by Tess Stimson
“So did you mean what you said,” she opens her hand on the cassette, “on this?”
“I wasn’t drunk,” I say. “I haven’t changed my mind.”
She looks at the tape, then at me.
“You have been a bloody fool. What you did was unforgivable. You don’t deserve a second chance. Why shouldn’t I shut you out, no matter how much you swear you love me?”
My own words, I realize, turned against me.
“ I wish you could turn back the clock too, Nicholas. I wish you’d told me before how happy I’ve made you, how much you loved coming home to me every night, and waking up next to me every morning. You’re right: What you did was wrong, and there are no excuses.”
Her expression is cool, unflinching. Ice washes through my veins. She hasn’t come here to give me a second chance at all. She’s here to skewer me with my trespasses, to ensure I am fully cognizant of what I have lost. And she is doing it not out of spite or bitterness, but because she’d rather face me and have it out, fair and square, here, alone, than in a courtroom. Not for her the coward’s way out. She won’t use the children as weapons, or bleed me dry financially out of revenge. I can only imagine what it has cost her to come here; but I know that after today, she will draw a line beneath the score and walk away.
And I would give everything I own for her to stay.
“I know it’s too late for us,” I say, “I know that. And I will spend the rest of my life half alive because of it. You’re right. I had everything, and I let it slip through my fingers. I chose to do what I did; it didn’t just happen; I have no one to blame but myself.” I realize I am crying; and that I don’t care. “I would never intentionally have hurt you or the girls, but my negligence amounted to the same thing. Oh, Mal. I deserve this, but you don’t—you don’t—”
“No,” she says, “I don’t. And nor,” she adds, in a quite different voice, “do you.”
“But it’s all my—”
“Enough, Nicholas. Enough of fault and blame and I wish and you should. I believe that you love me. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. And I certainly love you. If you still want that second chance, it’s yours.”
I gape at her, slack-jawed. “What?”
“Come home,” says my wife.
“Are you—are you sure? After everything I’ve done?”
“Nicholas, it wasn’t just you. Mostly,” she smiles wryly, “but not all. You weren’t the only one who didn’t appreciate what they had until they lost it. I realized last week that no matter what you’ve done, I’m happier being unhappy with you, than when I’m happy with anyone else. If you see what I mean.”
I do see, despite the tortured semantics.
“I don’t want you unhappy at all.”
“No,” she says briskly. “Well, neither do I. But that’s rather up to you, isn’t it?”
“She’s left the firm. I won’t be seeing her again. You know that, don’t you? Not her, not anyone, you do understand that, I swear, Malinche, I will never—”
“Trace has gone back to London,” she offers. “He came round one night last week and said he wanted me to buy him out of the restaurant in Salisbury. I’ll have to borrow some money from the bank, of course, but—did you know?—your father very generously left me something, quite a lot, actually, and I think he would be rather pleased—”
“Yes, I did know. He told me he was going to.” I smile sadly. “He would be very pleased.”
Malinche says, firmly, “I want to work. Not full time, of course; I’ll hire a manager and a chef; you and the girls will always come first, but I need to do this for me. How can I expect to interest you if I don’t interest myself?”
“You do interest me,” I say feverishly, “very much.”
“This is a second chance, Nicholas. It’s not carte blanche. I can’t promise I’ll always be able to look at you and not see her. I can’t promise I won’t take it out on you sometimes. Throw it back in your face. I’m not a saint, you know. And I want us to talk about this, I don’t want to brush it under the carpet in that public schoolboy way of yours; I know that’s not your way, but this is no time for a stiff upper lip. We both have to find a way to live with the past. It’s going to take time. We can’t just go back to the way we were overnight.”
“I know. I don’t expect that. I know I have to earn back your trust. And obviously I’ll sleep in the spare room until—”
“Why,” she asks, “would you do that?”
“Well—but you—I mean—”
I’m acutely aware of the closeness of her body, the flimsy jersey encasing her bare breasts, the glimpse of soft thigh at the part of her skirt. Her warm scent is at once achingly familiar and erotically exotic. She has changed. Or perhaps: simply rediscovered what was there all along.
There is challenge in her honey-swirled eyes. Challenge; and something else, something that seems almost like desire—
“Sex is where everything starts and ends, Nicholas,” she says clearly. “If you want to sleep in the spare room, I might as well call your Ms. Schultz now and—”
“Christ, no! No, that’s not what I want! I want you, I’ve always wanted you, you’re in my blood and my brain and my body, you’re the reason my heart beats, you’re why I get up in the morning. Jesus, don’t you understand that still?”
She smiles. A slow, warm smile that reaches out to me.
“That,” she says, “is what I wanted to hear.”
I move toward her, but she backs away. Holding my gaze, she unfastens the belt of her dress, and allows it to fall to the floor. She is naked beneath it, but for those heels. Her high breasts are as firm and pert as the day I met her. She has the legs of a dancer, the poise of a queen. Her belly is less taut, perhaps, than it used to be, but its softness speaks of sensual, erotic pleasure, of fecundity and libidinous, carnal satisfaction. Far rather this than the hard-bodied stomach of a gym maven.
She moves with a confidence I haven’t seen for years. She is in control: not just of this moment, I see suddenly, but of herself, her life. She has made a choice.
“Close your eyes, Nicholas,” she says.
And shut out all of this?
She laughs at my expression. “Come on. Close your eyes.”
I do as I’m bid. Her hands are at my trousers, unbuckling, unzipping.
“Now—” she says:
—just as I smell it; just as I realize that however hard the road ahead, however long it may take us to rebuild our marriage, we will succeed, and it will be stronger and better than it ever was, that we have endured, that I am the luckiest man alive—
“—open your mouth.”
Chocolate.
Acknowledgments
So many people help with stories and advice when one writes a book, but some have to be singled out for their special contribution.
Without Carole Blake, my agent, I would never have found the self-belief to write this book. Her encouragement, knowledge, meticulous editorial advice, support, and—above all—her friendship have been invaluable. I would fly (indeed, have flown!) across the world to have lunch with her.
Caitlin Alexander has been the most wonderful editor; she has the brilliant knack of knowing exactly what is wrong with a scene—and even more usefully, how to put it right. Thanks to her ability to cut and tighten, this book is far better than it otherwise would have been.
I am deeply grateful to Connie Munro, my copy editor, whose sharp eye prevented many howlers from slipping through, and to Kelly Chian, Betsy Hulsebosch, Nita Taublib, Irwyn Applebaum, Cynthia Lasky, and the rest of the amazing team at Bantam Dell, all of whose verve and enthusiasm have been inspiring.
Every girl should feel like a million dollars at least once. That most tempting man, Hugo Burnand, gave me my moment when he took my author photographs. Bliss.
Eileen Gaulter, of Gaulter Technologies, Inc., interpreted my vague and unhelpfully abstract ideas for a web site with creativity, practicality, and skill, and I love the result.
Please check it out: www.TessStimson.com.
To Georgie and Charlie Stewart, for their endless generous hospitality every time I fly to London, I cannot say thank you enough. You provide the fluffiest towels and the best company. Your friendship means the world to me.
Thanks, too, to my father, Michael, and stepmother, Barbi, for the dawn airport pickups and for allowing my family to wreak havoc in their beautiful home; to my outlaws, Harry and Sharon Oliver, for kidnapping their grandchildren so that I can work, and for providing raspberry martinis as and when required; to my brother, Charles, the original English gentleman; and to Henry, Matthew, and Lily, for tiptoeing away quietly when Mummy has a writing crisis, and for not crashing my computer too often.
Above all, to my husband, Erik, for his thousand little kindnesses—and the one very big one: marrying me. Here’s to Melville and Milton, and the lifetime in between.
Tess Stimson
About the Author
Tess Stimson is the author of three previous novels and one biography, and writes regularly for UK newspapers and women’s magazines. Born and brought up in Sussex, England, she graduated from Oxford University before spending a number of years working in Europe, Cyprus, and Lebanon as a TV news producer with ITN (UK) and CNN. She now lives in Florida with her American husband, their daughter, and her two sons.
Visit her on the web at
www.TessStimson.com
Six lovers.
Two affairs.
But who will break …
The
Infidelity
Chain
by
Tess Stimson
Coming in 2009
The Infidelity Chain
Coming soon
ELLA
I’ve often wondered if adultery runs in the genes, like blue eyes or buck teeth. Am I unfaithful because it’s written in my DNA?
The idea appeals to the scientist in me: We’re all the sum of our genetic barcodes, no more, no less. See, yes, there it is, nestling between my red hair and tendency toward pear-shaped (hips, life, take your pick)—there, see, infidelity, clear as day. Biological proof that I can no more stay faithful than shrink a shoe size, however hard I try.
William stirs next to me. He reaches for my breast, and my nipple peaks instantly beneath his touch. His cock jabs my hip, already hard again. I smile. After eight years, we don’t have sex that often, but when we do, we get our money’s worth.
He rolls onto his back and pulls me onto him; I wince slightly as he enters me. He isn’t to know I had sex with Jackson—twice—last night.
As he thrusts upward, I cling to the brass bedstead for support, my breasts shivering tantalizingly above his mouth. His lips fasten on my nipple and there’s a zigzagging pulse between my legs. I tighten my grip. William is the more selfish lover; I’ve learned to take my pleasure from him without asking. Jackson is far more thoughtful: always seeking out new ways to please me, holding himself in check until I’ve come—sometimes three or four times.
I shunt Jackson out of my head. Contrary to popular myth, women can be good at adultery. All they have to do is learn to think like a man.
My clit rubs against William’s pelvis, and the familiar heat builds. His teeth graze my breast; swift, greedy bites. I reach between his legs, skittering my fingernails along the inside of his thighs and across his balls. He bucks inside me, hitting my G-spot, and I stiffen, savoring the moment at the crest of the roller coaster. Then my orgasm breaks over me in sweeping, almost painful, waves.
With one hand, I find the tiny sensitive spot between his balls and asshole, pressing just enough to send him wild. With the other, I reach for my beeping phone.
Only two people would text me this late at night. Jackson, or—
“Shit!” I tumble off him, groping for my clothes.
He slams his head against the pillow. “Christ. I thought you weren’t on call tonight.”
“Emergency.” I hook up my bra, and scrabble under the bed for my knickers. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Couldn’t it have waited until after I came?”
I give up on the knickers, and pull on my gray pencil skirt before sliding my feet into a pair of skyscraper scarlet heels. I can only find a single topaz earring; I hate losing one of a pair.
Buttoning up my white silk shirt, I lean forward and drop a kiss on his sandpaper cheek. He smells of my sex. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”
William scowls. “You owe me.”
“Get in line.”
Fifteen minutes later, I ease my toes from the to-die-in stilettos as the lift grinds its way up to the obstetric floor. There must be another butter-wouldn’t-melt little genome tucked away on that adulterous double-helix to explain my uncontrollable fetish for pretty shoes. How else to explain the purchase of lust-have red Ginas in a size six (the only pair left—and no, they haven’t “stretched with wear” as the commission-only salesgirl promised) when I’ve been a size seven all my adult life?
My mother was always perfectly shod. Even when the French bailiffs evicted us from our little appartement on the Rue du Temple because my father had stopped paying the rent, her footwear (if not her reputation) was beyond reproach. We might have starved as a result, but she could no more resist a new pair of polka-dot peep-toe slingbacks than she could him.
She brought her only daughter up in her likeness.
The lift doors open and I hobble toward the delivery suites, uncomfortably aware of the draft beneath my skirt. Lucy is my best friend, and I love her to death, but I really hope she isn’t on duty tonight. I’m used to moral sermons from my mother; she speaks from fingers-burnt experience, after all. But Lucy and I have been les soeurs sous la peau since we crossed scalpels over a half-dissected corpse as medical students at Oxford. I’m the one she comes to for a Xanax scrip before she flies. It’s not like she hasn’t known about my affair for years.
On the other hand, when your husband leaves you for a teenage choreographer (forget semantics: If you’re thirty-six, as we are, twenty-three is teenage) I suppose it entitles you to take a more jaundiced than jaunty view of other people’s adultery.
My mobile rings as I reach the labor ward. Peering through the glass porthole, I realize my patient must still be in the back of an ambulance trapped in stubborn traffic somewhere on Fulham Road, and take the call.
“Jackson,” I say, “I’m with a patient.”
“You’re at work?”
“You knew I was on call.”
One of the perks of being a doctor (aside from delightful offers from strangers at parties to allow me to examine their thyroids or anal fissures in the guest bathroom, heedless of both the social niceties and the fact that I am a neonatologist) is the ability to stay out all night unquestioned.
As Pediatric Consultant at the Princess Eugenie Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, I owe the hospital six nights on call each month. My husband has always believed it seven.
“You’ve got five minutes,” I tell Jackson.
“That’s not what you said last night,” he teases, his Deep South drawl undiminished by nearly a decade in England.
I’m not having an affair because my sex life with my husband is either infrequent or unsatisfying. On the contrary: He’s a conscientious lover. Though I have plenty of plausible reasons for my infidelity, I’m not sure that I can actually find an excuse that excuses me.
I shrug on my white coat. “What is it?”
“I need to talk to you.”
“Now? Can’t it wait?”
He hesitates. “I just found this neat motorcycle on eBay, an Indian. The bids end at midnight, and I wanted to talk to y’all about it first—”
I can’t help thinking he was going to say something else.
“A motorbike?”
“C’mon, Ell, you know I’ve always wanted one. It’d make it real quick to get to work. It’s all right for you,” he adds, an edge creeping into his voice, “living so close to the hospital. You’re not the one got
ta sit in traffic for an hour two times a day.”
“I’m sure DuCane would still—”
“For Chrissakes, Ella! How many times?”
“No one’s asking you to raise money for their pharmaceuticals,” I say tightly. “We all know they’re immoral drug-pushing pimps who’ll go straight to hell, yada yada. But the research program is different—”
“Suddenly stem-cell research is OK?”
“Jackson, I’m a doctor. What do you want me to say?”
“You don’t have to leave your conscience at the door when you put on your white coat, Ella,” he says bitterly. “Just your fancy shoes.”
I wish.
“I don’t see what my conscience has to do with—”
“I thought you were supposed to be saving babies, not murdering them.”
“Not that it’s anything to do with neonatology, Jackson,” I say, stung, “but since when did messing about with zygotes become equivalent to baling infants with a pitchfork?”
“Stupid of me to think you’d care.”
“Stupid of me to think you’d be able to reason like a grown-up.”
Subtext whirls through the ether. We both know what this is really about.
I switch my mobile to the other ear, holding on to my temper with difficulty. Now is not the time to call him out for wanting to break our deal—we agreed from day one: no children. It’s not as if the subject is going to go away, I think resentfully.
“Look. I only meant—”
“I know what you meant, Ella.”
It’s one of the things I always admired about Jackson (particularly since I lack it myself): his steadfast, unfashionable integrity. A gifted fundraiser, charming, sincere, and articulate, he has the kind of likable persuasiveness that, were he politically minded, could have seen him in the White House (although his incurable honesty might have counted against him, of course). In the past couple of years, headhunters for several prestigious NGOs have offered him six figures and an open-ended expense account to run their capital campaigns or head up their development offices. All have come away disappointed; though only after Jackson has charmed them into donating hefty sums to One World, the lentils-and-hairy-armpit environmental charity for which he works.
