by Mary Campisi
Of course, Zachary wouldn’t see it that way. He’d have a tale, just like all the ones he’d been telling her the past year, and if she let herself, she might believe him. Oh, she wanted to turn back the hours to a time when she did believe him, when she didn’t know what she knew in her heart. But then what? Let the lies ruin her? The second the beautiful Julia entered Zachary’s apartment, Elissa sensed the truth; Julia was Zachary’s fiancée, too, and Christopher was his baby.
As she lay curled in bed that night, a cold pack pressed to her forehead, her body damp, her stomach raw from emptying it, she knew what Mrs. Blacksworth must have felt like when she learned of her husband’s secret life. I’m so sorry, Mrs. Blacksworth. So sorry you had to go through that. For twenty-four hours, she ignored Zachary’s phone calls and text messages. As the messages grew more frequent, the tone bordered on panic.
Elissa, call me. Where are you? I’m worried about you.
Hey. It’s me. I had to go out of town, but I’ll be back in the morning. Call me. Pause. I miss you. Longer pause. We’ve got to talk about the engagement party. Just call me.
There were five more messages, each more urgent than the last.
I called your parents’ house and left a message, but I haven’t heard from them. I know how your mom hates missing a phone call, so now I’m really getting worried. Where are you?
And then, Your sister sent me a text and called me a bastard, said she hoped I burned in hell. What’s she talking about? Why would she say that? Elissa?
Oh, there’d been a lot of panic in that last message. Almost as if he knew she’d figured out his deep, dark secret, but Zachary wasn’t one to divulge more than he had to until it was necessary. That’s how he’d been able to wheel and deal in the corporate world and hold out for the best offer. He’d once told her he could poker-face it and threaten to walk away, actually walk away, and they’d always call him back and agree to his terms. Always. The way he’d said this made her think he liked toying with people’s emotions to see how far he could get and how much he could get. Is that what he’d done with Elissa and Julia? Pushed them both to see how far he could get? Well, he’d ended up with two fiancées and a baby.
How could she have been such a fool? Two months ago, when her mother asked why Elissa still hadn’t met his parents, she’d found ten reasons, all of them believable, especially to her. But the real reason was probably the most unbelievable and yet most obvious. Zachary already had a fiancée and it wasn’t Elissa. She’d been so head-over-heels for him that she hadn’t questioned or complained about his demand for space, attributing his need for time alone to do his work and the brilliance of that mind she loved so much.
Except the mind she’d loved with such fierceness hadn’t been inventing or contemplating anything in the computer world. No, that mind had been inventing more lies and contemplating ways to cheat on two women. How had he done it so well and for so long?
Why did he have to pull her in and make her believe he cared? Her parents wanted her to call Father Patrick for guidance. Her little sister wanted to find someone to “beat the crap out of him.” Elissa wasn’t going to let someone else confront the man who’d ruined her life and her belief in happily-ever-after, because one day soon she would handle him herself.
That day came two hours after Zachary’s last message, the one that said he’d just landed at the airport and was on his way to her apartment. She showered, tossed on jeans and a T-shirt, and pulled her hair in a ponytail.
She’d always looked forward to spending time with her fiancé, anticipated his arrival with such eagerness that in retrospect, it was sickening. How easy it must have been to play with her emotions, as though she didn’t matter, as though he could do anything and she’d believe him. Which she did…all the way up to the second where she’d watched Julia and her baby enter his apartment.
Now, everything had changed. Elissa’s heart no longer beat for the man who’d promised her love and happiness until they drew their last breath. That heart was bruised, tattered, cold. Empty.
When the doorbell rang, she made her way to the front door, opened it. Zachary Wintstone faced her, his lean runner’s body dressed in slacks and a sweater, mouth firm, brown eyes serious. He looked exactly as he had the last time she saw him. Elissa narrowed her gaze, tried to detect a crack in the facade that might let her see his other life—his other family. Same dark curls that reminded her of Julia’s baby, same serious expression, same stance. Same everything.
If she hadn’t decided to surprise him with a visit the other day, how long would it have been before she found out about Julia and Christopher? After the wedding? After their first child? Or would life have continued for years, as it had with Mrs. Blacksworth, until one day the truth leaked out and her world landed on top of her?
“Elissa. Do you know how worried I’ve been?” Zachary stepped inside, reached for her, but she stepped back.
“Don’t.”
“What’s wrong?” His voice spilled concern. “You look sick. Why didn’t you answer my calls? Talk to me. You know you can always talk to me.”
A few days ago, she’d believed he was her everything, believed they would grow old together. “I will always wonder if the lies started before or after you met me.”
“What are you talking about?” Confusion and what looked like fear clouded his dark eyes.
She clasped her hands together, planted her feet in a stance that said she could land a solid punch to his jaw if provoked. “If everything about us was built around a lie; can you at least give me a few minutes of truth? I know about Julia.” She paused, gauged his reaction: a mix of shock and disbelief. “And Christopher.” A decent guy would own up to the subterfuge, apologize, and call it quits. But then, a decent guy wouldn’t play house with one woman and have a baby with another. She spotted the exact second his expression changed and the next words out of his mouth weren’t warm and fuzzy or apologetic. They were harsh and accusing despite the softness in his tone.
“Were you spying on me?”
“Spying? Of course not. I wanted to surprise you. I thought I’d stop over so we could talk about the party.” The engagement party for the wedding that was supposed to mark the beginning of the rest of our lives.
“You shouldn’t have done that.” His voice was so quiet, so unaffected. “We had an understanding.”
“An understanding? What, I stay away from your apartment so you can play house with another woman? You told me you needed to think, that you required hours and hours of quiet so you could work on your projects. I believed you.” Elissa swiped both hands across her cheeks. Damn tears. “I did the math. We must have just started dating when Julia found out she was pregnant. Why didn’t you tell me then? Did I not deserve to know? Or, did you think you could have both of us? Two separate families and neither of us knowing about the other?” The tears streamed down her cheeks to her chin, onto her chest. “Damn you, Zachary, did you think so little of me that you thought I didn’t deserve the truth?”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t tell you because…I couldn’t let you go. I love you, Elissa, love you so much it hurts.”
She swiped at her face again, blinked hard. “Do not say that.”
“But it’s true. I love you. You, Elissa Cerdi, and it’s you I want to marry.” He dragged a hand through his hair, sighed. “Julia and I were together before I met you; nothing serious, just a few laughs and a drink or two.”
“I think it was a little more than laughs and drinks.”
His jaw tensed but he remained calm. “Okay, we had a thing, but when I headed home after the conference, we were done. I didn’t hear from her again until after you and I were getting serious…that’s when she told me she was pregnant. I wanted to tell you, and I kept trying to find a time, but I was so damn worried I’d lose you…”
“So you proposed instead?”
“That’s not why I proposed.” His dark eyes softened. “I proposed because I loved you. And I still do
.” He moved toward her. “Julia’s a great person and I love my son, but she’s not the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with…that person is you.”
When he talked like that it was hard to tell if he were lying or if he meant what he said. “She called you her fiancé.”
Those lips she’d kissed so many times pulled into a gentle smile. “Saying it and wishing it doesn’t make it true. She wanted a life with me, but that wasn’t going to happen. Do you know why?” His smile deepened. “Because I wanted a life with you; the whole ‘happily-ever-after,’ babies, and suburbs. With you, Elissa, nobody else.”
He sounded so convincing, so honest. A tiny piece of her believed him. “Why did she have a key to your apartment?” If he could answer that and it made sense…
“She said that was the only way I could see Christopher.” The dip in his voice pierced her heart. “He’s my child, and no matter how he got here, I love him. I had to do whatever it took to see him and I couldn’t tell you, not yet. I’m sorry, but I was so damn afraid of losing you.”
There were tears in his eyes, pain in his voice. She inched out her next words. “Have you been sleeping with her?”
“No! God, no.”
He answered so quickly and with such force, how could she not believe him? And yet, he’d looked away, just for a second, as if gathering his thoughts or maybe hiding something he didn’t want her to see. Like the rest of the truth? Could she live her life wondering what he was doing when he wasn’t with her? Would she be one of those women who resorted to checking his phone and computer for signs of…what? Another woman? Another life? Would she end up like Gloria Blacksworth, estranged from her family, spending her final days with hired help because she’d refused to confront the truth?
Maybe Zachary was in some bizarre way a victim of bad timing and bad choices. But he’d kept it all a secret, living a lie that included another woman and a baby.
“Elissa, baby…I know you have a lot of questions, and I know you’re hurt.” His voice cracked. “Whatever you want to know, all you have to do is ask. Okay? Anything. I don’t want to lose you.” He paused, touched her cheek. “I love you.”
Those three words gave her the answer she needed. I love you. Had he spoken those same words to Julia? Only a fool would believe he hadn’t, and only a fool would believe he wasn’t lying to her right now. She’d spent her whole life believing in the goodness of others, trusting them to do right, refusing to acknowledge the dark side of human nature.
And look what had happened? She’d believed everything her fiancé told her, no questions, no suspicions, nothing but blind trust and belief in that damn goodness…
“Elissa? I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
Now he would tell her about his double life?
Now he would tell her the other woman was a mistake and the baby was a consequence of that mistake?
Now he would tell her that if she only gave him a chance, he’d worship her, cherish her, never, ever give her reason to doubt him again? He’d earn her trust back and spend the rest of his days proving he loved her.
He would make her happy.
If she only gave him a chance.
Maybe the words would hold true, or maybe they would only be true the moments before and after he spoke them. Maybe when he walked out the door, he would return to his old life, his other life.
Who could say? Certainly, she couldn’t, but what she could say and what she knew deep in her soul was that she couldn’t trust him, not anymore. If she couldn’t trust him, what future did they have?
None.
She knew that, even as she motioned him into the living room, sat in the rocker her parents had given her when she moved into the apartment, and eased the look-alike notebook she’d created to mimic Mrs. Blacksworth’s from the end table. There was pain and sadness in this book, and so much torment. Was it not fitting that Elissa should add her own pain to these pages? She grabbed a pen, opened the notebook to a blank page, and said, “Start talking.”
Two hours and twenty-three minutes later, Zachary finished his tale. There were tears with the telling, gasps and long sighs accompanied by folded hands, soft pleas, and a prayer or two. Elissa observed and jotted down his words like a stenographer in a courtroom, emotion removed. She tried to focus on the details as she wrote: the sound of his voice, the gestures, the pauses. It was as much what he did not say as what he said that mattered. Later, she would piece it all together as she and her mother had when they’d set out quilting squares for a comforter. Once the pieces were in place, she would look for patterns in his words that contained truths and nontruths. The smallest details, when stitched together, often carried the greatest significance.
The outcome didn’t matter. Zachary had destroyed their chances of a happily-ever-after the second he began keeping secrets, secrets that supported lies…lies that ruined her belief that love and goodness prevailed…that if you loved someone, it would be enough…that if you led a good life, then fortune would guide you to happiness…
Lies, all of them.
“Elissa?”
She blinked hard, tried to focus as he crossed the room and knelt beside her. When had he started looking so pathetic, so guilty? How had she never noticed this before? Because she’d never looked, never believed there was a reason to doubt.
“Is there more, Zachary?” Do not let there be more than this. How much more could there be than his admission that he and Julia shared a child, that he’d struggled these many months with a way to tell Elissa the truth? “If you have any hopes of a life together, you’d better make sure you’ve told me everything.” Look at her, telling her own lies. Hell could freeze over ten times before she’d give him another chance. Still, her words might pull the truth from him.
He placed a hand on her arm, his gaze intense. There’d been a time when she’d gotten lost in that look. “I don’t want to hurt you more than I already have.”
That sounded like a confession without the confession. “Tell me.” There was more.
A shrug, a sigh, and then, “I might have left out a few details about my relationship with Julia.”
“Details?” She forced her breathing to remain even, her voice calm.
The man who’d broken her heart and was now ripping it apart with details continued. “I might have been intimate with her a few times after…after you and I met.”
Did he think using a word like intimate didn’t sound as bad as sex? Like in some way, it was less hurtful? “So, you were having sex with both of us.”
“Elissa—”
“Is that everything?” Dear God, what else could there be?
He looked away, lowered his voice. “I’m only telling you this because I don’t want any more lies between us, okay? You’re the one I love, the one I want to marry.” Pause. “You are my heart, Elissa Cerdi, my soul.”
She pushed aside the words that had once stolen her breath. What were words without meaning behind them? “Tell me the rest, Zachary. Tell me all of it.”
Tears shimmered in his dark eyes, slid down his cheeks. “Julia’s pregnant again.”
4
Pete Finnegan liked the woods, his English pointer, dark ale, and a meal that could be made with one pan. The simple life, his mother called it, and he agreed. But the life he’d left four months ago hadn’t been simple, and it certainly hadn’t involved woods, an ale, or a simple meal. Nope. That life had been all about glitz, glamour, and keeping his soon-to-be fiancée happy. If he’d taken a deep breath and looked around, he would have seen he didn’t belong in a city any longer, no less a city where people were directed and redirected like cattle. Forget names or faces and to hell with common courtesy. Above all, do not make eye contact. No idle chit-chat either. Who cared why the cashier wore a sling on his right arm or the young boy limped. And if the attendant who’s been parking the car for two months straight doesn’t show up for a week, don’t ask. Not. Your. Problem. And it sure as hell wasn’t your business.
But Pete had grown up in Magdalena, been surrounded by people who made it their business to know about busted arms, limps, and anything else that involved a town resident. If anybody had turned up missing—with Magdalena’s definition of missing, which was unavailable for longer than a two-hour stretch—there’d be a plan of action in place involving a search party headed by the police department and volunteers. Residents didn’t fool around, especially in the winter, when snow, ice, and frigid temperatures could threaten a person’s life.
He’d been gone from Magdalena fifteen years, but he’d never forgotten the closeness of the town, bordering on what he’d called nosy. At twenty, he’d wanted people to stay the hell out of his business. That included his parents, especially his father, but Jack Finnegan wasn’t about to sit by and watch his son cause embarrassment to the Finnegan household. Okay, so maybe underage drinking at “Dave’s Happy Hour” in Renova hadn’t been a good move, and maybe Pete’s temper had gotten the best of him, but he’d been twenty friggin’ years old. A kid. Did his old man really have to force his hand? You want to be one of them free spirits, on your own with not a single soul to answer to, huh? You think that’s life? You think that’s what will happen when you head to California? Huh? Go on, pack up your bag and go, Mr. Unconventional. Go save a tree and grow a ponytail. See where that gets you.
Pete’s mother hadn’t wanted him to leave, had told him years later a piece of her heart broke off the day he drove the old jeep out of Magdalena, but he’d been determined to prove his father wrong.
