mean, I do want to know, but only if the answer is a good one, and I’m not sure it will be. And I didn’t want to pressure him.”
She scoops a handful of sand and lets it slide through her fingers. “Are you so scared of rejection that you’d rather live with that much uncertainty? You deserve an answer.”
She’s right. I haven’t asked him the hardest questions because I’m scared of what he’ll say. And—most of all—I’m not sure I even deserve to be the one he chooses.
“He should have ended up with Bronwyn. Even though she’s gone, in my head…he’s still hers.”
“I’ve watched you two together this entire time, so I can say with some authority that I seriously doubt that. And he hasn’t told you how he feels, but it sounds like you haven’t told him either. Don’t you think he deserves to know too?”
“You heard what he just said in the trailer about our failing marriage. I’m not sure he’d care.”
“Oh my god,” she says, throwing out her hands in exasperation. “Where have you been the past few months? Have you not noticed how often Lars makes you say crazy shit to move the story in the right direction?”
I sigh. She might have a point.
She knocks her elbow into my bicep. “Do me a favor. Stop being someone who settles for less than she deserves. Tell Theo how you feel and what you want, and if he can’t provide it, fuck him.”
I cast a sly glance her way. “Maybe you should take your own advice. With Lars.”
She slaps a hand to her forehead. “I…Bex, you’ve got to let that go. I swear to you, I’m not interested in Lars, and Lars is not interested in me.”
“Crazier things have happened.”
She snort-laughs. “I’m not sure they have, thank you. No.”
I walk back to the house, then sit in bed for a long time, waiting for him to call with my stomach in knots.
I wait and wait, but the phone never rings.
Me: I’m about to go to bed. Are you free?
Theo: Sorry, meetings are still underway, and I don’t know when I’m getting out of here.
Me: I can try to call you during my layover in Lisbon tomorrow.
Theo: I’ve got a long lunch thing so I might be hard to reach. Let’s just talk after you get home.
I swallow. If it hadn’t been for what Katrina said, I’d assume I was being blown off. A piece of me still assumes it, but I’m done watching everyone else get their happy ending. I deserve to know if I’m getting mine too.
· · ·
I land in London shortly after lunchtime the next day. I was going to have to wait for a flight home anyhow…I might as well wait in London where I can, hopefully, see Theo in person.
I take the Tube into the city and navigate my way to the UK offices of Families Travel, dragging my carry-on behind me. A reasonable person would text Theo and tell him she was here, but the long lunch thing must have been a big deal if he wasn’t able to call, so I don’t want him to feel pressured.
I find the building and follow the directory inside the lobby to the seventh floor. The receptionist frowns when I walk in, but then…they probably don’t get a lot of visitors. Most, if not all, of the work is done online.
“Hi—I’m Bex Daniels. Rick’s daughter? From the U.S. office?”
Her eyes widen, and she sits up a little straighter in her chair.
“Hello, Miss Daniels,” she says with a degree of respect I definitely don’t deserve.
“Were you here to see Theo? I’m not certain when he’ll be in, but Peter’s here.
Let me just—” She makes a fluttery motion with her hands and starts to rise but I wave her down.
“Actually,” I say, “I thought maybe I could just leave my bag here and go get some lunch until Theo’s meeting is over?”
She swallows. “I’m not certain he’s coming back. Let me just—”
Before she can continue, Peter appears. “I thought I heard your voice,” he says. His smile doesn’t quite cover his surprise. “Theo never mentioned you were in London.”
The old version of Bex, the one who managed to awkwardly show up where she wasn’t welcome, still lives on, apparently. “It was sort of last-minute. I was hoping to catch him before my flight leaves tonight.”
“I doubt he’ll even be back,” Peter says.
“His lunches tend to last hours.” He and the receptionist share an uncomfortable glance, and I think of the night I arrived at my dad’s house and discovered they were having a big party without me.
The way they all looked at one another, tripping over themselves to come up with a reason I’d been excluded.
Because these lunches clearly entail something Theo doesn’t want me to know about, and I’m the only one in the dark.
“My flight doesn’t leave till seven,” I reply quietly. “Are you sure he won’t be done?”
Peter shoves his hands in his pockets and shakes his head. “Getting back through security at Heathrow is…” He shrugs.
“I know.” It’ll take an hour to get to Heathrow, and it could take another hour to reach my gate. Which means I’ve probably stopped here for nothing. “It was a stupid idea. I suppose I’ll head back.”
“I’ll walk you out,” he says.
We head toward the elevator and he steps inside with me. He’s just being kind, but I sort of feel as if I’m being escorted out by security.
“I wish you could stay longer,” he says, hitting the button for the lobby. “I’d really like to take you out to dinner the next time you’re in town.”
I raise a brow. It’s an odd thing to say to his friend’s wife, even if he thinks we won’t last. “You, uh, know I’m married, right?”
He laughs. “Come on, Bex.”
I stiffen. There’s not a single reason Theo would have needed to tell him, especially if he thought Peter liked me. “What are you saying?”
The elevator reaches the ground floor. Peter holds the door and follows me into the lobby. “I knew it was fake the minute I met you, and he admitted it when I asked.”
I tug my jacket around me, chilled. I can’t believe Theo told him.
Peter was in both London and Paris, toasting our marriage while he knew exactly what it really was, and Theo let me sit there like an asshole, the only one who wasn’t in on the joke.
No wonder he didn’t want me having drinks with them.
Peter shifts his weight, flinching a little. “Look, I’ve known half the women the guy’s dated, and they’re all…” He trails off, clearly searching for a euphemism. How fortunate that I excel at that.
“Quiet? Sophisticated? Elegant? Refined?”
He sighs. “Yes. But that doesn’t mean everyone agrees with him. I’d take you over a thousand Wendys.”
I stagger backward as my stomach goes into freefall. “Wendy?”
He blinks. “Fuck. You didn’t know.”
I didn’t know. But now I do.
Wendy is the complication. The woman he was with, whose story wasn’t his to tell.
Because she’s fucking married. That night at the pub when she was so smug and so bitter…
It’s because she knew it was fake and maybe they all knew it was fake, and Theo let me sit there doing my best to persuade them otherwise. “Married Wendy?”
He grimaces. “To be fair, I think Wendy led him to believe the marriage was a little more done than it was. But she’s always been willing to say what she had to say and accept the little that Theo has to offer, for some reason.”
What was it Kylie and Jasper said? That he’d been with someone for decades. It had seemed ridiculous at the time. Maybe it wasn’t.
“The little he has to offer?” I ask quietly. “It seems to me that she was the one with little to offer, given she already had a husband.”
He shrugs. “I just meant that he was never going to want a relationship, and it’s all around his schedule. He’s gone so often and is dealing with the U.S. office at night because of the time difference. A long lunch here or there isn’t enough for most of us.”
My head jerks up at “a long lunch.”
He wouldn’t. Theo would not fabricate a work meeting so he could rush back here to have sex with Wendy.
I know him, and I know he wouldn’t do that, and yet…
he’s been secretive all along, never giving me a moment of reassurance or discussing the future, and now he’s off on a long lunch, one everyone’s being awkward about.
One he himself was awkward about. He wouldn’t do that and yet… I’ve been wrong about people before.
God. I’m such an idiot. I lay my palm over my heart as if applying pressure to a wound.
“So he’s with her now?” I whisper.
He frowns. “I believe they’re hammering some things out. Bex…I’m so sorry. I hope you weren’t developing feelings for him. You seemed like you had his number when we met in Paris.”
No. I was just pretending I had his number so no one would see I was falling. Maybe even so I wouldn’t see I was falling.
When I say nothing, he winces. “Bloody hell.”
I shake my head, forcing myself toward the door. “It’s fine. Really. I should go.”
“Bex, let me—” His hands tug at his hair. “Let me drive you to Heathrow. We can talk it out.”
I try to force a smile as I continue moving away. “All good,” I say, my voice cheerful and breaking in the same moment. “Nothing to talk out. I’m absolutely fine.”
I’ve been practicing for this moment my entire life.