Page 6 of Falling Madly
He shook his head in slow motion. A tendon on his neck twitched. “That’s messed up. Did ye already buy the tickets?”
“Not yet.”
Thank God we hadn’t.
My phone rang, and I jumped at the sound. Richard. I stared at the screen, contemplating my options. Did I need to talk to him? Did I need to know how long he’d been seeing her or how and when he’d been planning to tell me? Nothing would changethe outcome. There was nothing he could say that would lessen the pain. There was plenty he could say to make it worse.
Trevor glanced at the phone in my hands. “Ye don’t have to talk to him. Ye can block his number. Or does he have a lot of yer stuff?”
“No.” I rejected the call, feeling a tad lighter.
I didn’t need anything from Richard. I could imagine how badly he wanted to explain himself, justify his actions and part amicably. That was his MO—calm and rational. “We’re all adults here,” he’d always say. If I didn’t give him a chance, he’d be left without closure. He’d be judged by his actions—actions he couldn’t caption with his version of the truth. Denying him that was a small act of defiance, but it gave me back an ounce of control and I almost smiled.
Trevor drove in silence as I sanitized my phone of all things Richard—blocked his number and email, blocked him on all social apps, and finally, entered my photo gallery. I browsed the evidence of our time together, wondering if it had all been a lie.
The trips to the farmer’s market for the perfect focaccia. Movie nights with wine and low-calorie snacks, watching the latest art films so that Richard could “keep up”. He didn’t want to see them in the cinemas though, so we watched bootlegged copies. I’d hated it, but I’d loved sitting on his comfy couch, eating three flavors of popcorn and feeling like I wasn’t a lonely weirdo, because I had a boyfriend.
We’d only taken one proper trip, to a bed and breakfast in Maine where he’d had food poisoning and I’d bought him a bottle of Moxie neither of us could finish. After that, he’d wanted me to join his family on Thanksgiving, planning a long journey to their suburban home in Connecticut, where we were to sleep on the couch and possibly babysit his little sister I’d never met, so that his parents, who I’d also never met, could have a date night. Maybe I should have agreed, but it had felt like too much.Something you should only do if you were deeply in love and fully committed.
I’d let him down as easy as I could, and maybe that had been the beginning of the end. He’d traveled by himself, stayed away for a week, calling to catch up only once. After that, he’d never again brought up the possibility of visiting family—mine or his. The only trip we’d talked about was the Bali one.
In November, my life had been swallowed up by the end-of-year rush. In advertising, the last months of the year were something to be survived rather than enjoyed. I’d made it through, leaning on my online chat with Trevor. After all, he was always there and claimed to have no life outside work, something I could relate to. In January, things had calmed down for me, but Richard had become busy, working late nights on a job that was so high profile and top secret he couldn’t tell me any details.
Cold sweat prickled on my neck. Carolyn. She was the late-night job, and I was an idiot.
With my phone Richard-free, I expelled a deep sigh and leaned my head against the seat.
“Ex-boyfriend digital bonfire?” Trevor asked.
“Yeah.”
“I’m trying to figure out when it started,” I confessed. “I don’t want to think about him. He doesn’t deserve my attention. But I can’t stop going over the timeline and trying to spot anything suspicious. Anything I should have noticed.”
“Ye wouldn’t notice anything. Cheaters are too good at acting normal.”
“You think he’s been at it the whole time?”
“Uh-huh.” He sounded so sure that my stomach tightened.
“Why? That could have been their first meeting we saw,” I argued.
“You need some build-up for that kind of PDA. Unless he’s paying her.”
“It’s his ex.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Really? Well, maybe they didn’t need that much build-up, then. Old flames…” He bit his lip, giving me a quick side-eye, and my breath seized.
Old flames.
Something twisted in my gut. Maybe not an old flame, but something old. And no matter how hard I tried to stop it; my mind drifted back to that night.
Chapter Three
Teresa
18 months ago
Iarrived at our client’s penthouse apartment in my sequin-adorned little black dress, ready to impress. The party was in full swing, with the thumping bass and laughter reaching my ears before the elevator doors even opened.
