Chapter 13 #3
Dominique went to the office. She called Andrew, her ex-husband, and told him the follow-up and that Taylor had been arrested.
He said he’d take Felicity to lunch when she felt up to it.
It wasn’t enough but it was something. Dominique met Bill at her apartment after work.
He spent the night with her and didn’t rush back to Greenwich the next day.
He had left one of the nurses in charge.
He had told Eileen he was still going to help her with her recovery, but he wasn’t going to be there 24/7 anymore.
She needed to hire more nurses or nurses’ aides, and he needed to get back to his office at least part-time, and to spend nights in the city.
He planned to spend four or five nights a week with Dominique for now.
And he and Eileen had to face the state of their marriage.
He was willing to give her his half of the house in Greenwich in a divorce, but they couldn’t continue living together.
It was unhealthy for both of them. They had been living a lie for years.
Much to his surprise, Eileen didn’t disagree, and she was grateful for the time he had devoted to her recovery.
She realized now that she had expected a lot of him.
Too much. And he had allowed himself to drift for years before that.
He had almost lost Dominique because of it, and he wasn’t going to let that happen.
It took two of Dominique’s assistants the entire week to unwind all of the details of the wedding.
The flowers were donated to nursing homes, the food to soup kitchens.
The rented decorations were sent back. They recouped a few deposits that were eligible, and she swallowed the loss, which was enormous, but Felicity was safe and alive.
That was worth any price. Dominique didn’t care how much money she lost, as long as Felicity could recover and be whole again.
She had a bright future ahead of her now without Taylor.
“So, are we ready for our next wedding?” Dominique asked her assistants, Sylvia and Janine, with a rueful smile when she got to her office at the end of the week.
“We still have my mother’s wedding to do,” she reminded them.
“That won’t be nearly as dramatic. And we should be able to pull that off in Saint-Tropez with family only.
We’re staying at some enormous villa that my mother’s fiancé rented for everyone.
And I’d like to rent a boat we can all use in the daytime.
We’ll figure it out. It’s not for another month.
” The two young women groaned and she handed them lists of the research she wanted them to do on the boat, a florist, a caterer, and a small band.
A month wasn’t long to plan even a small wedding.
It was already the twenty-sixth of June, and Marie-Aurélie and Clément were getting married in the third week of July.
In the meantime, Bill stayed with Dominique in the city, and rented a comfortable house in East Hampton where they could spend weekends.
It wasn’t grand or overdecorated or glamorous, just sun and sand and basic furniture, a comfortable place to relax, which they both needed.
They spent their first weekend there on the Fourth of July, two weeks after the ill-fated wedding, and it was a piece of heaven.
During the week he went to Greenwich several times to oversee Eileen’s nursing care, and make sure she was well cared for.
Her period of bed rest was almost over, the doctors said she could get up soon, and she was greatly improved.
What Dominique and Bill wanted to do was slow things down just to catch their breath, enjoy life more than they’d been doing, be together, and relax after a hard week, and the house Bill had rented in East Hampton was perfect for that.
Suddenly in the past two weeks everything was moving quickly and big changes had occurred.
Greenwich was Eileen’s turf, and he didn’t want it to be his anymore.
He and Dominique were amazed at how easily they adjusted to each other on a daily basis, and how well they got along.
It was as though they had always lived together.
They had always gotten along well on their two one-nighters every week.
Now they had extended it, and it was that much better, and her kids were happy for her.
She had been alone for so long. It was her mother who had been the catalyst for wanting more, and realizing she deserved it.
Eileen’s accident had torn Dominique and Bill apart initially, but created the impetus for the biggest change of all.
Bill was getting a divorce in order not to lose Dominique.
He regretted all the years he had wasted, but they were together now, and he realized how precious she was to him.
And he was deeply sorry for Felicity, and taking care of all the legalities for her.
Eileen had asked him if there was another woman, and he had been honest with her and said there was, without offering details, and she said she had suspected it but didn’t want to know.
She wasn’t bitter about it. They were both ready to let go.
She said she wouldn’t have been ready before her accident, but it had been a wake-up call to her too, and she wanted more of a life now.
With both boys in college, she wanted to travel and be free for a while.
In the end, the divorce was a blessing for all three of them, Eileen, Bill, and Dominique.