The Best Laid Plans

by Sarah Mayberry

  “And Alex.” Ethan wiped his cheeks and blew his nose. Only then did he look directly at his brother again. “Sorry about your shirt.”

  “Screw the shirt. Talk to me.”

  Ethan crumpled the paper towel in his hand until it was a tight ball within his fist. He hated talking about this stuff. Small wonder, then, that he never had. That he’d never told anyone the full, ugly truth of his divorce. He tried to find a place to start, but there was so much shame and anger attached to the memories that he couldn’t think past it.

  “Something happened today. Tell me about that,” Derek said.

  “We were playing racquetball. I asked Alex about her date—”

  “Alex is dating someone else? And you let that happen?”

  Ethan rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Yeah, I did,” he said heavily.

  “So what happened?”

  “I asked her what she would do if I asked her not to see the guy again. And she wanted to know why. So I told her that I was crazy about her.”

  “About freaking time. What did she say?”

  “She told me that she loves me.” The memory made his stomach pinch. The look on her face when she’d said it. The way she’d laughed… For a few seconds he’d made her happy. Then he’d screwed it all up again because he didn’t have the guts to follow through.

  “That must have freaked you out.”

  Ethan looked up sharply. His brother shrugged.

  “Pretty confronting, getting the thing you want when you’re not sure you want it.”

  Ethan reached for his Scotch and swallowed a generous mouthful. “Yeah.”

  “So how did you screw it up?” Derek asked.

  Ethan smiled thinly. “I told her I didn’t want to get married again.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Then she asked if I meant we should just live together, and I told her we should see how it goes, keep our own places…”

  Derek winced. “At which point she tore you a new one.”

  “At which point she told me that she wasn’t Cassie and that she deserved better. And then she walked. And I let her go because I’m a freaking pussy.”

  He could hear the self-pity and contempt in his own voice but he was powerless to stop it.

  There was a long pause before Derek responded. “I know a lot of guys who are divorced. Hell, me and Kay joke all the time about being each other’s starter spouse. Most of those guys are pissed for a few months, maybe a year, then they get back on the wagon, and more than half of them are married again within two years. But not you.”

  “No.”

  “I know you see a lot of crappy marriages with your work, but it’s not that, is it?” Derek said.

  “No.” Jesus, he wished it was. He took another swallow of his drink. Then he took a deep breath. “Those other guys, your friends. Some of them probably cheated on their wives. Or maybe they had money troubles and they fought about it too much, or maybe she met someone else or maybe they both realized they just didn’t have what it took to go the distance. Cassie and I… We were together for four years before I proposed to her. I can still remember the day we met—I went to my first Ethics class and she was standing talking to someone. I took one look at her and fell for her on the spot. We moved in with each other after a month and we never looked back. I never had a doubt that we’d marry and have kids and the rest of it.

  “That day when I came home from work and Cassie told me she wanted a divorce…” He stopped, shook his head. This was hard. Not only the telling of it, but the remembering. He’d done his damnedest to put it behind him. To move on. But it was all washing over him again.

  The way she’d been sitting at the kitchen table when he came in, a crisp white business envelope on the table in front of her. The way she’d looked at him, as though he was a stranger. No, worse—as though he was one of her clients. Someone she had to deal with because it was her job. Then he’d noticed the overnight bag against the wall and he’d understood that something was very, very wrong.

  “We need to talk,” she’d said.

  Then she’d slid the envelope across the table and told him that she wanted a divorce. She’d had papers drawn up. She didn’t want anything of his but she wanted half of the house proceeds once it was sold and he was welcome to all their furniture. Once the mandatory year of separation was up they could file for the decree of dissolution and sign some papers and that would be it. Twelve years down the tubes.

  “I don’t understand,” he’d said. They’d had some minor spats, but nothing that came close to being grounds for divorce. He loved her. She was his wife. They were in this thing together. “If you’re unhappy, we’ll get counseling. Whatever it takes. Tell me what’s wrong and I’ll fix it. We’ll fix it.”

  “I don’t love you anymore.”

  It had been like a fist in the face. And so out of the blue, so unheralded he couldn’t believe it, couldn’t make his mind grasp the words and accept them.

  He’d sat beside her and taken her cold hands in his and told her that he loved her, that all marriages had ups and downs, that love ebbed and flowed and he was sure it would flow again.

  Then she’d looked him in the eye and told him.

  “She had an abortion,” Ethan said, forcing the words past the lump in his throat.

  “What?” Derek’s expression was uncomprehending.

  Ethan almost smiled. He remembered feeling that way. Being literally unable to believe what his ears were telling him. “She was pregnant, and she had an abortion without telling me.”

  Derek’s face was pale. He swore. “Ethan…”

  Suddenly Ethan wanted it all told, all of it out in the open.

  “We weren’t planning on trying for a baby until the following year, but she got pregnant accidentally and when she found out she said she had a revelation. She didn’t want the baby. Or, more specifically, she didn’t want my baby. She didn’t want our marriage anymore. She didn’t want the life we’d made together. She didn’t love me, and she wanted out. So she made arrangements to get rid of the baby and she got her shit together. Then she told me and walked.”

  Ethan swallowed strongly. Five years on and he still felt sick and angry and impotent.

  “Mate.” His brother was looking at him with a world of pity and compassion in his eyes.

  This was why Ethan had never told anyone the truth behind his divorce. He didn’t want his family to feel sorry for him. Then Derek pulled him into his arms again and Ethan decided that maybe a bit of compassion wasn’t so bad after all. Maybe it was even exactly what he needed.

  After a minute his brother released him, his eyes suspiciously bright. “I don’t know what to say. If Kay had done that to me…” Derek shook his head. “But she’d never do that.”

  Ethan smiled grimly. “That’s what I thought about Cassie.”

  “But Kay is—” Derek closed his mouth on whatever he’d been about to say and Ethan saw full understanding dawn on his brother’s face.

  Ethan had trusted his wife, just as Derek trusted Kay, and yet he’d had no idea that she was so unhappy that she’d choose to get rid of the child they’d made together rather than be bound to him for life.

  “Jesus,” Derek said quietly. “No wonder you’re so messed up.”

  Ethan laughed. He had to, or he was going to disgrace himself by crying again. He’d always vowed he’d never tell anyone. He’d been so ashamed that something could be so wrong with his marriage and he’d not known about it. He’d been stupidly cruising along, living in a fantasy world where he and Cassie loving each other was more important than the lumps and bumps of everyday life, and all the time she’d been quietly dealing with her unwanted pregnancy and putting her affairs in order before she left him.

  “Did you ever talk about it? Ask her why?” Derek wanted to know.

  Ethan shook his head. He’d had questions, things he’d wanted to know, but the anger that had followed hard on the heels of her fait accompli had meant that he couldn
’t bear to be in the same room with her. Or, more accurately, he couldn’t trust himself to be in the same room as her. He’d wanted to hurt her. Make her suffer for hurting him and making a decision about their child without consulting him. Most of all he’d wanted to punish her for not loving him even though he still loved her, even after what she’d done.

  Then she’d taken up a job with a multinational insurance company and moved to Singapore and he hadn’t heard from her until the divorce papers arrived a year later. She’d sent him a letter a month after their divorce was finalized, but he’d burned it without reading it.

  “Maybe you should.”

  “What’s to know? She changed her mind. She didn’t want to be with me. Game over.”

  It was hard to say it out loud, but it was the truth. After twelve years together, the woman he’d loved had simply walked out of his life, leaving him gasping like a landed fish. He’d gone over and over and over it in his head, but that was what it boiled down to. She’d stopped loving him, and she’d left.

  Derek started to say something then stopped when his stomach growled demandingly. “You got anything to eat? Some pretzels maybe?”

  “Pretzels. No, I do not have pretzels. But I can make us some bruschetta if you like.”

  “I would like. I would like a lot.”

  Ethan started pulling ingredients from the fridge, glad to have something constructive to do. He could feel Derek watching him as he diced the onions and squeezed the seeds out of the tomatoes. When his brother finally spoke, his voice was low and careful.

  “Falling for Alex must have been pretty freaking scary after all of that stuff with Cassie, huh?”

  Ethan nodded shortly. He hadn’t wanted to fall for Alex. Had done his damnedest for a long time to satisfy his need to be a part of her life without getting too close, too involved. Then she’d come to their racquetball game that night all churned up over seeing her ex and he hadn’t been able to stop himself from comforting her.

  “What she said is right, you know. She’s not Cassie,” Derek said.

  “I know that.” Ethan cut the remainder of a French stick into slices.

  “But it doesn’t make a difference?” Derek asked.

  Ethan put down the knife and looked at his brother. “I don’t believe in happy-ever-after. Not after everything I see in my job, and not after Cassie.”

  “But you want to.”

  Ethan let his breath out in a rush. “Yes.”

  More than anything he wanted to be able to let go of the past and take the hand Alex was offering him and step into the future alongside her. But he didn’t know how to let go of the hard-won lessons of his past. He didn’t know how to let down his guard and trust again.

  “I’m not going to tell you that there’s no way it could happen again and that Alex would never do that to you. Even though I think it’s true, life doesn’t come with guarantees and safety nets,” Derek said.

  “No shit.”

  “Do you love her?”

  Ethan gave his brother a look. “Why do you think you’ve got a wet shoulder?”

  “Then trust your gut.”

  If only it were that easy.

  “I loved Cassie, too, and look where that got me. I thought I knew her inside and out. I slept next to her for twelve years and I had no idea how she was feeling, what she was thinking.”

  “I don’t know what to say to you. I want you to be happy. I want you to have what I have. I see you with my kids and it kills me that you might never know what it feels like to be a part of something so amazing. But like I said, you’ve got every reason in the world to be gun-shy. The best I can do is tell you that Kay’s my best friend. My day isn’t right if I don’t wake up and see her face on the pillow beside me. Pathetic but true, and if you ever tell her I said any of this I’ll mess up those pretty-boy looks of yours for good. She’s my rock, and I don’t want to imagine my life without her in it. And yeah, there’s a risk attached to all of that. But if the choice is between loving her or playing it safe… Well, I’ve made my choice.”

  Derek shrugged to indicate he’d run out of words but Ethan understood what his brother was saying: love was a leap of faith. After what had happened with his first marriage, Ethan appreciated that fact more than most, but at the end of the day it was the same for everybody. People were fickle, feelings changed, circumstances changed, and people grew together and grew apart. Love was a crapshoot. A risk. And the price of failure was high.

  The question was, was a lifetime with Alex worth the risk?

  A memory hit him: that night when he’d brought round his chicken dinner, she’d lain on the couch and he’d coaxed her into letting him rub her feet. She’d closed her eyes as he massaged first one foot then the other and he’d watched her face relax and a small smile curl her mouth. She’d been soft and vulnerable and content, and he’d helped make her that way and for a few precious moments he’d felt as though he was in exactly the right place with exactly the right person doing exactly the right thing. He’d felt as though he belonged, as though his cautious heart had found a home.

  He reached for a tea towel and wiped his hands. Derek’s gaze followed the action. A slow smile dawned on his face.

  “Tell me you’re going to find her.”

  “I’m going to find her.”

  “Good man.”

  His brother caught him in a one-armed hug and pounded an approving fist on his back. Ethan figured they’d used up their annual quota of physical affection in the space of a single hour, but he could live with that. His brother had been his lifeline tonight, the voice of reason he’d needed to help him navigate around the wreckage of the past.

  “Thanks. I owe you.”

  “I figure we’ll get it out of you in horsey rides and free babysitting.”

  “Done.”

  He strode for the door, scooping up his car keys from the hall table.

  “I’m going to grab some of this bread to eat on the way home, if that’s all right?” Derek said, trailing after him. “Since you don’t have pretzels.”

  Ethan laughed. He’d forgotten all about the bruschetta in his rush to get to Alex.

  “Help yourself.” He opened the door.

  “Call me,” Derek said. “Let me know how you do.”

  Ethan gave him a look.

  Derek shrugged. “I’m feeling a little invested here.”

  “Don’t forget to lock up when you leave,” Ethan said.

  Then he headed for the elevator, praying every step of the way that Alex would be home.

  CHAPTER TEN

  DON’T THINK ABOUT HIM. Don’t think about him, don’t think about him, don’t think about him.

  Alex kept up the mantra as she let herself into her apartment and searched for a distraction. There was no point dissecting what had happened between her and Ethan. It wouldn’t change anything. She’d offered him her heart, and he’d offered her a time-share agreement. There was nothing left to explore.

  If only she could exorcise the memory of his stricken face and the pain in his voice from her mind. If only there hadn’t been those few seconds when she’d let her hope have wings and she’d believed for a small, precious moment that things were going to work out between them.

  A memory hit her as she flicked on the light in her living room. The first time she’d ever seen Ethan had been in the foyer of Wallingsworth & Kent’s offices. He’d been arriving for a meeting with the senior partners, having been wooed away from one of the other big Melbourne firms. She hadn’t known any of that at the time, of course—she’d simply seen him walking toward her across the polished marble floor, beautiful and dangerous and sexy, and she’d felt the low thud of instant attraction in her belly and thought to herself Hello, heartbreaker.

  Prescient, indeed. She should have run a mile the first time he so much as smiled at her in the kitchenette. She should have taken out a restraining order against him when he suggested they play racquetball together, and she should have dug a moat a
round her office when he invited her to lunch.

  Instead, she’d told herself she could handle him and she’d danced with the devil and fallen in love with a man who was so unavailable he could barely make himself say the words I love you.

  And yet he had said them.

  She wandered from the living room to her bedroom, thinking about those moments on the court despite her determination not to.

  He’d said he loved her and that he wanted to try for a child with her. Amazing how something could be so close to a person’s dreams and yet so far away. Amazing how little it took to tempt a woman.

  But she’d drawn her line in the sand and she was going to stand by it. She might be sliding down that fertility graph her doctor had drawn, and she might be lonely and sad and frustrated, but she was not a masochist. There would be nothing worse than loving a man with all her heart and only receiving portions of his in return. No, she was wrong—there was something worse. She could have a child with that man, based on the misguided idea that it might draw them together, and never truly get over him.

  So many pitfalls—and she’d cleverly avoided them all. She should be giving herself a pat on the back and mixing herself a cocktail to celebrate her street smarts instead of circling her flat like a madwoman.

  She walked into the bathroom then left immediately when she caught sight of herself in the mirror. Best not to have confirmation of her own misery. Not while she was barely holding it together.

  Do something. Do anything.

  She went to the kitchen and looked around. It was sparkling clean, since she rarely made anything more messy than a tuna salad or egg on toast.

  Dinner. She’d make dinner. Something elaborate, for her. Pasta. With a salad. That should keep her busy for half an hour or so. Whether she’d actually be able to choke it down or not was another question, but she’d cross that bridge when she came to it.

  She crossed to the fridge and was about to open the fridge door when her gaze fell on the phrase someone had made using her fridge poetry magnets.

  Banana people bend smiles and make monkeys laugh and love.