by Shari Low
He laughed. Not the reaction she’d been expecting. ‘That’s so strange – I was just having exactly the same conversation with Sarah.’
That was a terrifying thought – being on the same wavelength as Sarah Gold was a milestone she did not ever want to reach in life.
‘Oh really? How come?’
Drew shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Just getting a little melancholic, I guess.’
She processed and dismissed his explanation as being of no consequence. Sarah was no threat to this situation. The poor woman hadn’t been in Drew’s league since the seventies.
Mona pushed her sunglasses up on to her head, allowing Drew to see her eyes for the first time. He was visibly shocked.
‘Mona, are you OK? You look like you’ve… have you been crying?’
His astonishment wasn’t a surprise. He’d only seen her cry once in her life and that was that morning in 2004 when they called time on their marriage. Even thinking back to that day made her nauseous.
In fact, the red-rimmed eyes hadn’t been caused by tears, but by a sleepless night, spent alternating between fretting about her situation and listening to Piers wandering around the cabin. It seemed like insomnia was the theme of the night.
However, the tears explanation worked just fine. Sympathy and concern were welcome if they helped her cause.
‘Drew, I can’t stand it. Honestly, I can’t stand being married to him for another day.’
‘I’m sorry, darling,’ he said softly. Darling. He used to call her that all the time when they were married.
He fell silent again, waiting for her to open up some more.
‘You know the other day, I said I wanted to divorce Piers and find someone new. I wasn’t being strictly honest with you.’
He looked justifiably confused. ‘So you don’t want to divorce him now?’
‘Yes, I do. But I don’t want to be with someone new.’
It was a tad disconcerting that he sat back in his chair and laughed. ‘Mona, you can’t be single. You’re not cut out that way. I’ve never met a sexier, smarter woman, and you like to be in a relationship so that you’re reminded of those things every day. It’s who you are.’
This was good. He’d just confirmed that she was the sexiest and smartest woman he knew. Excellent start. Nice bait. Now she just had to reel him in.
‘I know that, but honestly, the thought of starting again horrifies me. I know what I want – the right man who fulfils me on every level, who gets me and buys into a future with us both blazing a trail.’
She checked to see that he was still hanging on her every word. Yep, engrossed. OK, here goes. Back straight, chest forward, jawline at highest position to flatter facial contours.
‘Drew, the only man I want to be with is you. I don’t want anyone else. You’re not happy with Tess and I’m not happy with Piers and I know it’s because we should still be together. There is no better team than you and me. You know that. You do, Drew. Deep down, you know.’
Nothing happened. For what seemed like several hours, he sat there, blank. She was about to check him for vital signs when he finally leaned over, tenderly took her face in his hands and kissed her with joy and relief.
Actually, that last bit only happened in her head.
In reality, when he eventually snapped out of his full-function paralysis, he let out a prolonged, aching groan. ‘Oh, Mona, this isn’t good.’
It is good! It’s great! she wanted to shout, but something stopped her.
Her stomach tightened with a horrible, unfathomable premonition of what he was about to say. No. He couldn’t. If he rejected her now, her life was over. No Drew. No job. No credibility. No future.
‘Mona, I love you…’
She could feel the weight of the ‘but’ that was about to come.
‘But we don’t belong together anywhere except in the boardroom. There is no other woman… forget that, no other person I would rather work with than you. But we want different things.’
‘We don’t,’ she gasped, and immediately raged with herself. She would not argue for a man’s love, not even Drew.
‘We do,’ he said, almost regretfully. ‘Over the last few months I’ve realized that my work/life balance is completely messed up. I’m going to cut down my hours at the paper. Work less. Spend more time with family. And when I go home at night I don’t want to discuss current affairs and be mentally stimulated. I want to relax. See the kids. Play with Lawrence and Lavinia. Read. Chill. I’ve made an absolute balls of things over the last while and I can see now that I need to fix it. We don’t belong together, Mona. I want to work with you until the day I hang my jacket up, but that’s where we’re best together, not at home.’ He ran his fingers through his hair, something he only did when he was ultra-stressed, then he leaned over and touched her face. ‘I’ll always love you, Mona. But I have to go.’
‘Where?’
‘To talk to my wife.’
Her eyes didn’t even follow him as he left. Instead they closed, partly to stem the real tears that were threatening to flow, and partly because her brain was now going into frantic emergency disaster-recovery mode.
He didn’t want her. And his professional ethics would prevent him from helping her by stopping the story. It was over. Her life and everything she’d ever worked for was over. No one would employ her, no one would be attracted to a joke, no one would take her on knowing that she was an object of derision for the whole nation.
She was done.
Unless…
There was only one other option.
Piers.
Sure, it would be tough when the story came out, but they’d weather the storm. It wasn’t like she was the only one who’d been unfaithful. Anyway, hadn’t he told Emily the Frump that it was over and said something about hoping it wasn’t too late? Well, it wasn’t. He was going to have to brace himself for the downside of that ‘for better, for worse’ stuff that they promised each other in front of five hundred illustrious guests and she was going to have to suck it up and stay married to him… at least for the time being.
No one would believe that Piers Delaney’s wife would be capable of those things. No one would dare to labour the point for fear of incurring Piers’ wrath. Hell, Piers would buy every edition of the Sunday News and make sure that the paper – not her reputation – was pulped.
It was her only option. In a couple of years, when this had all blown over, they could quietly divorce and they could both go find partners that would truly make them happy.
Pulling her sunglasses back down over her eyes, she got up and headed for the lifts. She hoped Piers was around somewhere, because this was about to become his lucky day.
Tess
Tess reread the note again.
One more day. Tomorrow. Monaco. In the square at noon. Please come. Cxx
Her stomach was churning. Actually flipping over. One more day. How was she going to handle this? Tomorrow was Drew’s birthday, a day they should both be excited about, and yet all other feelings were being squashed to death by the big fat ball of apprehension currently shuttling between her stomach and her throat. Thankfully, it was around the voice box area when Drew burst back into the room, stopping her from screaming as she swiftly thrust the letter under the mattress.
She got up from the bed and made her way downstairs from the mezzanine, stopping halfway when she saw his expression.
‘What’s wrong? What’s happened?’ she asked fearfully. He looked positively panicked.
‘Nothing. Well, no, maybe something. I don’t know. I need to talk to you.’
That ball of apprehension just got bigger. Drew was never like this. He was Mr Calm – middle names, Cool and Control.
He reached up for her hand and then guided her down and over to the dining table, before taking the seat across from her.
‘What? What is it?’ This was starting to get seriously troubling.
‘Tess, I can’t do it.’
‘Do what?’
/>
‘Have more children. I’m so sorry. I wish that I could, but my time for that has passed. I don’t want to start all that again. Not even for you.’
She absorbed what he was saying with a deep sadness. ‘I know.’
‘You do?’
She nodded. ‘I’ve always known. And there’s no point in me screaming or shouting about it, because you were always up front about it. I didn’t expect you to change your mind. Even when I was giving you the ultimatum last night, I knew you wouldn’t change your mind, but I felt I had to try.’
He got up from his chair and took two bottles of fresh orange juice from the fridge, putting one down in front of her.
‘So where does that leave us, Tess? I feel like we’re two different people now, looking for two different things.’
‘What do you want?’ she asked him, trying to keep her voice calmer than she was feeling inside.
He pushed both hands through his hair, a gesture of exasperation that she’d never seen in him before. ‘I don’t know. I’m going to make changes. I’m going to work less, relax more, find some kind of healthy balance before it’s too late.’
That should be great news, but somehow it didn’t feel like a complete victory. ‘Are you doing that for me or for you?’
That was it. That was the crunch of the whole situation. Was she a consideration in his life, or was she just a bystander to everything Drew Gold would ever decide to do?
The question took him by surprise and as always, he paused before answering. Tess knew he wouldn’t lie – it wasn’t in his DNA – even though they both suddenly realized that so much was riding on his answer.
‘I’m doing it for me,’ he said slowly, his voice thick with regret. ‘But that doesn’t mean I don’t love you, Tess, because I do. I won’t lie to you though, even if it’s to say what I know you want to hear.’
She smiled sadly. ‘Integrity really is overrated, you know.’
His fingers were coiling around hers now. ‘I still think we can make this work,’ he said. ‘But I understand if it’s not enough. So now it’s my turn to ask you to think about our future. There will be more time for us. We’ll be able to do things, go places, travel, experience new things, live good lives. But a family will never be part of the picture.’
She unravelled her fingers from his as conflicting thoughts crashed in her head. She loved this man and he was finally going to have time for her. The life he was describing sounded like the kind of existence that many people dreamed of. No financial worries. No stress. Lots of fun. With a partner who loved her.
A month ago she would have been jumping up and down with happiness at this. Yet now, she wasn’t sure. It wasn’t just the barrier to having a family, because that had been there for a long time. It was more. A shift. A realization that she had never been top of the importance list for the man that she married. Hell, she wasn’t even sure that she was in the top three.
She wanted this to work, she really did. There had never been a single doubt that she loved Drew Gold from the minute she met him. He was everything she’d ever wanted in a bloke… except there, present, by her side.
The question now, though, was no longer whether he loved her enough. It was whether she wanted the future that he described.
18.
Sunsets At Sea
Mona
If ever Piers had the requirement for one last meal before a life-ending moment, Mona was sure he would want to have it here. The Steak Grill restaurant was his idea of heaven, with traditional wooden panelling on the walls, beautiful table linens, expensive crockery and crystal glasses that sparkled. It was lush, indulgent without being too pretentious, and it served cold beer and hot T-bones.
It was perfect.
As they were shown to their table, she noticed that he actually looked quite dashing tonight. He’d decided to wear a suit, which was unlike him on holiday. His dress sense could definitely be hit or miss. He’d even come back from that day in Palma wearing swim shorts with bloody chickens on them! Oh, the mortification. It had taken her a while to get over that one – she was a respected fashionista and she was married to a man who had chickens covering his balls.
The thought made her shudder.
‘All right, love?’ he asked.
‘Yes, just deciding I’m not having chicken tonight.’
‘Good move – go for the steak. It’s the speciality and I’ve heard it’s out of this world. You look beautiful tonight, by the way.’
‘Thank you.’ It wasn’t a surprise. She’d spent all day in the salon getting ready for this and she knew she had never looked better. They’d worked miracles with her eyes, which were now a smoky charcoal. Her complexion was flawless and her raven hair pulled back into a classic chignon. But it was her dress that stole the show – a white strapless sheath with a corset-style top that enhanced her curves, before clinging to every contour all the way down to her calves. It was so tight her steps were limited to ten-inch spans, but it was worth it. She’d been planning on wearing it tomorrow night to Drew’s birthday party, but now that tonight had suddenly become the most important night of her life, she’d decided to deploy every weapon in her armoury.
This was it. The night she would either hold on to her life or lose everything – and losing wasn’t an option she was prepared to consider.
Mona never came to a table without a game plan and tonight the strategy was clear: reconnect with Piers, reaffirm that their marriage was solid, warn him about the story. If he pulled the outraged, infidelity card, then she would bring up Emily. It was that simple. They would kiss, make up and agree to put the mistakes on both sides behind them. The end.
They stuck to small talk through the starters (salmon skewers for Mona, teriyaki chicken rolls for Piers) and main courses (Caesar salad and steak). It was all very amiable and pleasant. Not sparkling and fun, but then, it was Piers. He didn’t do anything that remotely resembled fun to her. They passed on desserts in favour of Irish coffees in elaborate glass mugs, and it was only then that Mona felt the time was right to talk. To her surprise, she realized that she was uncharacteristically nervous, yet she had no idea why – surely this was a foregone conclusion?
‘Piers, I need to talk to you.’
He put his coffee down and met her gaze with an unreadable expression. ‘That sounds serious.’
‘It probably is. Look, I know things haven’t been great between us, but I want you to know that I’m happy being married to you and I want to make it better. I really do.’
His face went from unreadable to surprise to something darker that she couldn’t quite pinpoint.
She reached over for his hand, but he slid it away as he sat back in his chair.
‘Why?’ he asked simply.
That was one question she hadn’t prepared for and it threw her. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Why do you want to make it better? What’s happened?’
‘N… nothing. Why would you say that?’ This was not going according to plan at all.
Slowly, Piers removed his napkin from his lap and put it on the table with a gesture of resignation.
‘Mona, I wasn’t going to have this conversation until we got back home, but since you’re bringing it up now, let’s just get real. You don’t want to be married to me. We both know it’s over. What is puzzling me is why you seem to have had a change of heart.’
A frisson of fear crept around her neck and she suddenly found it hard to breathe. ‘No. It’s not over, Piers. It’s not. Sure, we’ve had problems, but that’s hardly unusual. Nothing we can’t fix. I… I… love you.’ She added a definite tone to the last two words, hoping that he didn’t realize how hard it was for her to say. Bullshit had never been her strong point, but she had to try and make him believe it.
He stared at her for a long time, oblivious to the waiter who was floating around, desperate to be of service. Eventually Dimas, Greece went off and catered to another table.
After an interminable silence, her gut
wrenching at the thought of her future hanging in the balance, he finally spoke. ‘You don’t love me, Mona.’
The panic was strangling her now. ‘I do.’
‘How many other men have you slept with since we married?’
A physical slap across the face couldn’t have made her reel any further back. ‘Wha… what?’
Piers was still deadly calm. ‘How many? You can give it to me in dozens if that makes it easier.’
That was it. Desperate and needy didn’t sit well with her and since he was clearly going on the attack there was no way she was just going to sit there and take it. Her temper flared white-hot, sending her as always into a state of deadly menace.
‘Do not dare come over all sanctimonious on me,’ she hissed. ‘It’s not like you haven’t been banging your secretary for the last year. What did you do? Wow her with cash? You might at least have bought her a pair of decent shoes.’
She braced herself for the explosion but it never came. Now she knew why he was revered as one of the best negotiators in the corporate sector. This calm, icy demeanour obviously came from his business head. For a second she longed for the other, loud, rambunctious Piers.
‘Now, now, Mona, play nice,’ he replied coldly. ‘Because if we’re going to get really personal then I would have to point out that, A: you might want to stop shagging guys too close to home, because I hear you’ve been through half the twenty-five-year-olds in Glasgow, and B: you left your earrings in the cabin of that American bloke you’ve been screwing since we came aboard. He returned them yesterday. I offered him twenty quid as thanks for taking the time to bring them back. He took it.’
She froze, stunned, while he, completely nonplussed, signalled to Dimas, Greece for the bill.
‘So I think this is what they call a stalemate, Mona. Neither of us gets the upper hand, neither comes out of this smelling of roses. The only thing I will say is that I didn’t go near Emily until you were on your fourth or fifth little escapade. I think it was Danny, the twenty-two-year-old soap star.’
Oh. Holy. Fuck. How does he know all of this? And he was still speaking.
