Chapter 19
Nineteen
Smitty left Caroline’s and went to the corner to hail a cab. The Upper East Side traffic was heavy for a Sunday night in July, and when he had waited fifteen minutes without getting a cab, he decided to walk the ten blocks home.
Tossing his duffel and garment bags over his shoulder, he trudged slowly north through the humid night.
He had gone about three blocks when the numbness wore off and the pain caught up to him.
He lowered himself to a stoop in front of another brownstone and dropped his head into his hands.
After the longest twenty-four hours of his life, he was finally alone and no longer had to hide how devastated he was by the betrayal of two people he cared the most about. He was finally free to let it out.
The street was deserted otherwise the sight of the strapping man crying surely would have attracted the attention of passersby.
She knew I loved her. Smitty wiped his face with the back of his hand. She knew, which means he probably knows, too. Are they having a laugh at my expense right at this moment? No, Ted wouldn’t do that.
Smitty laughed through his tears. Yeah, well, you didn’t think he’d steal your girlfriend, either.
He sat in the dark thinking about the time he had spent with Caroline, the years he’d considered Ted Duffy his best friend, and the awesome task he had ahead of him as he learned to live without them.
What he had told her about the trip to Sydney was only partially true.
His company hoped to buy a small investment firm there.
That part was true as was what he had said about being asked to send someone to check it out.
He’d even had the ideal employee in mind for the due diligence study that needed to be done before the purchase could go forward.
He’d had no intention of going himself until he overheard Ted and Caroline the other night and realized that being halfway around the world for the next month or two would have its benefits.
No way was he going to stick around to watch the two of them together.
No freaking way. Since he planned to maintain his friendship with Parker and Chip, he would have to see Ted occasionally.
That would be hard to avoid. But he needed some time to get used to the idea of Ted and Caroline as a couple before he had to see it.
I wonder what he plans to tell Chip and Parker about her.
It’s not like he can just show up with her in Newport next weekend and act like it’s no big deal, right?
So what’s your plan, Ted? Going to have to keep this under wraps for a while, aren’t you?
You’ll be concerned about alienating Chip and Parker, too, so you won’t tell them—at least until a respectable amount of time has passed.
Let me ask you this, my friend, how much time is enough when you’ve stolen your best friend’s girl?
I’m sure I’ll hear all about it when he decides to go public with her, but I sure as hell ain’t going to be around to see it.
Smitty got up, grabbed his bags, and covered the last seven blocks quickly. All at once he just wanted to be home.
Ted was pacing in the living room of his condo when Caroline finally called at eleven fifteen. His heart in his throat, he pounced on the cell phone. “Hey.”
“Hi. Sorry it’s so late.”
“I was starting to seriously freak out. Are you all right?”
“I think so.”
“Was it bad?”
“No, it was . . . um . . . odd.”
“Odd how?”
“He broke up with me.”
Ted was speechless.
“He said, ‘I think we both know this has run its course. It’s been fun, you’re a great girl, but it’s not going anywhere.’” When Ted didn’t reply, she said, “Are you still there?”
“I’m here. I’m just stunned. I mean he was making me crazy acting so possessive at the pool today.”
“I asked him why he had done that if he was planning to break up with me, and he said he was enjoying the time we had left on Block Island. He said he was sorry if I had read more into it than that.”
“Everyone was so sure he was in love with you.”
“He laughed when I said that.”
“I can’t figure this out.”
“Me either. Get this, too. He’s going to Sydney for at least a month for work.”
Processing it all, Ted ran a hand through his hair. “When did that happen?”
“Apparently his partners told him Thursday they want him to go check out a company they want to buy. He didn’t want to say anything about it until after the weekend.”
“None of this makes any sense.”
“I’ve been sitting here for thirty minutes trying to make sense of it myself.”
“You don’t think . . .”
“What?”
“No . . .”
“What were you going to say?”
“Do you think somehow he knows about us?”
“No way,” she said. “He would’ve flipped out, don’t you think?”
“I would think so. What if Parker told him what he came home to Friday night and somehow Smitty put two and two together?”
“Did Parker talk to you about that?”
“He asked me if I’d heard anything, and I said no. I hated lying to him, but it wasn’t like I could admit that you’d been upstairs talking to me while I was in bed. He said he didn’t tell Smitty about it, and I got the impression he didn’t plan to.”
Her sigh was deep and pained. “This is a terrible way for us to start a relationship, Ted. All these lies and people getting hurt because of us.”
“I know. I think I’m getting an ulcer from the stress of it.” He realized she was crying. “Oh, Caroline, don’t.”
“I can’t help it. This has been a very long day.”
“What happened after you guys left the pool?” The desire to know had burned in him for hours.
“Nothing,” she whispered.
“When I heard you crying in there I almost took down the door.”
She was crying so hard now she couldn’t speak.
Ted’s jaw clenched with tension. “Caroline, honey, tell me.”
“I can’t.”
“You’re frightening me. Please. Tell me.” He heard her sniffling as she tried to control her tears.
“He wanted to . . . you know . . . have sex.”
Ted exhaled a long deep breath and waited for her to continue.
“I told him to stop a couple of times, but he wouldn’t. He was really rough with me, and for a minute . . .”
“What, honey?” Ted whispered.
“I thought he was going to rape me.”
“No,” Ted gasped. “No. He wouldn’t. He couldn’t.”
“He was going to. I know he was. But I yelled at him to stop, and all of sudden he finally heard me. It was almost like he went a little crazy or something.”
“I’m coming there. Right now.”
“No, Ted! You can’t! It’s too late, and you have to work tomorrow. I’m all right. He apologized.”
“I don’t care if he apologized! I can’t believe he would do something like that.
That’s not the Smitty I know.” Once again Ted’s gut clenched at the thought that Smitty might’ve felt he had good reason to want to punish Caroline.
“I’m leaving right now.” He picked up the bag he hadn’t yet unpacked from the weekend.
Whatever else he needed he would buy in New York.
“Just give me your address, and I’ll be there in a few hours. ”
“You don’t need to come,” she insisted in a voice still hoarse with tears and emotion. “What about work?”
“I’m going to do something I haven’t done in six years—call in sick. I need to be with you right now, Caroline. I can’t wait two weeks. Not after all this.”
“You’re going to fall asleep at the wheel. I can’t let you do this.”
Cradling his cell phone in the crook of his neck, he tossed his bag into the trunk of the car. “After what you just told me, do you honestly think I could sleep without seeing for myself that you’re all right?”
“Ted . . .”
“I’m on my way. I can’t believe everything that has happened, but it seems that I find myself head over heels in love with you, and I’m going to be there as soon as I can. Now, are you going to tell me where you live?”
She laughed through her tears and gave him her address. “This is crazy. You’re crazy.”
“Crazy about you,” he said softly as he pushed the Mercedes up to eighty-five on his way to I-93 South.
“I never imagined I could feel so good and so bad at the same time.”
“It’s going to get better. We just have to get through this rough patch, and then everything’s going to be fine.”
“Promise?”
“I promise. I can’t believe I can talk to you whenever I want to now. You’re going to get fed up with me calling you all the time.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever run out of things I want to tell you.”
“I hope you never do. In light of this new-found freedom of ours, do you know what I’ve been dying to ask you for two weeks?”
“What?”
“Right before you fell when we were running you were going to tell me something you said was a secret. We never got around to finishing that conversation.”
She chuckled. “No, we didn’t, did we?”
“What was the big secret?”
“I’m going to write a book,” she confessed. “I’ve actually already started it.”
“Really? That’s awesome! What’s it about?”
“A dashing young doctor falls in love with his best friend’s girlfriend,” she teased.
He laughed. “I’m sure it’ll be a best seller.”
“I don’t know about that,” she said softly. “But it’s going to be one hell of a romance.”
“Oh, yes.” The rush of emotion took his breath away. “Yes, it is.”