Page 158 of Lovers' Dance: Vol. 2

“Trust me,” I said with a trembling voice as I walked towards him. “Trust us.”

The anger on his face wavered for a moment over my poignant words. They were his words. During the course of our relationship, whenever my doubts threatened to derail us, he would always say that. And I swallowed my fears and did. I trusted him, trustedus. Now it was his turn to reciprocate. He needed to trust me. Matt swallowed hard. I saw his internal battle etched on every fibre of his being as I stopped a few steps in front of him and waited for him to accept the fact our love was stronger than anything else. That together we could deal with any problem.

Then he said, “George has packed a bag for you. I need you to not be here right now. I need time.”

There it was. The death knell of my absolute faith in him. I couldn’t breathe, so sharp was the pain in my chest. He needed time. Everything was always onhistime. Almost everything he asked of me, I did. The one timeIneeded him to trust me…he couldn’t do it. Staggering back as if shot, I turned and fled the room. In a blur I found myself back in the foyer, snatching up my keys and bag, I didn’t even spare a minute to put on shoes before running out the front door. It was one rule for him and another for me. I guess when it came right down to it, Matt patently felt I had yet to earn his unconditional trust, something I gifted to him without question from the very first moment we met. I had done nothing wrong, had given him no reason to ever doubt me; yet here I was, speeding away in my Cayenne sans footwear and feeling very much dead on the inside. A few frigging photos,fakephotos might I add, I didn’t care if he had NASA look over them, and my husband was willing to believe the worst of me. That wasn’t a marriage, that wasn’t love; that was usplaying pretend…

The drive to my old home barely registered. To be honest, there was nowhere else for me to go. When Dante opened the door, I was reluctant to just use my key in case Christine was there and they were bumping pelvises; when he opened the door and saw me standing outside without shoes he freaked. Who could blame him? You knew some funky shit must have gone down for any woman to leave home without shoes on her feet. Well, he freaked, I burst into tears like a sap, and that resulted in us sat on the couch eating carrot sticks and salsa. Thank God, Christine wasn’t there.

“I’m going over.” Dante said for the tenth time. “Have a man-to-man chat with him. Didn’t I tell you he was crazy? I told you he was a crazy ass.”

I sniffed and crunched on my carrot.

“Are you surehedidn’t have something to do with this? It all seems suspect to me.” Dante continued to rant. “Where did he get these pictures from? You saidhesaid someone confirmed it wasn’t fake? Who? Nah man. That doesn’t sound right to me. How could he even think you would cheat?” Dante peered at me for a moment, a short suspicious moment; then he shook his head. “There’s no way you’d do that. He’s a crazy ass.”

It warmed my heartsomeone knew I wasn’t the type of person to cheat, shame my husband didn’t know it.

“He said he needs time,” I advised morosely.

Dante snorted and dipped his carrot stick into the salsa before taking a bite. We both fell silent, crunching away together. My gaze wandered around the living room. I missed this house, this sofa, the coffee table…what the? Who cracked the edge of my coffee table?

“I’m telling you, sweet cheeks,” Dante resumed speaking. “It sounds fishy to me. Are you sure Matt’s not behind this?”

Waving a carrot stick at my friend, I said, “However crazy Matt’s acting right now, I know he would never do something this underhand. If he was unhappy with me, he’d just tell me point-blank.”

It was the truth. Matt didn’t play games like these.

“What if-” Dante’s full lips were stretched into an unhappy line.Whatever new theory he’d thought of I didn’t want to hear.

“D, please. Right at this moment I just want to not think. I’m sure once he’s had a good night sleep, he’ll realize how ridiculous this whole thing is.”

Dante heard the pleading in my voice and patted my cheek in a show of support. “You know it’s the money, don’t you? Rich people are insane. Just look at you.”

“What?” I dropped my half-bitten carrot stick in the dip and frowned at my best friend.

Dante shrugged then poked my shoulder. “Hell, you were a millionaire at eighteen, and trust me when I say you were crazy. You still are.”

Only a best friend could get away with a comment like that. Dante was lucky I was still reeling from the blow out with my husband. Uncurling myself from the sofa I stood up and stretched.

“Is the guest room set up? I need some sleep.”

Dante’s eyebrows shot up as he too got to his feet. “I don’t use your old bedroom. This is still your house.”

I sighed, leaned in for a quick hug from Dante, then headed for the stairs. A good night’s sleep cured all ills. Tomorrow I would call Matt and tell him to act right. Forget his request for time. Why should I give it to him when he hardly ever gave me any? No, tomorrow I would take a page out of his book and issue demands. Tomorrow I was going to behave like a bloody Bradley.

“Madi,” Gloria waltzed into my office holding some letters. I hoped they weren’t bills. “I just came off the phone with The Royal Ballet. Someone needs to go down there and check out our stage props for the production.”

With haggard eyes I watched her place the bunch of mail on my desk and nodded quickly before turning back to the computer screen in front of me.

“And I’ve sent out the circular to the parents of the children’s classes concerning the chicken pox,” she advised me. “Another pupil has caught it.”

“Thanks, hon,” I muttered, glad that was one task I didn’t have to add to my plate.

“I’ve also scheduled an assessment class this coming Saturday for Jiao. Did I pronounce that right? Anyway, either you or Dante will need to be here to observe her in action. I have a good feeling about her, Madi. She’ll mesh well with the other instructors. Her references all check out by the way.”

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