by Mary Campisi
“I appreciate your need to enlighten me on your past relationship with my husband, but you’re forgetting one important fact.” She squared her shoulders, leveled her voice. “Nate chose me.”
“Chose. An interesting term.” Nate’s ex-lover eased back against the cushion, the very spot where Christine and Nate first made love, and shrugged. “He chose his first wife, too, or maybe circumstances did. We’d had a horrible fight, and she was in the right place. Patrice. Did he tell you about her? It didn’t last, though. We both knew it couldn’t, no matter how much he told himself it would. The second she left him, he came right back to me. Stayed, too.”
Her voice gentled. “And then you came with your fancy education and prim ways. Oh, I’ll bet that turned him around. He probably didn’t know quite what to make of you. I imagine it was a real thrill to bed the daughter of a man he hated so much, but it won’t be any different with you, Christine. You can call yourself Mrs. Desantro all you want because Nate will come back to me. I understand him, understand what he needs, and I can give it to him. We belong together; we always will.”
“Get out.” Christine stood, sipped what bits of air were left in the room. “Now.”
Natalie sighed and stood, grabbing her tote. “The truth is always hard to swallow when you’re so hell-bent on denying it. But,” she opened her tote and pulled out a manila envelope, “I’ll just leave you with these in case you have any doubt or any questions.” She worked her lips into a tight smile. “But I think they’re pretty self-explanatory.” She handed the envelope to Christine who took it and tossed it on the chair. “Thanks for the water, Mrs. Desantro.” With that, she headed for the door and slipped out.
Christine waited until Natalie Servetti’s car rumbled down the driveway before she snatched the envelope and sank into the chair. The contents of the envelope would be dangerous, no doubt intended to poison Christine and Nate’s relationship or, at the very least, damage it. The wise action would be to throw it in the fire pit outside and watch the flames destroy Natalie Servetti’s attempt to hurt them. She traced the edges of the envelope, caught between logic and emotion. Logic told her to get rid of the insidious poison fast, that one more minute in her hands could prove deadly. Emotion demanded she rip it open, right now, and deal with whatever smoldered inside.
Minutes passed as Christine battled between trust and doubt. Nate would not betray her. He loved her. He wanted a life with her. People like Natalie Servetti thought nothing of destroying lives to get what they wanted. The contents of this envelope were merely one jealous woman’s attempt to take something that didn’t belong to her. Nate would not betray their love. Whatever was inside might make her doubt him, and he’d done nothing to deserve that. She closed her eyes, rubbed her belly. They were going to have a baby and she’d planned to tell him tonight as soon as he walked in the door. They would talk about a nursery, names, and how to tell Miriam, Lily, and Uncle Harry. She opened her eyes, stared at the clasp on the envelope. If she peeked inside, the contents would leach into her brain. If she did not, the wondering could prove worse. Before she could torment herself with more doubt, she unfastened the clasp and slid the contents onto her lap.
Natalie had been correct. There was no need for explanation, not when the colored glossies included half-naked shots of Nate sprawled on a couch, jeans undone, ex-lover on top of him. There were six photos, 5x7s, with a date stamp of last Tuesday in the bottom right corner. Had someone taken these? Had Nate been drugged, forced, coerced? If only it could be that simple, but that happened in books and the movies. Real life was more deceitful, more tragically sad. Christine studied each photo, memorized the scrap of dark skin exposed by the half-unbuttoned shirt—the shirt she’d bought him for Christmas. His eyes were closed in all of the photos—to pretend he was somewhere else, somebody else? The last photo honed in on his left hand and the absent wedding band. Nate had told her he didn’t wear his ring at work because the risk of getting a finger caught in a machine was too great. He’d said he carried it in his right jeans pocket to have it close. Apparently he took it off when he was working on other things, too, like Natalie Servetti.
Hope for a future with him burned that afternoon along with the forgotten pork roast. Christine slid the photos back into the manila envelope and refastened the clasp. The images were part of her memories now, as permanent and painful as the moment in Thurmon Jacobs’s office when she’d discovered her father had a secret family. Another betrayal, as heartbreaking as the first. Was she doomed to care about people who disregarded her? Or was she simply unlovable? Maybe the people she cared about were too invested in their own wants to consider her at all. That possibility was the most painful.
She clutched the corner of the envelope when Nate’s truck rumbled up their drive a half hour later. Time for the truth. She didn’t move when the truck door slammed and he bounded up the steps, whistling. Nor did she speak when he thrust open the door and burst in, calling, “Christine! Ready for your surprise? Whew! What burned? Christine?” He glanced toward the kitchen, spotted her in the chair, and rushed over. “What’s wrong?”
How did a person pretend such concern when it was all a grand show? Had he thought she’d never find out? And now he stood over her, dark eyes filled with worry, mouth pulled into a straight line, body tense. At this moment, she didn’t even hate him; that would come later when the numbness wore off and she understood what he’d taken from her.
“Baby.” He knelt and placed a big hand on her leg. She cringed. Baby was gone. “What happened?”
“I had a visitor today.” Spoken with such control, as though her heart had not been shattered by six photos.
“Oh?” He raised a brow, waited. When she didn’t continue, he stroked her left knee. “Who came? It better not have been your mother.”
She glanced at his hand on her knee, the glint of a wedding band shining back at her in betrayal and deceit. Their vows had been nothing more than words strung together, one after the other, to produce a pleasant sound that held no meaning. At least not for Nate. Whatever happened once he saw the photos would be a lie. The truth spoke from the glossies, forcing her to acknowledge she didn’t know the man she married, not at all.
“No, not my mother.” She handed him the envelope. “Natalie Servetti came to see me.”
“What?” His eyes narrowed on the envelope as though it might strangle him. “What did she want?”
He could pretend annoyance, even disgust, but he couldn’t pretend what was in those photos: unzipped jeans, half-open shirt, ex-lover crawling on top of him. She nodded at the envelope. “She wanted to give us a belated wedding present.”
Nate snatched the envelope and jerked open the clasp. He pulled out the photos, his face growing paler as he flipped through them. “What the hell is this?” He stuffed the photos back in the envelope and threw it across the room. “Christine, listen to me, I have no idea what those are.”
“Really? I have a pretty good idea what they are and I wasn’t even there.”
“This is crazy. It’s a set-up.” His dark eyes grew wild and bright. “I didn’t do anything with her.” He placed his hands on either side of the chair, leaned closer. “I swear to God, on our marriage, I never touched her.”
“Never?” Why did people think they could lie their way out of the truth just because the other person loved them? “That’s a strong word, and that is not what Natalie Servetti told me,” she paused, “in fairly intimate detail.”
“She’s a liar. She wants to break us up.” His voice dipped, turned desperate. “There’s been no one since you; you’ve got to believe me.”
“But you were with her before, weren’t you?” She had no business asking but she wanted to hear him say it. Probably so she could torment herself with it.
A slow flush crept up his neck, landed on his cheeks. “We were together, but we weren’t together, if that makes any sense.”
“You mean you had sex with her but she wasn’t your girlfriend.
”
The flush spread to his ears. “Yeah.”
“The nights away these past few weeks, the Saturdays, you were with her, weren’t you?”
“No!” He actually sounded mortified and disgusted. “I love you. I don’t want anybody else.” His voice dipped, softened. “Only you. You’ve got to know that.”
A tiny part of her wanted to believe his sincerity, but that was the problem when lies seeped into relationships. Nothing could be trusted anymore. Everything was suspect. “The photos are time-stamped with last Tuesday’s date.”
“I never touched her.” His gaze pulled her in. “I’ve been working in her brother’s shop these past few weeks, making your surprise.” He looked away, ran a hand through his dark hair. “I hated telling you I was at work, but I couldn’t risk ruining the surprise. Natalie showed up last week, started saying ridiculous things. I told her I was married and I wasn’t interested. She asked me to have a beer with her, for old times’ sake, she said. I remember thinking I could drink the beer fast and get out. And then she started crying, I think, and after that I don’t remember anything until I woke up a few hours later. She had to have drugged me and taken the pictures then.”
“Please. Don’t insult me.” Drugging and photos? “Nice company you keep.”
He ignored her. “I know she did it. What I haven’t figured out is who helped her, and why.”
“Why don’t we call her up and ask her?”
He threw her a disgusted look. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with her but she’s avoiding me.”
“Hmm. Well, she wasn’t avoiding me. Obviously.” The whole scene was too much. Adultery, lies, betrayal. “It doesn’t matter.” Her gaze slid to his belt and she imagined Natalie undoing it, reaching for his zipper…Her stomach lurched and for the first time since he’d entered the house, she thought of the baby. Pain and loss seared her heart.
“What do you mean, it doesn’t matter?” he asked. “It does matter. We have to talk about it, get it out in the open, and deal with it.” He touched her hand and she yanked it away. “Like adults.” He paused, his words spilling out in what seemed like pain. “Like people in love.”
Christine dragged her gaze to his. “I need time.” She flipped to business mode because that was her comfort zone; that’s where she couldn’t get hurt. “I’ll move out.”
“What? What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’ll move out,” she repeated, not looking at him.
“You can’t leave. We have to get this straightened out.” His voice cracked. “I love you. I did not touch her.”
“I hear what you’re saying, but I know what I saw. I need time away from you to sort this out.”
“And I don’t have a goddamn say in any of this?” Anger seeped through his desperation.
She wanted him to feel her pain, know what it was like when someone ripped your heart apart. “You’ve done enough, don’t you think?”
Nate backed away. “What are you going to do when you find out this was all a set-up and you didn’t trust me enough to believe me? How are you going to fix us then?”
Chapter 9
“Nathan?”
It was his mother. Damn. Christine hadn’t been gone two hours and Miriam was at his door, and he’d bet she had a thing or two to say to him. He should have gone straight to Jack Daniels instead of beer; that way he’d be so mellow by now, he wouldn’t care what his mother said. Hell, he probably wouldn’t even hear what she said. But he hadn’t. He’d sat around like a fool, nursing a beer and hoping his mother had convinced Christine to come home and talk it out. That’s what married people did, wasn’t it? Forget married, wasn’t that what people in love did, so they stayed in love?
“Nathan.” His mother stood before him, hands on hips, frown on her lips. “How could you?”
How could I? His own mother thought he’d done the deed with Natalie. “Hi, Ma,” he said, lifting his beer and taking another swig.
She advanced on him, the frown deepening. “You’re my son and I love you with my whole heart, but dear Lord, what have you gone and done?”
It was a sad commentary when your own mother thinks you’re guilty of a crime you didn’t commit. What about faith in humanity, trust, and commitment to one another? Was that only good so long as there wasn’t a speck of doubt?
“Answer me, Nathan.”
“What did Christine tell you?”
“When she could talk between her hysterical crying, she told me about you and Natalie.” Her voice shook with anger and disappointment. “And the pictures,” she spat out. “You and Christine were perfect together. Why did you have to go and ruin it? Could you not let yourself be happy, just this once?”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Ma. Every son should be so lucky to have you by his side.”
She shook her head and paced the room as though she were a ball of energy about to explode. When she landed near him, she touched his arm and said in a gentle voice, “A mother knows her children, their good qualities, and their weaknesses. I love you, Nathan; I’ve loved you when you were hard to love and when you didn’t even like yourself. And I will love you until I draw my last breath because that’s what a mother does, but I can’t stand by and watch you destroy the best thing that’s ever happened in your life.” She clutched his hand, squeezed. “Christine’s heart is breaking right now, she doesn’t know what to think, what to feel.” She sighed. “And neither do I.”
Nate sucked in a deep breath and looked into her eyes. Bloodshot, puffy. She was trying to keep the tears in, but he’d bet she’d already shed a fair amount, and he was the cause. Seeing her like this reminded him of all the times Charles Blacksworth left her behind and all the tears she shed for him. “I didn’t do it, Ma.”
Her bottom lip trembled, and she nodded. “But how do you explain the photos, Nathan? That’s what’s so hard to get past.” He glanced at the manila folder lying on the floor where he’d thrown it. The truth was in those photos and he’d find it.
“I knew that Servetti girl was trouble the first time I laid eyes on her at St. Gertrude’s. She was still in high school, but you’d have thought she was twenty-two with the way she wore her makeup and those skirts hiked up to her behind. And the men that trailed after her like she was offering a piece of candy,” she paused and scowled, “which I’m sure she was.”
“Do we have to talk about this now?”
She threw him one of her “if you had used better judgment, we wouldn’t have to talk about it” looks. “Yes. We do. Your refusal to have a real relationship made you think you could call her when you wanted something”—the look again—“and discard her when you didn’t. I’ll bet she didn’t see it that way. I’ll bet she thought since you went back to her after Patrice, you’d end up with her again after Christine.”
“I don’t care what she thinks. She can go to hell. I’m not interested.” I have a wife, a woman I love.
“This is a big mess, Nathan, and I don’t know how you are going to get out of it, but you’d better find a way.” She sighed, rubbed her temples. “I have no idea what to tell Lily.”
“You can’t tell her.”
“She’s no fool. How long do you think she’ll buy Christine’s ‘I missed you and wanted to spend time together’ before she starts asking more questions?”
“Don’t tell her.” Lily was all that was good and pure and he would not have her heart tarnished by something as nasty as this.
“I don’t plan to, but you better think of something.” She shrugged. “Tell her you’re sanding the floor or painting or doing something that would require Christine to stay at the house. And you’d better come for dinner and spend a little time there or Lily will get suspicious. You know how she is.”
“And Christine’s okay with this?” She didn’t want him in the next state, let alone at the same dinner table.
“I’ll talk to her. In the meantime, you’d better find this Servetti girl and get your stories strai
ght.”
What did she mean by that? “Ma? You don’t think I cheated on Christine, do you?” When she didn’t answer, he knew she didn’t believe him. “I see.”
“You and Christine are good for each other. I don’t want to see bad judgment on your part ruin your lives.”
Bad judgment? She really thought he’d done it. “Don’t you think it’s odd that Natalie waited until now to come after me? Why not before Christine and I got married? There was plenty of time and Natalie was around. She was shacked up with Alec Mentino until a few months ago.”
Miriam sighed. “Which only goes to show you should never have taken up with her in the first place.”
He was not going to have a discussion with his mother about his past hook-ups. “I think somebody put her up to it.”
“A set-up?” Her hazel eyes widened at the possibility. His mother was so naïve to the darkness that lived in people.
He nodded. “Yeah, a set-up. Think about it. If somebody wanted to come between me and Christine, what better way than to insert a woman from my past, have her drug me, and take pictures that reek of infidelity.”
“Nathan, do you know what you’re saying?”
Her tone implied he was either desperate or a hair short of crazy. It did not imply she believed him.
“Natalie was too anxious to get me to have that beer. I was on my way out the door, but she insisted, said for old times’ sake and all that crap. I know she did it. You don’t black out after one beer and wake up not remembering anything. She had the perfect opportunity to do anything she wanted.”
His mother’s expression softened as though she wanted to believe him. “That woman has never been one of my favorite people, but drugging someone and taking pictures? That’s a pretty big accusation.”
“She didn’t act alone. I’ll bet it wasn’t even her idea, but I plan to find out who’s behind this, and when I do, it won’t be pretty.” His gut filled with the gnawing possibility that Gloria Blacksworth was behind this trouble, and if intuition proved correct, heaven help her.
