Chapter 8 #2
“Do you love me?” He asked, standing from the bed now and crossing the distance. He wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her to his chest. She lifted her hands and curled them around his neck. Every part of her was hurting.
“I … I can’t,” she groaned. “I can’t. It turns out, I’m not a cheater. I wanted to be. I wanted to, so badly. But our marriage vows … they meant something to me.”
“You have cheated,” he groaned, his eyes devouring her face, wondering how he could feel such love at the same time as such desperation.
“Sex is just sex,” she said tightly. “I’ve come to think that emotional commitment is just as important…”
“Jesus Christ,” he barked crossly. “You are unbelievably childish.”
“Don’t,” she whispered, dipping her head against his chest.
“You are going to go to him, and let him tell you that it was ‘just sex’ with your best friend. And because he’s going to say that he loves you, you will make your peace with his behavior?”
“I don’t know,” she shook her head. “I just know I can’t say that I love you.
I can’t say that this has been the most incredible week of my life.
I can’t say that leaving you is going to kill a part of me, and that I know I’ll never recover.
” She lifted her face to his. “I can’t say any of that, because I’m married.
I have a husband. And whatever happens between him and me, I have got to respect our marriage enough to deal with it head on. ”
“Like he did?” Thad demanded.
Her smile was filled with grief. “That’s the problem,” she said softly. “I thought that too. But it turns out, two wrongs really, really don’t make a right.”
“And one wrong can’t make a right either,” he insisted.
“No. But I know myself, Thaddeus. I won’t respect myself if I don’t respect our marriage.”
“God, you are crazy,” he said, grabbing her cheeks and lifting her face to his. He kissed her with all of the hope in his soul, but they both knew what it was.
A goodbye kiss.
The end was looming.
Only hours later, at the airport, surrounded by tourists, holiday-makers and corporate types going about their business, he grabbed her once more and pulled her to his body. He was wearing a suit now, and he was clean-shaven. He looked completely at odds with the man she’d fallen in love with.
Saphire looked different too. Dressed in the same Prada dress she’d worn on the flight over, she was gradually returning to her old self. Saphire Arana, Version One.
“This is a mistake,” he intoned warningly.
She could hardly meet his eyes. “Maybe.” Her lower lip quivered and he ached to pull it between his teeth. “But you know why I have to do it.”
“Bullshit.” His expression was implacable. “You want to do it.”
Saphire shrugged her slender shoulders. “I want to know. I need to know.”
“To know what?” He was impatient and furious.
“Everything. When did it begin? Was she his first? Did he love her? Does he love her?”
Wanting to know meant she cared, and that meant, surely, that she loved her husband. That she wanted to go back to him. It was a painful, bitter, choking pill to swallow. “And? If he tells you everything you want to hear?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
“This is ridiculous.”
“I’m so sorry.” She lifted a hand to his chest but he stepped backwards.
“No.” It was a sudden and emphatic denouncement.
“You can’t have it both ways. I’m not yours to touch anymore.
No more kisses. No more. You have chosen, and you must stick with your choice.
” His dark eyes bore into hers, as though in looking he might comprehend.
But he didn’t. He spun on his heel and moved with the appearance of nonchalance through Athens airport, towards his own first class lounge.
Saphire stared until he’d disappeared through the doors. The whole way, she waited for him to turn back, or change his mind; but he did not. And why would he have?
He was right.
She had made her choice.
And now she had to live by it.
The flight to London was too smooth, and too fast. Every minute that passed installed further grief in her heart, as it reminded her that she was moving further away from him.
When they touched down at Heathrow, she was filled with a sense of deep misery, not helped by the cab’s slow journey through central London.
Eventually, though, it began to meander through streets that were familiar. Names that she remembered shone at her from buildings, and cafes she’d run to on slow weekend mornings came into view.
This was her life. She’d lived here happily. Before the affair. Before Thaddeus. She had lived here, and she had been happy.
She would be again.
* * *
“You sound awful.”
Thaddeus shook his head ruefully; a smile was too much to muster. He stared out over Paris, his eyes taking in the glistening Eiffel Tower, the magnificent Arc De’Triomphe and the golden glow of the low-rise buildings in the late evening.
“Thank you,” he drawled. The evening was warm and Thaddeus wore only a pair of cotton boxer shorts. If he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine that Saphire would walk up to him and wrap her arms around his waist; press kisses to his naked skin, as she had done so often on the island.
“Seriously, man. What’s up?” Rocco, from his townhouse in Rome, frowned at the quality of desolation in his friend’s tone. “This isn’t about that woman is it?”
Thad grimaced. “Saphire is her name.”
“Right. Mrs Saphire Arana,” Rocco drawled cynically. “Your married lover.”
His lips formed a grim slash in his face. Of course it was about Saphire. She was all he could think of. “No. I have just had a hell of a day.”
“You might be able to fool most people with that, but I know you better. What is it?”
Thad shook his head.
“What happened with you two after I left, anyway?”
“Thee mou,” he snapped. “What do you think happened? She went back to her husband. As was her plan all along.”
Rocco let out a low whistle. “When?”
“A few days ago.” Was her back still bearing the mark of his initials? Was her heart thinking of him? Was her body craving his touch? Was she in hell, as he was? “When I came to Paris.”
“That was four days ago,” Rocco said slowly. “And?”
“And what?” Thaddeus’s sharp response did not invite further interrogation.
“Listen. You need to forget about her. Go out. Get wasted. Meet someone else. Put Saphire completely from your mind.”
Thad instantly recoiled from the idea. “That isn’t the solution,” he said slowly.
“So? What is?”
An excellent question, to which Thaddeus had no answer.
“Look, Thad. You just buried a man who raised you as his son. Your grandfather was an anchor point in your life and now he’s gone. You are not yourself. That’s the only reason this woman has been able to effect you in this manner.”
“Aristotle is not the reason I … came to care for Saphire. She is.”
“She lied to you. She used you. And she’s in love with someone else. You need to forget about her.”
Thaddeus knew his friend was right. He watched as, in the distance, the clock struck the hour and the tower began to sparkle and shine.
And all it did was make him wish Saphire was there with him, to see it.
How her eyes would have lit up at the spectacle.
But she was not with him. She was back in London; determined to stay married to a man who had never deserved her.