Page 112 of The Marriage Narrative
“What are you doing here? Mabel said you weren’t coming.”
Camera pods had them in frame from both angles to make sure not a single eye twitch was missed.
“That was true. I was invited, and then I had this weird scheduling conflict so I had to cancel, but somehow, that cleared up about an hour ago. I’m feeling a lot like Cinderella at the moment.”
Jordan wanted to scream. He’d almost had a heart attack when Bea walked up to him. This is what he got for letting his guard down. He fought with everything he had to keep a straight face—the network wouldn’t get a single ounce of the boiling rage consuming him forZaffre Hours.
Shetsked. “I know you’re not still mad at me.”
“I wasn’t mad at you then. You broke my fucking heart, Bea. What made you think I was angry at you?”
“Ithinkabout us all the time,” she said, wistful as all get out. “I was honestly shocked when I heard you got married. I didn’t realize how much I was in denial about our story being over. We made a mistake back then.”
“If a mistake was made, it wasn’t by me. You knew what you wanted.”
“We were babies. We didn’t know anything.”
Jordan almost laughed, wondering if she realized that they were both speaking in sound bites. A civil conversation between exes for public consumption. If he’d really needed closure, he wouldn’t have gotten it here.
He peeked behind the curtain—Zinnia was okay. She was walking away from the twins’ table with his mom. “So, you would change the past, then?” he asked Bea.
Her clear hesitation was all the answer he needed. Exactly what he expected.
“We needed time apart,” she recovered quickly. “I don’t think either of us thought it’d be forever. We needed to grow up to find each other again.”
“No.” Sometimes, blunt really was best.
“You never stopped loving me.” Bea said it as if it was some grand revelation. “Do you love her the way you loved me?”
Nowthatwas a question he wanted to answer. He knew the perfect thing to say. “I don’t need to because I grew up. I found her. I trust her.”
“Love is more than justtrustingsomeone, Alfie.”
He scoffed. “I don’t love you anymore, Bea.”
“Why would you say that? Are you trying to hurt me?”
“No.” He shook his head. “The truth is that I’ve compared every person I’ve ever dated to you. They’ve never measured up. I always found something that you did slightly better than them.”
Her eyes lit up with startled hope.
“But Zinnia,my wife, is incomparable. She challenged me to think about love and commitment differently from the start. Getting to know her changed the way I think about my life and how I fit into my family’s life. I love her in a way that I’ve never loved anyone.”
When Zinnia watched this moment months from now, she’d immediately pick up on the secret clue he’d planted and laugh. No one else would get it—an inside joke just for them while the world watched.
Bea was blinking back tears. “You honestly expect me to believe you magically moved ontwo weeksbefore we were supposed to meet again?”
Those acting lessons were really paying off.
He didn’t want to hurt her or seem cruel, but he needed to befirm. When he looked at her, he only saw someone he used to love. He needed her to understand that. In this moment, he needed to convince the world.
“I hope you have a long, happy, and successful life, Bea,” he said, meaning it. “But I don’t want you in mine.”
Chapter 27
Zinnia
Her marriage hadan Open Door clause for moments like these.
