930 A.M. — November 21, 1996 #2
“Which should give you some insight into how I feel about you right now.”
Zane swore under his breath. “You don’t have to say it. No one could hate me more than I hate myself right now.”
“It’s not a competition, Zane, but if it were, by the end of the day, you’d likely lose.”
“Thanks.”
“Tell her now. While she’ll still have a few hours to cry it out before the kids come home.”
Another wave of desperation came over him.
He couldn’t do this. Not when she was so happy.
Today could be a perfect day. He could sweep her into his arms and make love to her in the shower.
Then he’d whip up a grilled cheese sandwich and a bowl of cut-up apricots and blueberries for her.
She loved his grilled cheese sandwiches.
They reminded them both of their first night together.
He was already famous, and she was a runway model when they met at Keith Richards’ birthday party at Studio 54.
They, along with the other people crammed onto the silvery blue curved sofa, spent much of the evening placing bets on how many more birthdays Keith had left.
Sienna had guessed an outrageous twenty-five while no one else dared to say a number over ten, and there was something about her optimism that struck him harder than her beauty.
Zane had a wife back at home in California—Angela, a poet—but he couldn’t take his eyes off Sienna.
Before the night was over, he asked her to come home with him.
She said yes, much to his delight. They tumbled into a cab and made out the entire way to the Park Avenue apartment the record company kept for their artists.
When they got there, he decided to at least pretend he wanted to take it slow.
Instead of tearing off her dress, he made them grilled cheese sandwiches.
He burned the first two because he couldn’t stop staring at her.
She laughed at him, but not in a mean way—in a way that showed she knew how absurd it was that she had grown up to be this beautiful and he’d grown up to be so famous and rich.
No one was supposed to be that beautiful or that talented.
They were freaks of nature, a fact that bound them together instantly.
They sat side-by-side on the counter eating, her pulling off tiny bits and popping them in her mouth in a way that she knew was seductive, both of them anticipating what would come next.
She was different than the other girls he’d been with.
Different than Angela, who was a mere mortal.
Angela was an old soul. She was insightful and kind.
She had bad hair days and struggled to keep the pounds off.
Sienna was exciting. New. She understood what it was like to be adored by strangers.
Zane would be different with Sienna. Adoring.
Loving. Faithful. And for a long time, he was.
Right up until he wasn’t. “Can you come by maybe? And help me?”
“No, Zane. I wasn’t there when you got yourself into this mess, and I’m afraid that for once in your life, you’re going to have to clean it up yourself,” Dean answered.
His tone was neutral even though Zane knew Dean must want to shout at him. Zane had made his job infinitely harder. The remaining members of the band would be furious, disappointed, disgusted. They might get back on stage with Zane someday, but they wouldn’t be happy about it.
Not to mention the fact that Zane had been an asshole to his wife—a woman who had always treated Dean like a brother. And now, Zane was about to break her heart, and the hearts of their children too. And his adoring fans, who believed him to be a good guy. What a joke that was.
“Forget I asked,” Zane said, running a hand through his shoulder-length blond hair.
Dean let out a loud, frustrated sigh. “Tell you what. If things are really off the rails, I’ll come by around two. I can try to calm her down before the kids get home.”
“Sure, thanks. If she’s still here.”
“Phone if you need me.”
“Will do.” Zane ended the call and shut his eyes, wishing he could go back and do everything differently.
Wishing he’d never driven to Claudia’s house that night.
Wishing he hadn’t walked up her sidewalk or gone inside.
Wishing he hadn’t put off the damn vasectomy after Poppy had been born and Sienna said their family was complete.
But all those terrible things had happened, and now he was well and truly screwed.
When he opened his eyes, she was standing in front of him, on the other side of the glass, with a concerned expression.
He flinched, then tried to smile, but his lips were too numb to manage the upturn.
He hated himself at that moment more than he had ever hated anyone in his life.
Here she was, as close to perfect as a human could be—loving, smart, and incredibly beautiful.
Every bit as beautiful inside as out. She’d stayed so perfectly gorgeous while he’d gotten thick around the middle and had grown a beard to disguise the fact that his face had rounded.
And yet, somehow, she still wanted him, even though he neglected her and screwed around on her.
She knew he cheated. She must have known, even though they never talked about it.
Somehow, she still loved him anyway, even though he was a selfish sack of shit through most of their marriage.
But this would be the end. This was asking too much of her.
She slid the door open, and Billie bounced into the kitchen and right over to her water dish.
Tilting her head, Sienna said, “What’s wrong?”
Zane tasted bile, his body feeling like it weighed a thousand pounds. “I have to tell you something.”
9:40 P.M.
SIENNA MCCREIGHT
Sienna sat in the driver’s seat of her Range Rover mindlessly eating a Double Whopper.
She knew she’d feel sick by the time she polished off her meal, but she couldn’t seem to stop.
She never ate this late, and she certainly never ate Burger King at this hour, but she did eat there once a month—usually right before she got her period.
It was a secret ritual of hers. Something she started after she’d come out to the world as a vegetarian.
Huge mistake. To announce something like that before a proper test drive.
She had given an interview to US Weekly magazine shortly after they adopted Billie.
“Welcoming this sweetheart into our home has made me think about all the animals in the world who need love. Zane won’t let me adopt them all, so I’ve decided to stop eating meat forever. ”
Idiot.
Being vegetarian was impossible for someone raised on grade-A Montana beef.
Sienna longed for a medium-rare steak piled with fried mushrooms or ribs smothered in sauce all summer during barbecue season, and Thanksgiving would never be the same without the turkey.
But it wasn’t only that. She hated how she felt like her head was fuzzy all the time, like her brain was in dire need of something you can only get from a juicy piece of meat.
So every four weeks, she’d don a pair of sunglasses and a baseball cap, then drive to Reseda, where she would order the same thing—a Double Whopper with cheese, fries, and a chocolate shake.
She would park in the back corner of the parking lot, eat the entire thing, then quickly step outside to deposit all the evidence into the trash bin.
After that, she’d drive home with the windows rolled down to get rid of the smell.
Then she pulled into their driveway, back to her life of being a sanctimonious vegetarian, setting a ‘good example’ for the world.
She’d gone on her Burger King run three days earlier, but tonight she let herself do it again. She was starving, having not eaten since seven that morning, when she’d had a Slim-Fast strawberry shake and half a grapefruit. The rest of the day had gone by without a single thought of food.
Her sole focus was on how her life would forever be divided into two parts.
Before Zane told her and after. And here she had believed everything was getting better between them.
She’d just been saying to her best friend, Kylie, the week before, “Zane is a changed man. I don’t know what happened.
Maybe it’s a midlife crisis or something, but he’s different now.
He’s the husband I always knew he could be. ”
Kylie had given her a skeptical look, and Sienna could tell her friend thought she should probe a little to find out what had brought on such a change.
But Sienna didn’t want to know. She would do what she had always done with her husband.
She’d take him as he was, because that was what marriage was all about.
Unconditional love. Accepting your partner for who they were, not who you wanted them to be.
But this? This was too much. He’d fathered a child with someone Sienna had thought was a friend.
Well, maybe not a friend, but an ally, anyway.
Claudia was someone she’d invited into their home on numerous occasions.
A confidant who knew how hard it was to have her husband leave so often.
How lonely it could be. How much the kids missed their dad and how exhausting it was to fill in for him.
And Claudia had been so sympathetic, so sweet that Sienna was certain she had Sienna’s back when they were out on the road.
Only that wasn’t the case, was it?
When was the last time she saw Claudia? Was she already pregnant? Had the affair started? She couldn’t piece it together right now. Her brain was too exhausted. She needed to eat. Then it would come to her.