by Kennedy Fox
Looking sorry, Jane grabbed her phone off the table and dashed out of the room to talk to her husband. I finished mangling ribbon on the last few packages, trying not to cry as the snow started coming down even harder. For a few minutes, all I could see was that first night. The way he had chased me into the Commons in the middle of the blizzard. The way both of us had been completely starstruck by one another, snowstorm or not.
What I wouldn’t give to feel a little bit of that magic right now.
Jane returned a few minutes later, overnight bag in hand, jacket on, but looking regretful. “He called. A car will be here in a few minutes to take me to Logan,” she confirmed. “That control freak already has a charter on standby. Can you believe that?”
“That’s not controlling. It’s thoughtful.”
I glanced at my phone, which had sat silent since Brandon’s text, sent around two, informed me he would be home late tonight. Again. And broken my heart a little with each curse word.
Jane paused on her way to collect her things from the solarium. “I hate to leave you like this, though. And a few days before Christmas… Sky, I can stay. Really. Eric can come here.”
I waved away her concerns. “I’ll be fine.” Lies, all lies. “I won’t say anything until after the holidays anyway. The kids will be back tomorrow, I’ve got a mountain of Santa stuff to do, and I’ll be too busy to think about whether my husband is sleeping around.”
Or, I thought, with whom.
Chapter Two
Maybe that would be true for the next day, but it wasn’t true for tonight. After Jane left, I waited a bit for Brandon to return from his day’s “errands” before I finally gave up around eight, heated up some Chinese leftovers, and buried myself in our king-sized bed. I was impossible not to feel desperate while I watched old movies and hugged his Brandon-scented pillow to my face. I felt like an idiot while I watched Rosalind Russell spar with Cary Grant and wished desperately my sparring partner would return.
Even when we fought, we fought together. But now he wasn’t here to do that.
I was wrong when I told Jane I would be fine. I wasn’t going to be fine. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not on the inevitable day when Brandon finally fessed up to whatever he had been doing behind my back.
That’s the thing about giving your heart to someone else so completely. They can smash it into pieces whenever they like.
I fell asleep sometime around when, in the middle of my Cary Grant double feature, he was asking Deborah Kerr to meet him at the top of the Empire State Building. Dreams of another proposition haunted my restless mind.
You’ll come over Friday nights. Every other Saturday as long as my schedule permits.
* * *
You’ll have an allowance for whatever clothes and salon services you need. You’ll benefit too.
* * *
You want me to be your mistress.
* * *
Should we establish a rate, Mr. Sterling? A Harvard brain like mine doesn’t come cheap, you know.
* * *
Well, it’s not really your brain I’m after right now, Red.
“Fuck you!” I shouted into the darkness, waking up only to realize that it was nearly midnight. And the other side of our plush, king-sized bed was still empty, just like the rest of the house.
None of the tiny sounds of family filtered through the halls. No breathing of kids, the occasional bump as someone moved in their sleep. I was in this big house, on this dark property, all by myself. So very, very alone.
Maybe, my subconscious told me, that’s all you were ever meant to be. You work too hard. You didn’t want to stay home with your kids. Maybe they resent you for it. Maybe Brandon resents you for it. That’s why he’s leaving you.
That’s why he’s left.
My stomach immediately tied itself into a very uncomfortable knot. I felt sick.
Suddenly, my phone buzzed loudly on the nightstand. Sweaty and disheveled, I grabbed at it as soon as I saw the number and the bright, vibrant picture on the screen.
“Brandon? What’s going on? Where—where are you?”
“Hey, baby. I’m so sorry about tonight. Really, I am. And I know you’re probably crazy mad at me right now, but I need your help,” he said.
I sat up. “What is it? What happened?” I felt guilty about the relief flooding through me, but only just. There was a reason he was late. I should have known.
“My, um, car broke down in the snow. And I need you to come get me.”
And just like that, the relief was gone, replaced once again with that sinking, desperate feeling.
Suspicion.
“Where is David?” I asked about Brandon’s longtime driver.
“David went with the, uh, tow truck. Come on, Red, you know I don’t trust just anyone around the Mercedes.”
He was lying. My husband was many things, but a talented liar wasn’t one of them. He used to tease me for being the one with the glass face, but over the years, I’d come to read this man’s tics like a book. I’d bet anything that right now he was running his hand through his hair and staring out a window too.
He used to lie, though. My subconscious was waking up now too. He lied for months when you first met, remember?
“Can’t you just call a car?” I asked, sharp now. “You wake Margie up for a lot less.”
There was a long, guilty silence. He knew I was upset. Yeah, he knew I was on to him too.
“Please, Red,” he said finally. “Just come get me. I really need your help.”
Despite my anger and frustration, the low hum surrounding the familiar moniker had me rising out of bed. There was an urgency in his voice I hadn’t heard in years. Or maybe it was that deep down, I knew I couldn’t go back to sleep with this horrible feeling in my stomach.
It was bad news, probably.
He was nervous.
Oh God, this was it. I knew how Brandon worked. When something was on his conscience, he usually couldn’t wait until morning. This was the man who once stood outside in the rain for hours to confront me. All my plans to grin and bear it through the holidays were flying out the window. Whatever was happening to our marriage, we were apparently going to face it tonight.
“Send me the address,” I said, my voice low as the knot in my stomach tangled even more. “I’m on my way.”
Chapter Three
I took a little more time than I initially planned to leave the house. If I was meeting the end, I at least wanted to show the man what he was missing. Maybe I didn’t quite have the body of a twenty-six-year-old ingenue anymore, but I looked pretty damn good for an over-thirty mother of two, if I did say so myself. My deep red hair didn’t have that many gray hairs, and the tiny crow’s feet at my eyes were only visibly when I didn’t get enough sleep. Daily runs and swims kept my body almost as trim as it was when I first met my husband, and until recently, he had seemed to enjoy the fact on a regular basis.
I pulled on a pair of skin-tight black jeans that showed off the goods, evening my Sorel snow boots, then topped them with my favorite gray cardigan and a white shirt. If she were here, Jane would have teased me that my sweater was more appropriate for knitting than seducing my husband, but I happened to know Brandon appreciated the sexy librarian look, even if I had opted for contacts over glasses. Carefully, I lined my eyes with black, gave my lips a bit of the deep red lipstick I only wore on special occasions, and brushed my hair ferociously until it was a thick, glossy mane around my shoulders. When I looked in the mirror of my ensuite bathroom, I didn’t see a said, desperate, unwanted wife any longer. I saw a fierce woman who could take or leave any man.
Even someone once called Boston’s most eligible bachelor.
The address was for a brick building off Acorn Street, one of those buildings on Beacon Hill that looked like it sprang right out of a Longfellow poem. I half expected to see Paul Revere rounding the corner as I parked on Beacon and walked, not wanting to hazard driving over the crooked cobblestones. Snow was pil
ing inches thick now—by morning, I guessed the city would have close to a foot.
When I reached the address Brandon had given me on the mostly darkened street, I called him again, looking up at the darkened windows of the building for any sign of my errant husband.
What was he doing here? Was he confronting me with his infidelity? Showing me where he was going to live from now on?
You’re spiraling, Sky. This time is was Jane’s dry voice that grounded me.
Until, that is, my errant husband picked up the phone.
“Hey, Red.”
“Brandon?”
“You here?”
I shoved a toe of my boot into the snow. “I, um, yeah. I’m standing outside.”
“I’ll let you in. Apartment 3A.”
The call ended abruptly, leaving me even colder in the snow. A buzzer sounded at the door.
I walked to the top floor with dread sinking every step right along with the squeaking wood stairs. It was a gorgeous building, and maybe in another mood, I would’ve appreciate the old brick exterior, the polished oak rails, and the charm of the plaster walls. But by the time I reached the door bearing the number 3A in brass lettering, I was almost too drowned in my own misery even to knock.
But in the end, my curiosity got the better of me. If I was greeting the end of my life, I might as well do it with a stiff upper lip. I straightened, flipped my hair over my shoulder.
Brandon, however, couldn’t wait. Just as I raised my hand, the door swung open, and I was greeted by the sight of my very tired-looking, but still incredibly gorgeous husband.
Seven years after we first met, the sight of him still made me breathless. Six feet, four inches of muscled, gorgeous billionaire filled the doorway completely with a pair of shoulders that spanned the doorframe, denim-clad legs that went on for miles, and a jawline that, even at forty-five, could still cut glass. Sure, there were a few differences. His piercing blue eyes had a few more tiny crinkles at the edges. His thick, dirty blond waves that were always just slightly overgrown were now threaded with a bit of hidden silver here and there.
When I had first met him, I grew used to seeing him in the immaculately tailored suits he wore to the office as the CEO and name partner of two different firms. Now, retired to a self-funded lab where he tinkered with inventions most of the day, he wore a daily uniform of jeans, t-shirts, and his favorite old Red Sox cap. Either way, he was still the walking tower of charisma I’d fallen in love with from first moment I’d seen him.
But that face, as piercing as ever, wasn’t exactly smiling. In fact, it was downright unreadable.
“Took you long enough,” he said. “I was worried you got stuck in the snow too.”
I shook my head. Now that my breath had returned, I was apprehensive once more. “Um, no. Just drove slowly because of it. There is about four inches on the ground right now.”
This was awkward. So awkward. We had been together for nearly eight years, but here we were, discussing the weather.
“So, um, are you ready to go?” I wondered.
Brandon’s brow rose as he glanced behind him, then back at me. One hand was braced on the doorframe, and his forearm flexed with tension when he turned back, clearly wondering why I wasn’t giving him the third degree. After all, I’d given him hell for a lot less than missing our weekly date night. Certainly less than calling me to a strange apartment in the middle of the night.
What would he say, though, if he knew I was too scared to know the truth?
Brandon sighed. “Yeah, I’m about ready. But first…why don’t you come in for a second, Red?”
I blinked. And suddenly, I realized that was the very last thing I intended to do. “Um, no, that’s all right. If you’re ready, let’s just go.”
He frowned. “Um, I’m not. Actually, there is something I need to talk to you about.”
I shook my head woodenly, causing my hair to swish around my face. Oh God, this was it. I wanted to vomit. “No, let’s wait on it, please. It’s late. I’m sure you’re tired after you’re…night out.”
Brandon’s face screwed up with confusion. “Night out…what—you know what, it doesn’t matter.”
“No,” I agreed testily. “It doesn’t. Let’s go.”
“Skylar, this will really only just take a second. Why won’t you come in?”
“Because I don’t want to see the stupid love shack you’ve set up for yourself now that you’re leaving me!” I blurted out.
My voice bounced down the stairwell so loudly I thought it might crack the plaster. But the building remained silent. And now completely awkward.
When I looked back at him, Brandon’s smile was replaced by shock. “What?” he replied. “Leaving you? Skylar, what the hell are you talking about?”
I backed away. Great, so he was going to play dumb. Well, I was in no mood for that. Not tonight. “You know what, it really doesn’t matter. I don’t want to play games with you, Brandon. So I’m going to go…”
“Skylar—”
“Don’t.” I turned toward the stairs.
“Skylar, seriously, just come inside so we can talk about this.”
“I’m good.”
“Skylar!” He was getting incensed now. Enough that his south Boston accent, usually faint enough as to be indecipherable, was growing stronger. “Turn around and talk to me!”
“No!”
Like I was still a temperamental twenty-seven-year-old student and not the venerated lawyer and mother of two I was now, I turned and fled down the stairs.
“Goddammit, Skylar!”
I almost made it outside. Brandon had longer legs, but I was small and quick. Unfortunately, just when I reached for the door handle, I was grabbed from behind and swiftly whirled around against the glass.
“Let me see if I’ve got this straight,” Brandon said as he caged me with his big body, right there on the landing. “You come down here, with your hair all nice and your eyes all dark and those jeans you know drive me crazy. But you’re convince that I’m what, that I’ve been having an affair? That I’m going to leave you and the kids?” He swallowed. “Is that what you really think?”
I sniffed miserably. His scent surrounded me—almonds and soap, the same delicious combination that infused his pillow. This close, I could see the way the muscles of his neck strained with tension.
“People have done it before,” I said, willing my voice not to creak.
“We aren’t just people, Red,” Brandon replied, losing his own control quickly. “It’s you and me!”
“You’re going to wake up your new neighbors,” I mumbled weakly.
“My neighbors…” Brandon stared at me for a moment, then push off the wall, turned toward the mailboxes, and slammed his palm against the wall over the tops of them before whirling back around. “My neighbors? Jesus Christ, Skylar! Are you serious right now?”
“Stop shouting!” I ignored the fact that I was now yelling too. “I’m not the one who’s been gone constantly, you know. I’m not the one who missed our night together like it was nothing. If anyone should be mad, it’s me! So maybe you need to be a little more quiet!”
Brandon seethed. “I don’t give a fuck if I wake up all of Boston, baby. I’ll be as loud as I have to if that’s what it takes to convince my insane wife that I still love her.”
“God,” I snapped. “Some things never change, do they? You always do this. Just railroad over everything.”
He stepped toward me, shoulders moving like a panther on the hunt. My
“You didn’t seem to mind when I trampled you last week in the shoulder,” he remarked.
I bit my lip. No, he wasn’t going to get the best of me now. I squeezed my eyes shut. “Well, that was then. This is now. And I. Don’t. Want. To. Talk. About. It.”
“Stubborn,” Brandon muttered. “Just fine. You don’t have to talk about it. But you’re damn well going to see it.”
And before I could reply, suddenly I was tipped over my husband’s
shoulder, with one strong arm wrapped around my legs as he turned and started hoofing me back up the stairs.
“Hey!” I cried out, batting at his shoulder. “Let me down, you big oaf!”
“Not until you see what I have to show you.”
“What the hell! I don’t want to see your stupid love den! Put me down, Sterling!”
Brandon just jogged up the stairs, ignoring my smacks and attempted kicks. It made no difference, and I should have known it—the man was made of steel. Soon we reached the third floor, and he kicked open the door, which fell closed with a bang once we were finally inside.
I pressed my hands over my face. I was acting childish, I knew. But it was two—well, only one, now—days before Christmas. I wasn’t sure I could bear it if Santa left me a divorce under the tree.
“Come on, Red,” Brandon cajoled as he slid me down his hard body. “Open your eyes.”
Chapter Four
“Open your eyes, baby,” Brandon said again. “I have something I want you to see.”
“I don’t want to.” I was whimpering like our daughter did when we were trying to get her to eat something new. But I couldn’t help it. I was terrified.
“Please, Skylar,” Brandon hummed.
I took a deep breath as dread threatened to consume me. Then, at last, I removed my hands. And found myself standing in the middle of one of the most beautiful apartments I’d ever seen.
And felt like I’d been punched in the stomach.
Oh, God. He really was doing this. He was leaving me. And his children. At Christmas. And this was how he was going to tell me.
“This is it, huh?” I could barely speak. “The scene of the crime, so to speak?”
“Scene of the—“ Brandon shook his head. “You know what? No. I’m not going to dignify that with an answer.”
