She glanced up as a tall figure in a gray business suit cut through the crowd and strode toward her. Her heartbeat accelerated, although how much of it was trepidation versus desire, she could not tell. Gabriel still was—in fact, had always been—an attractive man. His athletic frame showcased an unconscious grace, and his piercing gaze reminded her of a lynx she had once seen in the wild—watchful, thoughtful, inherently a predator.
When he saw her, his lips curved into a faint smile—the same practiced, professional smile he offered to everyone else. “Val.”
She rose and leaned forward. He brushed a kiss upon her cheek—their standard greeting, which she attributed more to their shared Hispanic heritage than to any conscious affection on his part or hers. Her traitorous nerves fluttered at his close proximity. With effort, she kept her voice from deteriorating into a breathy whisper. “Gabriel.”
He gestured with a sweeping motion and waited until she had reseated herself before he sat down. His gracious old-world manners, which he had picked up from his grandmother, had always set him apart from the crowd, even when they were teenagers scrabbling to put together a hot meal on the table.
Valeria took her cue when he picked up the menu. Whatever they had to discuss would be put on hold until they had gone through all the social motions associated with a lunch date.
A pleasant-faced waitress came by their table. “No sandwich to go today, Gabe?” she asked with a smile.
Gabe? Valeria’s eyebrows arched.
“Not today,” he said. “This is my wife, Valeria. Val, Patti West.”
“Glad to meet you.” Patti grinned. She pulled out her notebook. “What can I get for you?”
Valeria set aside the menu. “Caesar salad with grilled shrimp, and an iced tea, unsweetened.”
“Slice of lemon with that?”
“Yes, please.”
“What about you, Gabe?” Patti asked.
“Reuben sandwich, with soup instead of fries. I’ll have an iced tea too.”
“The sweetened mango flavored one, right?”
He nodded.
Valeria tried not to resent the fact that Patti, the waitress, seemed to know her husband better than she did, but the frustration caught in her throat and made it hard to breathe. She stared at Patti’s swaying hips as the waitress sashayed back to the kitchen. Beneath the table, she curled her trembling hands into fists.
“Val,” Gabriel’s voice recalled her. For someone as busy as he was, his tone was remarkably calm. The kindness in it surprised her until she recalled that he had a great deal of practice exercising patience with his more exasperating clients.
She turned her attention back to his face. Twenty years ago, he had been the slightly overweight, bespectacled class nerd, but she had seen only the intelligent wit in his brown eyes and the gentleness in his smile. The combination had been compelling enough for her.
Over the years, he had added several inches to his height, lost inches around his waist, and laser surgery had fixed his shortsightedness. He was, she realized, not quite the same boy she had fallen in love with, but she loved the man he had become.
She only wished she knew if he loved the woman she had become.
He looked down at the table, and Valeria caught a flicker of something—unease, perhaps—in his usually confident stance. “I saw the note you left on the island last night.”
Right, straight to the point, as usual. No apology for the fact that you missed dinner entirely, or that you forgot our anniversary. Valeria swallowed the flare of anger. No histrionics, she reminded herself. She knew he hated public displays of emotion; they didn’t work with the professional image he projected. She had to match Gabriel’s icy reserve.
Patti returned with their drinks, set down the glasses of iced tea, and then bustled off to another table.
“I was surprised,” he continued when Valeria did not speak.
“Really? What were you surprised about?” Wow, where had the icy reserve of her tone come from? It stiffened her spine and allowed her to meet his steady gaze without flinching.
“At your unhappiness.” He shook his head. “It came out of nowhere.”
“Not quite nowhere.” But then again, you haven’t been around to see it.
“What are you unhappy about?”
“Just…life, in general.”
“Life?” The question was uttered a tone he probably reserved for cowering witnesses on the stand. “What about life?”
This was her chance she had been waiting for—her chance to change things. “Just…” The words refused to articulate themselves. She waved her fingers, trying to express the discontent that gnawed at her each night when she lay alone in bed, listening for his footstep on the stairs. How could she describe the frustration of knowing that she would probably fall asleep from exhaustion before he was done with work for the night? “It’s just…life. It’s not good enough.”
“Not good enough?” His eyebrows drew together, and Valeria sensed that this time, his confusion was genuine. “What exactly? I thought we saw eye-to-eye on what we wanted our lives to be. My career. Your causes. The kids are smart, healthy, and in a great school. We have a great home with everything we could possibly need and want in it; rainy day savings for today; investments for retirement; 529 accounts for the kids.” He enumerated each blessing by checking against the fingers of his other hand. “What are we missing?”
“It’s just…not what I thought it was going to be.”
He stared at her, but said nothing for several moments as Patti laid their lunch orders on the table. Patti’s blue-eyed gaze shuttled between Gabriel and Valeria, as if she, too, had sensed the tension. “You all just let me know if you need anything else, okay?” She walked away, and the shroud of unease fell over their table once again.
Valeria picked up her fork and poked it into her salad. She had no appetite for anything on her plate.
Gabriel did not touch his food. He stared at her. “You said life’s not what you thought it was going to be, but how is it different from what you expected?”
“It’s hard to explain—”
Exasperation flickered across his face.
“Damn it.” Her temper got the better of her. “I’m not a lawyer. I don’t have the fancy words.”
The heat in his eyes chilled. “I’m not looking for fancy words. I’m just asking for a simple answer—the courtesy of an explanation of how the life I thought I was providing for you isn’t meeting your expectations.”
Valeria squeezed her eyes shut. Was this what it felt like to face him in court? His demands pulsed through her skull. Fancy words. Simple answer. Courtesy of an explanation. Her brain faltered like an engine choked of fuel, and she blurted out the words that came from her heart. “Why is it wrong to want more?”
He looked taken aback. “It’s not.” Relief flooded his tone as if he had suddenly found himself on firm ground again. “What do you want? A new car? More jewelry?”
Valeria released her breath in a shuddering sigh. Why was Gabriel’s answer to the problem just more stuff, as if throwing things and money at the situation would solve it?
More importantly, why had she—stupidly—expected his answer to be any different? As a child, Gabriel had endured the wrenching aftermath of being desperately poor. He had made it perfectly clear to her that his single-minded goal was never to be in a position of having to make difficult financial choices ever again.
Apparently, he had taken her lack of response as an answer of sorts. His eyes seemed to drill into her. “Perhaps we just need some time away together.”
She straightened and met his gaze. Something surged through her—fragile and precious. It almost tasted like hope.
He did not take his eyes off her face as he continued speaking. “It’s been awhile since we’ve taken a holiday as a family. Perhaps we can get away for a few days during the summer break when the kids are out of school. Would you like that?”
“Yes,” she breathed, too r
elieved to be insulted by the image that flashed through her mind, of herself as a troubled child and Gabriel as the school psychologist, tasked with diagnosing the mental state of, and humoring, the hormonal, angst-filled teenager. How could he always make her feel so inadequate even while treating her with the utmost kindness?
“And if you’re still unhappy, you’ll tell me,” he said.
She nodded, fighting obscure feelings of guilt and inadequacy. At least he hadn’t said, “Take two aspirin and call me in the morning.”
To her surprise, Gabriel exhaled visibly, his shoulders slumping. He turned his face away in a surprisingly vulnerable gesture. His eyelids closed in a slow, tired motion. In that moment, he looked sad, even lost. She was still staring at him when he straightened and the impression vanished into the coolly professional image he always projected. “I’m doing all I can, Val, all I thought we agreed mattered to the both of us.”
“I know,” she whispered. He had kept up his part of their bargain. She had no right to be unhappy, except that she was.
Because I changed. Because what I want changed.
She stared at Gabriel, for the first time noting the shadows under his eyes, the faint lines of strain on his brow. He put in sixteen hours or more every day at his job. No one could accuse him of slacking off, of not working toward the dream life they had defined together.
It’s not fair to him, but if it’s not his fault, is it mine?
Lunch concluded on pleasant terms—superficially pleasant terms, Valeria amended. She strove for easy conversation, including updates on their children’s escapades and on the end-of-year school fair. Gabriel asked all the right questions and commented at all the right times, but the distant look in his eyes told her that his attention had wandered back to his work.
She bid him goodbye and left the cafe after a scarcely consumed lunch. A sick feeling churned in the pit of her stomach. She had taken care in dressing for her lunch date with Gabriel, but he had not paid any attention to her physical appearance—not a single mention of how she looked, not even a lingering glance to suggest that he had noticed.
It would have been easier, she realized, if she did not have high expectations of the man she had married, if she had not had memories of the teenager he had once been. He had loved her deeply once, long ago. Perhaps in his own way, he still loved her. After all, he provided abundantly for her and for their children.
But so much had changed since. She had changed.
If I’m no longer satisfied with my marriage even though Gabriel is still the same man I’d married, is it my fault?
The question plagued her—a question without answers.
Instead of returning home to her quiet, empty house, she headed to the Make A Wish Foundation headquarters where she volunteered as a wish coordinator. The work suited her. It required networking, which she was eminently suited to doing. She tapped as frequently into her New York University contacts as she did into Gabriel’s Harvard Law School networks. Her biggest joy, however, was delivering wishes to sick children, and that morning, the foundation had called her smartphone and left a message about a new wish in the making. She could just as easily have returned the call, but she wanted—needed, in fact—affirming human contact after her soul-crushing lunch with her husband.
She smiled at the receptionist behind the counter as she signed the visitor log. “Hi, Jane. Is Trisha available to see me?”
“Let me check with Trisha.”
“I just need a few minutes. I wanted to get a bit more information on the wish she called me about.”
“Certainly. Would you like to have a seat while you wait?”
Instead of sitting, Valeria wandered along the length of the far wall and read the heartwarming stories of wish recipients. The smiles on the faces of the children focused the attention on their joy instead of the illness reflected in their haggard features and bald heads. It also focused Valeria’s attention on her own blessings—on Diego and Marlena’s excellent health. It reminded her of just how much she had.
Guilt plucked at her. Her unhappiness with Gabriel must surely reek of ingratitude. She had a husband who provided her every material need and provided her children’s every material need. He did not smoke, did not drink, did not swear or curse or hit her.
His one vice was simply that he worked too hard.
How could that even be a vice?
How many women would sell their soul to be in the position I’m in?
She swallowed hard against the obvious reply. Probably just about every single woman out there.
“Ms. Cruz?” a pleasant tenor called her name.
“Yes?” She turned to look into the face of a man in his mid-thirties. He was not as tall as Gabriel, but he sported a lean and muscular build beneath his T-shirt and denim jeans.
“Brett Richardson. I just joined the foundation, and I work with Trisha.”
She extended her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Valeria Cruz.”
“Trisha raved about your wish-granting capabilities. She says you’re like a fairy godmother who happens to know everybody.”
Valeria laughed. “Fortunately, I have lots of time to keep up with my social networks. So, do you know anything about this latest wish that Trisha called me about?”
“Yes, I do. Trisha is in a meeting, but I’d be happy to discuss it with you. Would you like to come up to my office? We can talk there.”
Brett’s small, windowless office overflowed with paper files and notebooks. He apologized as he moved several folders off a chair. “Please, have a seat.”
“When did you say you joined the foundation?”
“About three months ago.” His eyebrows drew together as he frowned. “Ten weeks, actually, to be precise.”
Valeria laughed. “Well, they’ve certainly kept you busy.” She sat down and crossed her legs.
She was suddenly aware that Brett’s gaze had followed the movement of her legs. The pleasure of being noticed and admired went a long way toward dispelling the chill of her husband’s reaction to her. “You were going to tell me about this wish that Trisha wants me to help out on?”
“Oh yes, of course.” The pointed reminder recalled Brett to the present. He searched his cluttered desk and located the folder. Instead of sitting behind his desk, he sat on the edge of his table right next to her. “The recipient is Peter Brown. He lives in Brooklyn. Ten years old, and he wants to be a judge.”
“Really?”
“Yes.” Brett chuckled. “Most kids don’t know that they have to get through lawyer before becoming a judge. At any rate, Trisha said you might be able to help us out with this. Something about your husband being a lawyer?”
Valeria nodded. “He probably knows a few judges.”
Brett frowned. “Trisha also made a note in the file. No one has spoken to Peter in detail about the wish. You might want to make Peter your first stop so that you can narrow down the search before your husband gets involved. I’m sure he’s very busy.”
“Not too busy to help,” Valeria said, her response instinctive. It was not, she was certain, the answer Gabriel would have given. “I’ll talk to Peter, and then I can point Gabriel in the right direction. Can I get Peter’s contact information?”
“Absolutely. Let me copy it down for you.” Brett’s frantic search came up with a notebook and pen. He scribbled down an address and phone number in nearly illegible handwriting, and handed it to Valeria. “We really appreciate this,” he said. “We’re swamped right now. Summer appears to be prime wish-fulfilling time, and it’s good knowing a wish is in your safe hands.”
“I’m on it,” she assured him as she pushed to her feet.
Brett stood too, his lean body unfolding with athletic grace. The scent of his aftershave filled her lungs.
Too close, she thought, but she chose to hold her ground and not step back.
The corner of Brett’s mouth tugged into a smile. He held out his hand. “Well, thank you, again. I look for
ward to seeing you around. If you don’t mind, I’ll ask Trisha if I can be the foundation contact for this wish. It’s an interesting one; certainly a change from the usual Disney World request.”
She took his hand. The contact of skin against skin sizzled through her. She had not been so long married that she could not identify the spark of mutual interest, and it was most welcome, especially in light of Gabriel’s physical and sexual disinterest. She held on to Brett’s hand longer than was polite, but to hell with society’s polite conventions. Sometimes, she just needed to be told that she was attractive, and Brett, without actually speaking the words, had expressed as much.
A dimple danced in her cheek as she offered the first real smile she had felt all day. “I’ll be in touch.”
Valeria called Cherish as soon as she returned home.
“Twice in one day?” Cherish feigned surprise. “Did something happen?”
Valeria sighed. “After we spoke, Gabriel called me, and we met for lunch.”
“Oh, that’s good, right? Got a reaction out of him.”
“I suppose. I just don’t know if it was the right one.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was kind.”
“Kind?” Incredulity rang through Cherish voice. “He didn’t flip out on you?”
“No, he didn’t. He was calm and logical. Tried to figure out what was wrong.”
Cherish snorted. “And did he?”
“How could he? If we couldn’t figure it out in seven months of girl talk, how could he possibly in the hour we had for lunch?”
“You stuck to your guns, right? Demanded the divorce?”
Shame pricked at Valeria. She took the card out of her handbag and dropped it into the trash can. “No, I didn’t.”
“But why not?”
“He…said we could get away together, as a family.”
“He what?” Cherish screeched. “You want a divorce. He offers you a vacation instead, and you meekly said yes?”
Damn. Valeria bit her lower lip. “He was trying hard—I know he was. He doesn’t want this—”
“Of course he doesn’t want this. His life is set. A wife who perfectly handles everything on the home front, including his two kids whom he never sees, while he climbs the corporate ladder at his firm. What’s not to like? This isn’t just about what he wants. Marriage is about compromise, and for years now, it’s been about him getting what he wants. You matter too. What you want matters.”
Desired: A Love Letters Novel Page 2
