5. Chapter Five
Chapter Five
Nicole
For one frozen second, Nicole saw only Angela’s mouth against her husband’s. The phone shook above her head. She locked her elbow and tightened her fingers around it, afraid she’d drop it, afraid she’d lower it, afraid of what Alexander might do next.
His blue eyes widened. Shock. Clear and sharp. Alexander tore his mouth away and stepped back so fast that his shoulder struck the garment rack. His hands came out of his pockets. The rack moved, and several empty hangers knocked together.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked.
Angela stared at him for half a beat. Then she smiled.
“Don’t act so surprised.”
“I am surprised.” Alexander wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You kissed me.”
“Yes, Alexander. That’s generally what it’s called.”
“I’m married.”
Angela gave a small laugh. “I know.” She went after him again.
Nicole’s breath stopped as Angela reached for his neck. Alexander caught both of her upper arms before she could touch him. He held her away from his body, leaving a full step of space between them.
“Stop.” His voice was low now. Hard. “This can’t happen.”
Angela’s smile slipped. “You don’t have to pretend with me.”
“I’m not pretending. Let go of me.”
“You’re holding me.”
Alexander released her and backed away another step. “I’m sorry. But you have to stay there.”
Nicole kept recording. Her arm burned. Her palm had gone slick against the phone case, and her heart struck so hard against her ribs that she could feel each beat. She couldn’t look away from the screen.
Alexander hadn’t kissed Angela back. He hadn’t hesitated. He hadn’t smiled, or reached for her, or taken one second to decide. Relief hit Nicole so hard that her knees weakened. It didn’t make the pain disappear, though.
“Oh, come on,” Angela said. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’ve never been more serious.”
“It was a kiss.”
“It was a kiss I didn’t want.”
“You didn’t exactly run.”
“You grabbed me without warning.” Alexander’s face had gone cold in the way Nicole had seen across dinner tables when someone pushed him too far. “Don’t try to turn that into permission.”
Angela crossed her arms. “Fine. You didn’t expect it.”
“I didn’t want it.”
“You would if you’d stop lying to yourself.”
Alexander stared at her. “About what?”
“Your marriage.”
Nicole lost some of her relief. Beside her, Prim leaned against her leg.
Nicole couldn’t feel much beyond the small pressure of her daughter’s shoulder and the phone balanced above her head.
Rose stood on her other side, silent for once.
They couldn’t see the screen. Nicole was grateful for that.
She wanted to cover their ears too, but moving either hand might lose the recording. She needed the truth. All of it.
“Is Daddy coming?” Rose whispered.
Nicole couldn’t answer. She lowered one finger from the phone and pressed it to her lips. Prim copied the gesture she’d made before, drawing an invisible zipper across her mouth. Rose nodded and leaned closer to Nicole’s leg. Their trust made the phone feel even heavier in her hand.
Inside the trailer, Angela walked toward the cream sofa and turned back to Alexander.
“You spend more time here than you do at home,” she said. “You’re here before most of the crew. You’re still here when everyone else is desperate to leave.”
“I’m producing a film that’s had one problem after another,” he said.
“That’s an excuse.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Is it?” Angela asked. “Because nobody works this hard to avoid a place they want to be.”
Nicole’s stomach clenched.
Alexander went still. “I don’t avoid my home.”
Angela laughed again, but there was no humor in it. “When do you see it?”
He opened his mouth. Nothing came out.
“Exactly,” Angela said. “You get here before I do. You stay after I leave. Every time there’s a dinner, or an event, or some excuse to keep going, you’re available. Your wife is never here. You barely mention going home unless someone asks.”
“You don’t know anything about my wife.”
“I know she calls and someone else deals with it.”
Alexander’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t know what happens between Nicole and me.”
“I know what happens here. If I need another meeting, you find room for it. If production wants one more hour, you give it. Nobody has to drag you back to the studio because you never leave.”
“The studio has hundreds of people depending on this film.”
“And your family depends on you too, doesn’t it?”
He didn’t answer fast enough.
Angela gave him a knowing look. “But they’re used to doing without you.”
Nicole nearly dropped the phone.
Prim and Rose weren’t used to doing without him. They were being hurt by it. They cried, waited, asked, and tried to stay awake. Nicole was the one who had become skilled at carrying them through each fresh disappointment. From the outside, that skill looked like acceptance.
“I know you’re bored,” Angela said.
“No.”
“You don’t have to be ashamed of it. People grow apart. It happens.” Angela lifted one shoulder. “And a man like you has options.”
Nicole’s vision blurred. She blinked hard until the phone screen cleared.
Angela was wrong about Alexander’s desire. Nicole had just watched him prove it. His shock and disgust were real. His body had moved away before thought could hide anything. But Angela wasn’t wrong about the facts she used to build her ugly little story.
Alexander did arrive before everyone. He did stay later than he needed to. He did accept every dinner, meeting, and production disaster as more important than going home. Nicole wasn’t there because she’d been home with their daughters, carrying every part of the life he kept refusing to enter.
Another woman had looked at his choices and seen an empty marriage. Worse, she’d seen an opening.
“Listen to me.” Alexander took a step toward Angela, but he didn’t come close enough to touch her. “I’m not bored with Nicole. I love her.”
“Of course you love her.”
“No. Don’t dismiss what I’m saying because it doesn’t fit whatever fantasy you’ve invented.”
Angela’s face tightened. “Fantasy?”
“I love my wife. I’ve loved her for twelve years. We have two daughters. She’s the most important person in my life, and there has never been anything between you and me.”
The most important person in his life.
Nicole wanted to believe the words. Some part of her did.
The part that knew how he touched her, how he said her name when nobody else could hear, and how completely he’d looked at her in their bed.
But words weren’t enough. The most important person in his life had called again and again today without an answer.
The most important person in his life was holding a phone above her head outside another woman’s trailer while his daughters waited at her feet.
That morning, Prim had said Daddy didn’t want them. Nicole had defended him because she knew Alexander’s heart. She knew the girls were loved. Now he was saying the same thing Nicole had said. Love. Twelve years. Family. Life. The words were true, and somehow they still weren’t enough.
Angela looked Alexander over. “You expect me to believe Nicole is the most important person in your life when you’re always here?”
“Brittle is my job.”
“This is where you choose to be.”
The sentence hurt more than the kiss. Alexander flinched. Only a little. Nicole knew him well enough to see it.
“You’re confusing my work with interest in you,” he said. “They aren’t the same thing. You are part of my job. Nicole is my life.”
Angela’s chin lifted. “That’s cruel.”
“No. Kissing a married man and then insulting his marriage because he rejects you is cruel.”
“I didn’t insult–”
“You said I’m bored with my wife.”
“Because that’s how you act.”
Alexander’s jaw tightened. “Then you’ve misunderstood me.”
“Have I?”
“Completely. I’ve never wanted you. I’ve never invited this. Whatever you thought was happening between us wasn’t happening.”
Angela looked away first.
Alexander took another step toward the door. “I’m leaving now. You will not follow me. You will never touch me like that again, and you will never kiss me again. Do you understand?”
Angela’s eyes flashed. “Perfectly.”
Alexander reached for the door.
Nicole stopped the recording. Her arm dropped. For a second, her fingers wouldn’t open around the phone. Her shoulder throbbed, and the ground under her shoes felt wrong.
“Mommy?” Rose whispered.
Nicole stepped back from the trailer. She shoved the phone into her bag with a clumsy hand, then reached down. Prim took her left hand. Rose took her right. Their small fingers closed around hers just as the trailer door opened.
Alexander came down the steps and stopped.
The anger vanished from his face. His skin lost its color.
His gaze moved from Prim to Rose. Then it lifted to Nicole.
He saw her bag still open. He saw the phone inside it.
He looked up at the high window and back at her face.
Understanding spread across his features.
“Nicole.”
She couldn’t answer.
“Daddy!” Prim screamed.
Both girls tore free of Nicole’s hands and ran. Alexander dropped into a crouch before they reached him. Prim hit him first, wrapping both arms around his neck. Rose crashed against his side. He caught them, pulled them close, and rose with one daughter held against each side of his chest.
“Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,” Rose said, pressing kisses over his cheek.
Prim clung to him. “We found you.”
Alexander shut his eyes. His arms tightened around them. “You found me.”
“Do you live here?” Prim asked.
His eyes opened. “What?”
“At work. You sleep home, but you’re always here.”
Alexander looked at Nicole. She couldn’t rescue him from the question.
“No, sweetheart,” he said. “I live at home with you.”
Prim frowned. “You don’t be there.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
His throat worked. “Because I’ve been working too much.”
“Then say stop,” Prim told him. “You’re the boss.”
Alexander bowed his head until his forehead touched hers. “I should’ve said stop.”
Nicole had wanted him to look at the children who cried for him and understand. Now he was looking. The sight gave her no satisfaction. It only made the whole day hurt more.
“We cried,” Rose told him.
His eyes opened and went straight to Nicole. “You did?”
“A lot,” Prim said. “You didn’t answer. Mommy called and called.”
His face tightened. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”
“Come home now,” Rose said. “You do bear voice.”
“And our song,” Prim added. “Mommy said you sing it next time.”
Pain crossed Alexander’s face. He kissed Prim’s curls, then Rose’s. “I want to.”
“Then come,” Prim ordered.
Alexander looked at Nicole over their heads. “We need to talk,” he told her.
Nicole shook her head.
“Please.” He took a step toward her. “What you saw–”
“No.” Her voice sounded distant to her own ears.
“I didn’t–”
“Not here.” Nicole looked at the trailer, the open door, and the crew moving beyond the soundstage. A few people had already started glancing their way. “Not in front of them.”
Alexander stopped. “Then I’ll come home with you.”
The girls brightened in his arms.
“Yes!” Rose said.
“Daddy comes home,” Prim told Nicole.
Nicole couldn’t let him into the car. She couldn’t sit beside him while he explained an unwanted kiss she already knew he’d rejected. She couldn’t listen to facts about Angela when Angela’s worst accusation still filled her head.
This is where you choose to be.
If Nicole spoke now, she might scream. She might ask how he could call her his life while giving another woman every hour Nicole had begged him to bring home.
She might demand answers he couldn’t give with Prim and Rose hanging on his neck.
Or she might let his panic pull her into comforting him.
She’d done that too many times – made room for his pressure, his regret, and his good intentions while her own anger waited. She had no room left.
“Not here,” Nicole repeated. “Not now. I can’t.”
“Nicole, you know me.”
She did. That was part of the problem. She knew he loved her. She knew he hadn’t wanted Angela. She also knew that he’d made himself more available to that woman than to the three people waiting for him at home.
“Put the girls down,” she said.
Alexander stared at her. “Please don’t leave like this.”
“I can’t do this with them here.”
Rose tightened her arms around his neck. “No down.”
“Baby,” Nicole said, forcing gentleness into her voice, “Daddy still needs to work.”
Nicole hated the lie.
“No work,” Prim said. “Daddy’s in charge. He can say stop.”
Alexander closed his eyes for a second. When he opened them, he crouched and set the girls on their feet. They held on to his jacket.
“Listen to Mommy,” he said softly.
“You come too,” Rose insisted.
He looked at Nicole again. She gave one small shake of her head.
“I can’t come with you right now,” he told them.
Rose’s lower lip began to shake.
Nicole moved before the tears could start. She took Rose’s hand, then Prim’s. “Come on. The car’s waiting.”
“But we found him,” Prim protested.
“I know.”
“We keep him.”
“Not today.”
Each word hurt more than the one before it. Nicole turned and walked toward the waiting car. The girls dragged their feet and looked back at Alexander, but they went with her.
“Nicole,” he called.
She didn’t stop.
The driver opened the rear door. Nicole helped Prim and Rose into their seats, fastened them in with shaking hands, and climbed in beside them.
“Where to, Mrs. Cohan?”
Nicole looked through the open door. Alexander stood where she’d left him, alone outside Angela’s trailer.
“Home,” she said.
The door closed, and the car carried Nicole and their daughters away without him.