Page 47 of Denim & Diamonds

“And how long ago did you divorce?”

“Everything was finalized a little more than three years ago.”

She nodded. “Can I ask what led to the divorce?”

“You can. But I’m not sure I’ll ever know the truth. Johnathan and I dated for seven years before we got married. He was my high school sweetheart. After the wedding, everything seemed to be going well, at least to me. We never really fought or anything like that. Then one night, he told me he didn’t love me the way a husband should love a wife. At first, I blamed myself. My business had just started to take off, and I worked a lot. I sometimes didn’t get home until eight or nine, and I went into the office on the weekends. Johnathan put in a lot of hours, too, but not as many as me. I suggested we go to counseling, but he didn’t want to try. He basically gave me the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ speech.

“After he moved out, I beat myself up over the things I should’ve done. I could’ve come home to cook dinner once in a while, and I shouldn’t have stopped wearing pretty lingerie to bed like I’d done before we were married. I thought I’d made my husband feel neglected.” I stopped and stared out the window. “Then two months after our divorce was finalized, I had lunchwith Ilona—my best friend. As soon as we sat down, she started to cry and told me she and Johnathan were seeing each other.”

Trinity blinked. “Your ex-husband is marrying your best friend?”

“Myex-best friend now. But yeah.” I took a deep breath in and blew it out. “Ilona and I had been best friends since elementary school. She swore up and down that nothing happened with Johnathan until after we were divorced. But I’ll never know the truth.”

“I’m very sorry that happened to you. It must’ve been a difficult time in your life.”

I shrugged. “It was. Thankfully, I had my work to keep me busy.”

“How did Johnathan leaving make you feel?”

I thought back, something I didn’t do often. “Alone, I guess. Abandoned. I remember one day I was looking at some old pictures of my mom. They were taken a few months after my dad left us for another woman. And I thought to myself—Ifeellike shelookedat that time.”

“How old were you when your parents split up?”

“Twelve.”

Trinity opened her notebook and scribbled for a while.

I smiled sadly when she finally looked up. “You wrote an awful lot. Did you just figure out what Colonel Sanders put in his secret recipe for fried chicken?”

She smiled back. “Not quite. But I think we’ve gotten to the bottom of your commitment issues.”

“I didn’t realize I had commitment issues…”

“We’ve talked about a few men you’ve had flings with recently—Tobias, for example. But you haven’t dated anyone seriously since your divorce.”

“My work keeps me extremely busy. I don’t have time for a relationship.”

“Do you think it’s possible that you use work to avoid getting too involved with men because you’ve been hurt by the important ones in your life?”

I sighed once again. “I don’t know. Maybe? I honestly try not to think about my dad or Johnathan.”

“That’s understandable. But there’s a difference between not having time to date and notmakingtime to date. We’ve talked a lot about your job. If you wanted to, could you hire some sort of an operations manager to help shoulder some of the workload? Would that be financially possible?”

I had way more money than I had free time, so I nodded. “I could afford it. But it’s really difficult to find someone to trust to run a company you’ve built from the ground up.”

Trinity tilted her head. “Have you interviewed a lot of people for the position?”

Busted.She was a smart cookie, and I couldn’t help but smile. “Not a single damn one.”

Trinity chuckled. “Sometimes we tell ourselves we don’t have time to do the things we don’t want to do or that we’re scared to do. But it’s important to make time for the things that really matter in life. For example, our health, love, family, and personal development.”

I was quiet for a few moments. One thing I’d learned since arriving at Sierra was that the counselors often had a better perspective when looking at problems from a distance than the patients did close up. So I decided I might as well come clean on the rest of what was going on in my life.

“I started seeing someone recently.”

“Do you mean Tobias?”

I shook my head. “No. Brock. He’s really great.”

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