When Valentines Collide

by Adrianne Byrd

  “What? He knows I’m just joking with him.”

  “Keep it up and you’ll be on the couch.” Edie’s annoyance melted when she turned her attention to Chanté. “Do you have any Tylenol or anything? I have some in our room, if you’d like some?”

  “Actually, I think I have some in my cache case,” Chanté said, massaging her pressure points again.

  “We should call it a night.” Matthew stood and then offered to assist her from her chair.

  “Well, maybe I should go take something.” She accepted his offer and stood. “I guess we’ll see you in class tomorrow.”

  The group of friends finished their goodbyes and Matthew and Chanté returned to their private lodge. During the entire walk, Chanté practiced the next day’s confession in her head, and each time her vision of Matthew’s reaction intensified her migraine.

  “You really don’t look well,” Matthew commented as he led her to the bedroom. “Why don’t you lie down and I’ll go get your medicine and some water for you.”

  “Thanks,” she murmured. “I’m sure I’ll be all right in a little while.” She eased back against the bed’s pillows.

  “Don’t worry about it, my beloved.” He leaned down and kissed the top of her forehead. “The most important thing is to get you feeling better.”

  Beloved. She really did love it when he called her that. “Thanks, my beloved.”

  Matthew’s eyes lit up at the use of his endearment and he rewarded her with another kiss; this time a light, sensual one that was as effective in curling her toes as well as fluttering her heart.

  “Be right back,” he promised.

  She smiled as she watched him move away from the bed. Lavishing in her love haze, she couldn’t quite remember how she’d allowed things to get so bad between them. Now, she just hoped tomorrow’s session with Dr. Gardner wouldn’t change all of that.

  She closed her eyes and tried to lie still until Matthew returned with her pills, but then her eyes flew wide open when she remembered what else was in her cache case.

  Matthew stood above her. In one hand he held a glass of water and in the other, her circular compact of birth control pills.

  “Why in the hell do you have these?”

  Chapter 17

  Chanté bolted out of bed like a light and snatched the pills out of her husband’s hand, as if doing so would magically make him forget that he’d ever seen them. Once the damning evidence was in her hand, she felt an overwhelming sense of nausea.

  “I believe I asked you a question,” Matthew said, setting the glass of water down on the nightstand and settling his darkening gaze on her.

  She opened her mouth to launch into the prepared speech for the following day’s session, but what came out of her mouth instead was, “You weren’t supposed to find those.”

  Silent, he glared as if he enjoyed watching the room’s mounting tension choke the living daylight out of her.

  Chanté wasn’t used to that sort of combat. She much preferred it when there was a lot of yelling and screaming involved. She was in her element in verbal combat and petty revenge tactics.

  How did anyone fight silence?

  At long last, Matthew turned on his heel and headed toward the closet. It wasn’t until he pulled out his suitcase and propped it up on the bed that Chanté’s panic hit her at full throttle.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I’m packing,” he growled.

  She rushed toward the bed. “You’re leaving?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “You can’t leave. W-we have class tomorrow and—and what about our session with Dr. Gardner?”

  He stopped and pierced her with another dark glare. “Tell me about the pills.”

  Her mouth went dry and after a full minute of struggling for the right words, she gave a flat response. “It’s complicated.”

  Matthew clenched his jaw so tight, a singular vein protruded from the center of his forehead. He turned back toward the closet, grabbed the few clothes he had hanging from the rack, and shoved them—hangers and all—into his suitcase.

  “Wait. You can’t go.” She threw the pills onto the bed and started snatching his clothes back out of the suitcase.

  Matthew stepped back and slowly settled his hands against his hips. “Tell me about the pills,” he stressed evenly.

  “Matthew, it’s just that…I tried to tell you but—”

  “Tell me about the goddamn pills,” he roared, reaching out and grasping her painfully around her arms.

  Her vision blurred with a sudden rush of tears. “I’ve been taking them for a year.”

  The confession was like a hard slap and Matthew’s grip tightened on her arm.

  “Let go, Matt. You’re hurting me.”

  He released her immediately, but it didn’t stop his hands from trembling.

  The silence returned and Chanté squirmed fitfully beneath his murderous glare. She made an attempt to reach him through the windows of his soul, but she couldn’t journey past the blackness of his stare.

  “A year,” he finally growled. “All those times we were trying…or should I say I was trying to have a child, you were taking birth control pills?”

  “Look, Matt, try to understand—”

  “Understand?” he roared. “How can I understand anything if you don’t say anything? How could you let me believe that we were in this together?”

  “We were in it together. It just got to be too much—too many miscarriages and too much heartbreak. I couldn’t…I couldn’t keep putting myself through that.”

  “And what about me?” he shouted. “Don’t I have a say about any of this? Why wasn’t I a part of the decision-making? Or is this another grand standing position that since it’s your body, you get to make all the decisions?”

  “That’s usually how it works,” she snapped back, finally feeling her own anger rise.

  “Not in a marriage!” He stormed toward her again. “We’re supposed to be equal partners. I know how hard it was to lose every one of those pregnancies. I was right there with you, or did you forget? You weren’t the only one who’d gotten emotionally attached to each child we created.”

  “No, but you were the only one who could bounce back in a twenty-four-hour period, wanting to give it another whirl like I’m some freaking machine where you just drop in a deposit and wait for your baby. Well, I’m sorry to inform you but this machine is broken.”

  Matthew stepped back and shook his head with disappointment written clearly in every inch of his hard features. “Broken, or just giving up?” He searched her face for a true answer. “I would have supported you if you felt you needed a break or even if you wanted to stop trying. The important thing is for me to be included.”

  She shook her head and ignored the tears that raced down her face. “That’s not true. Every time I even hinted that maybe having a child is just simply not in the cards for us, you throw up a brick wall. It’s like you don’t hear me!”

  “Don’t give me that garbage! I thought you were seeking support. You never once said ‘Matthew, I don’t want to do this anymore’ or ‘Matthew, I think I need to give my body a rest.’ You made up your own mind to lie and sneak behind my back.” He grabbed his clothes again and started cramming them back into the suitcase.

  “It wasn’t like that,” she insisted.

  “Then what was it like?” he challenged.

  Being put on the spot like that, Chanté continued to grapple to find the right words.

  “Just as I thought. You know, for a talk radio host, you’re a woman of very few words.”

  “It’s because I know what I did was wrong. But I couldn’t talk to you then.”

  “Funny. Millions of people have no problem talking to me, but when it comes to my own wife, I’m treated like some kind of stranger.” He clamped his suitcase shut and proceeded to zip it despite a few articles sticking out. “I’m out of here.”

  When he turned and snatched his suitcase o
ff the bed, Chanté raced around him and tried to block his path. “You can’t leave. We haven’t finished talking yet.”

  “You had a year to talk to me. Just like you had a year to make me feel guilty that what was happening between us was my fault.”

  “I thought it was your fault,” she said desperately. “Your obsession for a child left me with no room to breathe. It was almost as if you only wanted a child—like I wasn’t enough for you. That’s why I kept saying that maybe a child wasn’t in the cards for us. I needed to hear that us being childless would be okay. That I was enough for you. But you never said it.” Her voice cracked as she madly wiped away her tears. “And I doubt that you can say it now.”

  Another wave of unforgiving silence crashed through the room and Chanté could feel her heart literally tearing in two.

  Matthew lowered his head and tightened his grip on his suitcase. “I have to go.” He walked around, incidentally bumped her shoulder, but kept moving without an apology.

  Chanté closed her eyes and remained rooted in the middle of the room long after the front door had slammed close.

  On the fourth day of the retreat, Chanté remained in her private lodge, hoping that Matthew would return after he’d cooled down. However, morning morphed into the afternoon, and then faded into night and she remained sitting alone. Shortly before ten o’clock there was a knock on the door and Chanté raced to open it up, only to have her heart dive back into despair when Edie stood on the other side.

  “Oh, it’s you,” Chanté said.

  “Mind if I come in?”

  Chanté cringed at the amount of sympathy dripping from her voice, knowing that there was only one conclusion to be drawn. “I take it you already know what happened between me and Matthew?”

  Edie hesitated but then slowly nodded her head. “He called Seth last night,” she admitted as she cocked her head. “How are you holding up?”

  Instead of answering, Chanté stepped back and gestured for her friend to enter. Once she was inside, Chanté closed the door with a soft click and then wrapped herself in her own embrace. “What did Matthew say?”

  Edie lowered her gaze and drew a deep breath. “I didn’t hear it all. Like I said, he talked to Seth.”

  Chanté released a long, frustrated breath and marched back over to the sofa. “If you’re going to give me the watered-down version, then just forget it.”

  “That’s not what I’m trying to do.”

  “Then spit it out,” she challenged. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”

  “I’m not on anyone’s side,” Edie corrected.

  Her words cut like a knife and Chanté turned her back, feeling like the entire world had ganged up on her. “Fine. Don’t tell me. What do you want?” She plopped down on the sofa and refused to meet her friend’s gaze again.

  “C’mon, don’t take your anger out on me. I am your friend.”

  “A friend who doesn’t take sides. Boy, I hit the lottery with you, didn’t I?” Chanté immediately regretted her words. “I didn’t mean that,” she recanted.

  “I know.” Edie walked over and staked claim to the empty space next to her. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Chanté sucked in a deep breath and she thought the question over. “Actually, no,” she said and realized she meant it. “No pity party. I’m going to be a big girl and own my mistakes.”

  “He’s just angry right now,” Edie said, determined to comfort her.

  “And I’m just hurt.”

  “Aww,” Edie groaned.

  She opened her arms to embrace her friend, but Chanté held her hands up and shrank away. “I mean it. No pity party.”

  True to her word, Chanté didn’t shed a tear that night, or on the plane ride home. Not until she returned home and discovered that Matthew had moved out, did the dam break and tears flow.

  Chapter 18

  The Love Doctor to write a prescription for a divorce?

  Matthew groaned at the Page Six article in the New York Post and then tossed it on the floor of his dressing room. In the past two months, the small room had become his primary residence, so it was only natural that the staff and crew would begin to talk. Rumors swirled fast and heavy. He’d even overheard the lighting tech and the sound engineer spinning a wild tale of how he’d walked in on his wife having an affair. Later that same day, the makeup artist and head caterer had flipped it around to be that Chanté had in fact walked in on him having an affair.

  He fired the gabbing four, but that only added fuel to the rumors. So he gave up and now pretended not to hear them. In truth, he only meant to stay at the studio for a short while, just long enough for him to clear his head or rather cool down. But one day turned into two and then three. Before he knew it a week had passed and then a month and now two. And his head was just as cloudy as the night he stormed out of The Tree of Life Resort.

  If he’d learned anything in his life and career: forgiving was a process. Saying “I forgive you” wasn’t like a magic spell. You didn’t wave a wand and abracadabra, a heart was healed. Betrayal was like being injected with poison. It could kill or traces of it could remain in your bloodstream forever.

  No matter how many different ways he tried to look at it, Chanté’s actions were an act of betrayal, but her words still challenged him. His gaze shifted to his reflection in the vanity mirror. He’d spent another day counseling married couples on the brink of divorce while all the while he felt like jumping out on the ledge with them.

  Maybe this was why psychologists had one of the highest suicide rates.

  Or was it dentists?

  At the light knock against his door, he fought the temptation to shout “go away” and instead invited the person into the room.

  “Dr. Valentine. Great show today,” Cookie praised, sliding through the door and closing it firmly behind her.

  “Oh, thanks.” He leaned forward in his chair and retrieved the outline for the next day’s show from his dresser. “You’re here kind of late,” he pointed out.

  “Yeah…I, uh, left earlier and then realized that I’d left my PDA somewhere around here so I swung back by.” She held up the BlackBerry in question as proof of the tale.

  “Glad you found it.” He returned his attention back to the outline as a way of dismissing her.

  However, she didn’t take the hint.

  “Uhm. You’re here late, too,” she commented, inching from the door.

  “I have a lot of work to do,” he answered, not bothering to look up.

  “It kind of looks like you’re living here,” she continued. “Are you…?”

  Matthew’s gaze snapped up to meet her gaze through the mirror.

  “About you and your wife…” she ventured, ignoring his glare of warning. She reached the back of his chair and lightly ran her fingers across his shoulders.

  “Cookie—”

  “Because I was thinking that a woman would have to be crazy to let a man like you go,” she purred, changing the direction of her hand to glide it through his low-cut hair. “If I was your girl, I’d make sure that you were well satisfied.” She leaned forward and brushed her breasts against his back. “Do you know what I mean?”

  Matthew watched her performance with a warped fascination and when he realized that she was waiting for him to say something, he did the only thing he could do.

  Laugh.

  The young intern froze.

  He laughed harder.

  Slowly, she removed her hands and stepped back. “What’s so funny?”

  “That you think I need a girl in my life.” He swiveled around in his chair to face her. “I am forty-two years old. The last thing I need is a little girl. How old are you?”

  “I’m legal,” she said, jutting up her chin.

  He nodded and told himself to proceed with caution. “Why would a beautiful girl like you throw yourself at a married man?”

  Cookie’s lips trembled like she was going through an internal earthquake. Next thing Matthew
knew, the young intern was spilling every detail of her short, tragic life—an abusive, alcoholic mother, an M.I.A. father, and her one talent of always falling for the wrong guy.

  As he suspected, Cookie’s shortsighted flirtation with him was more about a lost little girl looking for a father figure than any real feelings of attraction. She cried, smiled and even laughed a little bit, and when it was all said and done, Matthew felt good to put Cookie, real name Cassandra, onto a path of healing.

  Now, if he could just do that for his own life, he’d be in business.

  “Thank you, Dr. Valentine,” Cookie said, rising from the small cot in the corner of the room. “I always knew that you were one of the good guys.”

  Matthew rose from his chair and gave the girl a much-needed hug.

  “Hey, Matt.” The dressing room door swung open. “I brought you something to eat.” Seth glanced up and froze at the sight of Matthew and Cookie with their arms wrapped around each other.

  “Seth.” Matthew dropped his arms. “What are you doing here?”

  “Hello, Shawanda. Welcome back to The Open Heart Forum. What’s on your heart tonight?”

  “I’m just calling to say that you got some nerve, Dr. Valentine,” the caller said with some major attitude.

  Chanté had no trouble imagining a woman with her hands on her hips and her neck swiveling like a cobra.

  “How you gonna be giving me advice about how to keep my man when you can’t even keep hold of your own?”

  Chanté took a deep breath and tried her best not to allow herself to be bated. “I take it you’re referring to Page Six of the New York Post?”

  “Damn right, I am.” Shawanda’s voice rose as she hit her stride. “Here it is in black and white that your husband is gettin’ ready to cut you loose. All you highfalutin pop psychologists are a bunch of hypocrites. Up here trying to tell everybody else how to live while your own lives are a raggedy mess.”

  Chanté and Thad shared a commiserating look through the Plexiglas. “Shawanda, first let me start off by saying that I don’t know where the Post is getting their information. My marriage is doing just fine,” she lied.