Cutting the Ties

by Francine Pascal

  To Alice Elizabeth Wenk

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Still in the moment, Annie Whitman felt dizzy with desire, lost in the warm and wet deliciousness of Bruce’s kisses, in the raw passion it offered. Wasn’t this exactly what was supposed to happen in a beautiful bedroom like this in the south of France?

  She could feel the moment of decision slipping by as he tightened his grip, sending shivers through her. Annie loved a man who took control, a man who knew what he wanted and wasn’t afraid to take it. That was Bruce.

  “Come on, Annie. I know you want this, too,” he said, a growl in her ear. She knew she excited him; she could feel just how much as he ground himself against her.

  She could see the old gleam of the confident Bruce in his eyes, the boy who got what he wanted, no matter what the cost. He wanted her at that moment, and the invitation sent her head spinning. She realized, maybe for the first time, just how much she liked him. Maybe she’d always been fostering a crush on him, ever since high school and that quickie they’d had in his Porsche.

  Bruce kissed her again, his hands roaming under her shirt and cupping her breasts. She moaned, beyond tempted to give in to his hands. Her body came alive under his touch: she was hot and cold all at once, burning with a hungry need. Distantly, she couldn’t believe how readily her body responded, how much she wanted him. She hadn’t had sex since she’d left her husband, Charlie Markus. She’d almost convinced herself she didn’t need sex; that maybe it was just heartbreak waiting to happen.

  But now, with Bruce’s insistent hands roaming under her clothes, she knew that had all been a lie. She needed this. She wanted this.

  But you can’t always have what you want. No matter how much you want it.

  Back in high school, she’d gone with any boy who’d have her, not only because she liked sex, but because she liked the attention. She looked for approval in the arms of more boys than she could count. All she wanted to do was make them happy so they would like her, but instead, she’d just felt cheap, and that was the way they treated her.

  Would she let that happen again? Now, with so much at stake?

  She was a respected lawyer and he was her client, the ex-boyfriend of her best friend, Elizabeth, who made no great secret of the fact she still had feelings for him.

  No, she wouldn’t. She couldn’t. He might be the old Bruce again, but she wasn’t the old Annie. She had grown far beyond the girl who craved approval from any boy who looked her way. She’d worked hard to build her career—and her self-esteem. She no longer needed a man to feel good about herself.

  “Stop, Bruce,” Annie said, pushing a little against his chest and pulling herself back. He loosened his grip in surprise. She took the opportunity to twist out from under him and stand up.

  Confusion flickered across his face for only a second. But then the old Bruce returned.

  “Are you sure?” he asked. He stood, too, and pulled her to him again, kissing her hard. She felt herself melting into him again. The passion was real, and the intensity of it surprised them both. She realized in that moment, she did feel something for Bruce. Something more than just lust.

  If he pushed her even harder, she knew she’d give in. She wouldn’t be able to hold out much longer. Annie mustered her strength for one more denial. If he didn’t go now, she would wind up sleeping with him.

  Her body ached for him. She wanted him as much as he wanted her.

  “No,” she said again, and put her hands on his chest, pushing him away. “No, Bruce. We’re not going to do this.” She pulled back from him, but it took every ounce of her self-control to do so.

  Bruce searched Annie’s eyes. For a fraction of a second, she thought she saw a flicker of hurt there, the pain of rejection, but then it was swallowed up with anger.

  Bruce’s eyes burned. She understood suddenly this was not just the anger of sexual frustration, but the fury over how pathetic his life had become. This man of power, who prided himself on being a good man, had suddenly been brought to his knees by false accusations from some cowardly mendacious nobody out to destroy him. And for all intents and purposes, Robin Platt had succeeded. She’d sent him into hiding, taken away his dignity, his reputation, and perhaps, most painfully, the woman he had spent the better part of his life loving.

  After weeks, months now, of flimsy, inadequate responses, Bruce Patman exploded.

  He ripped himself away from Annie, and with his hands clenched into fists, turned and stormed out of the room and onto the patio. There, she heard him kick a chair with such force that it flew against the balustrade, bounced off, and smashed onto the stone tiles with a reverberating clang.

  Annie’s whole body tensed. She’d never seen Bruce so angry, and she knew it wasn’t all her fault, but she had been the trigger for pent-up rage at what had happened to his life. She sat very still on the bed. Would he control it? Or was she in danger?

  No. Bruce wouldn’t hurt me. Would he?

  For the first time, Annie felt a stab of doubt. Bruce’s worries came back to her then, the worry about inheriting the emotional troubles of his mother and her bipolar diagnosis. Could this temper be part of that? She leaned over to where she could see the chair lying on its side in the patio, its sides crushed and bent.

  Her lawyer’s mind took over then. She pushed aside emotion and thought about what a jury would think if they saw an outburst like that. Would they presume guilt?

  She knew that his temper was something they would have to deal with sooner rather than later. Annie made a mental note to talk to Bruce’s therapist. She’d need to get permission, of course, but she’d do that later. In the meantime, she slid the glass door closed on her room and locked the patio door.

  She looked at the door and wondered if she was locking Bruce out, or locking herself in. Annie knew she’d done the right thing turning him away, but a part of her couldn’t help feeling an ache of disappointment.

  Now she knew she wanted him more than she’d ever allowed herself to believe before. It would be hard to pretend now that she didn’t know what it was like to kiss him, to have his hands on her.

  Would he come for her again? And if he did, would she be strong enough to resist her own desire?

  Chapter Two

  Lila couldn’t get her favorite skinny jeans to fasten. No matter how hard she tugged at the fabric, she couldn’t get the zipper all the way up.

  “Come on,” she whined. She lay down flat on her bed and tugged hard on the zipper. After several hard pulls, she finally zipped them. But, when she sat up, she felt like a one-pound bag of Play-Doh crammed into a two-ounce bag. This time, it had nothing to do with eating In-N-Out Burgers. She had to face the very real fact she was pregnant, and eventually she wouldn’t be able to fit into jeans with buttons and zippers at all.

  Another wave of nausea hit. She bolted up from bed and ran to the bathroom, barely making it in time before she threw up—again.

  Someone—probably a True Housewives of Sweet Valley PA—knocked on the door. “Mrs. Fowler Matthews?” asked the PA in a hesitant voice. “We’re ready for you.”

  “One minute!” Lila shouted, sweeping back her darkly dyed hair from her face. She looked up at herself in the mirror. A green, ghastly face stared back. How was she going to do this?

&nbs
p; It figured that now that she was really pregnant she had all the worst symptoms: fatigue, nausea, bloating, violent mood swings, all the symptoms she’d pretended to suffer for her make-believe pregnancy were now real. And in spades.

  She glanced at her watch. It was four in the afternoon. Morning sickness, my ass, she thought. Morning, noon, and night sickness is what they should call it.

  Another wave of nausea hit, and she doubled over, retching again.

  “Mrs…?”

  “Excuse me,” came a voice that Lila knew well. “I need to get in there.” Lila threw open the bathroom door.

  Jessica Wakefield stood on the other side, purse slung over one shoulder, her blond hair immaculate, shiny, and flat-ironed straight. Lila grabbed her friend’s arm and pulled her into the bathroom.

  “Give us a minute,” Jessica told the confused PA with the headset and the clipboard as she shut the bathroom door behind her and locked it. Lila reached over and flipped on the fan, too, just to make sure that if the PA decided to hang around and eavesdrop, she wouldn’t hear much.

  This was Lila’s master bathroom, and it was larger than most people’s living rooms. In one corner lay a massive, Jacuzzi-style tub, along with a huge his and hers vanity covered entirely in marble. The pristine granite tile floor gleamed under soft lighting.

  Lila pulled Jessica over to the far corner of the room, away from the door.

  “Thank God you’re here,” Lila breathed, and hugged her friend like she was a life preserver. “Did you get it?”

  “I did,” Jessica said, pulling out the little prescription baggie from the outer pocket of her purse. Enid Rollins, her OB-GYN, had called in some special prescription medicine for Lila’s morning sickness, since Lila couldn’t manage to hold down a single meal. “How are you feeling?”

  “How does it look like I’m feeling?” Lila pointed at her too-pale, greenish face.

  “It’ll get better,” Jessica said, giving Lila’s hand a sympathetic pat. “The first trimester is the worst. I felt like hell with Jake.”

  “I’m not sure if I’m going to make it to the second trimester.” Lila met Jessica’s gaze. A look passed between the two women. Jessica knew exactly what Lila was talking about. She was thinking about terminating the pregnancy.

  “Before you do anything, Ken should know,” Jessica said.

  “No way.” Lila shook her head fiercely. Jessica was the only person alive—aside from Enid Rollins—who knew Lila was pregnant, and for now that’s exactly how it would stay. Ken had humiliated Lila on national television for faking her pregnancy. She knew he would never believe she was really pregnant now.

  She was the girl who cried wolf one too many times.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Lila said, and tears filled her eyes.

  “Hey, it’s okay,” Jessica said, and wrapped her old friend in a hug. “One way or another it will be okay.”

  “I don’t know if I’m coming or going.”

  “Hormones,” Jessica said. “They’re killer.”

  “I should just end this.” Lila slumped down on the edge of the tub and put her head in her hands. Then, she promptly started to cry again.

  “Hey, it’s going to be okay.” Jessica sat down next to her and put her arm around Lila’s slight shoulders.

  “Will it? I’m the most hated woman in America. Have you seen the blogs? Or Twitter? #LiarLila is all over the place.”

  “Who cares what those morons think?” Jessica shrugged. “And look on the bright side. You’re famous. Jimmy Fallon did a joke about you last night.”

  “Great.” Lila grabbed a Kleenex from the counter and dabbed at her eyes with it. “This is not what I wanted to be famous for.”

  “Well, don’t worry. It will all blow over. And don’t worry about all the negative press. Those people don’t know you.”

  Maybe they do know me and that’s the problem, Lila thought. She remembered Ken saying that eventually everyone would be able to see the truth: that she was worthless on the inside. Lila sobbed some more.

  “I hate this,” she moaned. “I hate that people hate me. And I hate that I delivered Ken on a platter to that obnoxious bitch Ashley. It’s like salt in the wound.”

  “You saw last night’s episode then?” Jessica had watched her TV last night with dread about what Lila would think about it. The entire episode showed Ken and Ashley happily reunited, and talking no end of trash about Lila and how pathetically two-faced and desperate she was to make up her pregnancy. Mostly Ashley talking. The show made sure to show Ken and Ashley kissing and touching as much as possible.

  “Yes, I watched it—when I wasn’t vomiting. Hard to say if it was the pregnancy or Ashley.”

  “Maybe he’ll change his mind. You know Ken is crazy about you.”

  “No, not this time.” Lila shook her head. All the times she’d thought Ken had been so easy to manipulate, but now she’d found herself dealing with a completely different person. It seemed that once he’d truly and finally made up his mind, there was no convincing him otherwise.

  He refused to answer her calls or texts and he was even more furious now with her than he’d been the last time he’d packed up his things and left. Only, this time, Lila knew, there was no real hope of getting him back. Not after what he’d told her. And, besides, she didn’t have any more tricks to play. He hated her.

  “Men change their minds,” Jessica said.

  “Not Ken. Not this time.” Lila said. “Ken has officially filed for divorce.”

  “Oh, Lila.” Jessica hugged her friend harder. “I’m so sorry. I know how that feels. Todd filed, too.”

  “He did?”

  Jessica nodded. “Well, look at us, two almost divorcées. What the hell happened to us? This would never have happened in high school.”

  “No,” Lila sighed, an almost wistful look in her eye. “Never.”

  The two former cheerleaders spent a moment commiserating in silence.

  “You know, you’re going to have to figure out what to do about the baby.” Jessica handed Lila another tissue.

  “I know. I’m running out of time.” She had to get something decided before she hit her second trimester. “I just don’t know what to do.”

  “Think carefully about this,” Jessica said. “A baby is a lot of work, but a baby is also a wonderful gift.” Jessica thought of Jake. She couldn’t imagine her life without him. Since Todd left, he was one of the only good reasons to get out of bed in the morning.

  “I am thinking about it. It’s all I think about.” Lila felt the tears start to crowd her eyes again. Just when she thought she’d made up her mind to go one way, a flood of doubts washed away her resolve. She hated feeling this out of control. Is this what pregnancy was like?

  “I still think you should talk to Ken.”

  “Absolutely not.” Lila couldn’t be more certain of anything.

  Jessica said nothing. She knew the look on Lila’s face. It would be hopeless to argue at this point.

  “Whatever you say. Your secret is safe with me.”

  “I’ve only got a couple of weeks to decide, otherwise, it gets more complicated health-wise. That’s what Enid Rollins said. I’m running out of time.” Lila couldn’t help but feel like the weight of the world was crushing her. “What do I do?”

  Chapter Three

  Elizabeth sat in the kitchen of her parents’ house and poured herself another glass of wine. Was it her second? Third? She’d lost count. She knew she’d started with a full bottle. She tilted it now and through the darkened glass saw she had a third left.

  Technically, it was afternoon, but just barely.

  She knew she was getting a little bit drunk, but what did it matter? She didn’t have a job to go to anymore, didn’t have a boyfriend or an apartment of her own; in fact, you could say she didn’t have a life.

  She stared at her iPhone, at a picture of her and Bruce from months back. They looked so good together, so happy. She took another drink of wine.


  The Malbec was supposed to help her forget, but the more she drank, the more she remembered. Like how good she and Bruce were together, how very much in love, how much she missed him.

  She took another gulp of wine and had a sudden urge to call him. Not for the first time, but this time she actually pulled up the number for his villa in France. It would be late, nine hours ahead, which would make it after dinner there.

  But even if she did call, what would she tell him? I know I betrayed you in the worst possible way, but I still love you? Give me another chance? Sorry I believed you were a rapist?

  She dropped her phone on the counter and put her head in her hands. The room spun from too much wine.

  She ought to stop drinking. Eat something. Forget about Bruce. Instead, she picked up her phone and hit “call.”

  She pressed the phone against her ear. Her heart thudded as she heard the odd, foreign-sounding ring. Why was she doing this? She didn’t know. She didn’t care. She just wanted to hear his voice again, she reasoned. That’s all. That would be enough.

  Or maybe not. Maybe she would just tell him she was wrong and she was very sorry. She’d tell him she needed him.

  But, as the phone rang again and again, no voice mail picked up. She waited for three more rings and then, dejected, hung up.

  Bruce was probably just out to dinner or taking an evening walk on the Croisette. It was what they used to do together. She hoped he was finding a way to relax and have some peace.

  Then she was suddenly struck by the vision of Bruce sitting in one of the many outdoor cafés, chatting up a beautiful brunette French woman. How long before he moved on? she wondered. Maybe he already has.

  She threw back another glass of wine.

  He was free to be with whomever he wanted, she knew. She knew she’d let him down when he needed her the most, but if she could only tell him how sorry she was, maybe she could get him to understand. She felt a sudden urge to make things right with Bruce before it was too late.