My One Week Husband

by Lauren Blakely

  I didn’t get to say all of the true things to Jonathan, because he died too soon.

  But Daniel is alive. Whether we can ever be together or not, I can still express how he made me feel in that week of time.

  “I can speak the truth now. And I want to,” I say.

  Nadia smiles, bright and proud. “Then do it.”

  I grab my phone from my purse, slide the screen open, and I’m about to call him when a message pings from my parents.

  I open it. It’s a photo of an ice-cream cone.

  * * *

  Dad: We went to a new vegan ice-cream shop in the Village. I got a double chocolate. Impressed?

  * * *

  Mom: Salted caramel for moi. Mine was better. Your father knows it and tried to barter for my cone.

  * * *

  Dad: Not true. I simply suggested trading off.

  * * *

  Mom: Translation: you had ice cream regret. Admit I picked a better flavor.

  * * *

  Dad: I will admit nothing of the sort. But I’ll admit this – Scarlett, when you’re in New York next, we will definitely go to Sweet Nothings.

  * * *

  I reply quickly.

  * * *

  Scarlett: Oh yes, we will. Also, you had me at vegan.

  * * *

  Dad: I knew we could get your attention with that word!

  * * *

  Mom: Does that mean you’ll come visit us soon?

  * * *

  Scarlett: I promise.

  * * *

  My chest expands, it glows, and I see things even more clearly.

  I have this. I have this frequent connection, this regular contact, the thing Daniel misses the most.

  It’s such a simple, wonderful thing.

  No wonder he’s scared. No wonder he’s terrified. He lost something more than precious.

  I know what it’s like to have it.

  I can do something for him and something for me. To let him know how deeply he touched me and how much I’d be willing to try for him.

  But it’s past midnight. And midnight is for regrets, so I don’t call him. Instead, I send a message asking him to meet me in the morning.

  31

  Daniel

  In the opera house, I listen to the end of the piece, remembering my parents in the audience the last time I played this, and their words to me after.

  No matter who you play for, you have a gift and you used it well, my father said.

  I loved it now as much as I did the first time you played it when you were seven, standing in the living room, struggling with some of the notes, my mother said.

  That’s a memory I haven’t allowed to come to the forefront of my mind for a long, long time.

  It’s a memory I’ve pushed back, but now it reminds me that I am more than a once well-used gift.

  I’m not empty without it now that it’s gone.

  I had it, I lost it, but music isn’t all or nothing, played on either the stages of the world or not at all.

  It can be just as fulfilling to stumble over the notes for your parents.

  It can be just as uplifting to hear others make music.

  It can be just as necessary to your soul to play in an empty room.

  For years and years, I’ve played only for myself. I’ve only picked up the bow and the violin in a quiet corner of a hotel room.

  All that time I thought I was hiding inside my cold black heart. But it turns out all along I was actually healing myself.

  The music I played alone somehow, in some way, over time, over the years, worked its magic.

  Maybe, just maybe, it healed me enough. Enough to see that all is not lost.

  Enough to see that there is more to life than carpe diem, than daily moments of pleasure, of money, of material goods.

  That music mattered as much when I played it in the living room as when I played it before strangers wearing black tie.

  And that music, too, can express the very soul of a person.

  When I return to my hotel room that night, I pick up the violin, open the window, and play for the city. I serenade Paris, and I imagine that somehow my music is floating over the river and across to the other bank, serenading a woman.

  But it’s not enough to imagine it.

  I have to tell her.

  When I am done, I don’t feel regret. I don’t feel anger. I only feel hope.

  I turn on my phone and send her a text as soon as it powers on, though it’s two in the morning. I ask if she can meet me tomorrow morning.

  Once it’s sent, my phone downloads my new messages and I find one from her.

  Not an answer, but from earlier.

  In the morning, I wake up to a text with a location. A bench along the River Seine, across from the Notre Dame.

  I shower, get dressed, and take the thing I’ll need most.

  32

  Daniel

  Paris and music go hand in hand.

  In the scheme of things, I’m not doing something that stands out. I’m part of the fabric of the city. I blend into the scene, another street musician busking by the Seine.

  But I am more than that. I’m a man on a mission to push himself. To do something terrifying because maybe something terrifying can lead to something wonderful.

  I arrive early, nerves gripping my throat, fear seizing my chest. They are my regular bedfellows, along with something new.

  Hope.

  I stand by the bench and wait, my pulse spiking, my heart beating in my throat, my violin case sitting at my feet. My skin prickles, and my hands begin to sweat. I brush them over my jeans. I had no stage fright as a young musician. I had zero as a teenager.

  I have too much now.

  But this is, in many ways, the toughest stage in the world for me.

  When I see Scarlett across the street, her chestnut hair, bright eyes, and gorgeous lips, a thousand hummingbirds flap their wings in my chest.

  I take out the violin, set it under my chin, rest it on my shoulder, and raise the bow.

  She hasn’t spotted me yet. She’s scanning the riverbanks, looking for me. Or maybe she’s listening to the river.

  This time, I’m making sure the river has something to say.

  When she’s about twenty feet away, I begin making music for another person for the first time in fifteen years.

  It’s sweet and complicated, complex and tender. It’s the one that reminds me of her.

  The Brahms.

  Her pace slows when she hears it.

  Her eyes widen. Her lips curve into a grin, and she locks eyes with me.

  Everything in her face transforms.

  That hardness, that toughness she wore last night, all vanishes, fading to dust.

  As her eyes gleam, I soldier on, nerves be damned.

  For years I was ashamed to play for others, ashamed of what I’d done to my hand, how I’d squandered my talent, how I’d ruined music, ruined myself.

  But as I play, I choose to let those beliefs go.

  To take the gift for what it is—a gift. And to receive it.

  She closes the distance, stopping a few feet in front of me, beaming like the sun. As I play and I play and I play.

  Then, when I’ve reached the end, I stop, lower the bow and the instrument, and say, “It reminds me of you.”

  “So you told me.”

  The stage fright I felt moments ago?

  That’s nothing compared to the fear that races through me now, that threatens to pull me under, to make me want to run away.

  But the music has given me strength. The music has always given me strength, only I didn’t realize it till last night.

  Or maybe I finally found my own strength through her. I use it to speak my heart’s desire.

  “I thought maybe if you were talking to the river, it might talk back to you. It might feel sad and sweet, melancholy but happy. That maybe the river would talk to you through music,” I say, my heart skittering.

  “Perhaps
it is. But I would need a translator. Someone who understands music intimately. Could you be that person?” she asks, hope in her tone, a hope that matches mine.

  I smile, my nerves dissipating some. “I can. I know what all the notes mean.”

  “Tell me. Tell me what the river is saying.”

  I put the violin down, setting it carefully in its case, then closing it.

  I meet her eyes. She’s waiting for me. It’s my turn. I’m the one who shut the door on us yesterday. I’m the one who has to kick it wide open again. “I was wrong. Dead wrong.”

  She nods carefully. “About what?”

  That’s so very Scarlett. Open, earnest, but making sure that I deserve her. My God, I hope I can deserve her. “I thought I was protecting us by making a decision to end the most wonderful thing that’s ever happened to me,” I say, opening my whole heart to her.

  Her lips shift into a grin. She tries to fight it. But she seems to have no luck. “The most wonderful thing ever?”

  “Yes. That’s what you are. And I didn’t give us a chance.”

  “That’s true. You didn’t give us the opportunity to learn how to trust each other, to feel truly safe with each other,” she says softly, but it’s not an indictment of me. It’s simply the truth.

  “I know,” I say, wishing I could go back in time and fix things. But the world only spins forward. You can’t change the past. You can only live differently in the present. That’s what I must do with her. “I didn’t give you a chance. I said we couldn’t be together because I didn’t want to hurt you,” I say, then pat my chest, owning it. “But the truth is I’m terrified of being the broken one. I’m so damn scared of letting myself be loved again. Maybe even unconditionally. I don’t think I know how to be vulnerable. If I’m vulnerable, then I can be left. I’d thought I was protecting both of us. But I was only protecting myself. And in so doing, I didn’t protect you. I only hurt you. And I’m so very sorry.”

  She lifts her hand as if to touch me, but then seems to think better of it, tucking her hands into her jeans pockets. Perhaps I haven’t said enough. Or maybe she has something to say.

  A boat glides along the river, and a young woman with two toddlers in tow ambles along the path. Cars and buses trundle by on the avenue.

  “Daniel, you’ve been through something terrible,” she says. “And when my father sent me his photos of dinner and ice cream, everything hit me all at once. How hard it was for you to open yourself up at last. At all, really. When I told you yesterday that I loved you, I didn’t get to say my piece. And so I’m going to say it now.”

  She draws a deep breath, as if for courage. She casts her gaze to the river, her source of strength. Then finally she speaks. “I love you. I just do. And I want to give this a chance. I want to give us a chance. But mostly, I want to know that, if you’re here to ask for a second chance, you’re all the way in. That you’re ready for it,” she says, laying her heart on the line. “Because know this—I will be here for you. I will be here when you’re sad, when you’re hurt, when you’re happy, when you’re vulnerable, when you’re lonely, when you’re horny, and when you’re happy. I will be here for you. As your friend, as your lover, as your woman. All I ask is that you be here in this too.”

  How could I not?

  My heart thumps wildly, embracing her words.

  I step closer, reaching for her, because I can no longer stand the thought of not touching her. I clasp her shoulders, then I run my hands down her arms. She shudders as I touch her.

  “I want to know what it’s like to live again, to love again, and to feel again. Will you give me another chance?”

  She laughs. Shakes her head. Laughs again. “Don’t you get it? That’s what I just said.”

  I laugh too. “This is all new to me. But you need to know I’ve loved every second of the last week with you. I’m tired of moving through my days only half alive. I want to be fully alive, experiencing everything and experiencing it with you.”

  She slides closer to me, looping her hands around my neck. “So experience me. Let’s take on the world together. Let’s do this thing here in Paris, you and me.”

  “No ending. Just beginning every day.”

  “Every day. And every night.”

  I clasp her cheeks, bring her close, and kiss her like I’ve been searching for her for years.

  I’m pretty sure I have. She is all I want. As we kiss by the river, I make a decision.

  Because that’s what every moment is—a decision as to how you’re going to go on from here.

  And so, I make a choice I’m ready for at last.

  I let the past go. All I want is the present.

  When we break the kiss, I stroke Scarlett’s cheek, cup her jaw, then whisper, “Thank you.”

  Taking her hand, I set us off, and we walk along the river. This seems fitting—my violin case in one hand, hers in the other.

  I ask her if her father sends ice-cream and dinner photos every day.

  With a smile, she answers, “Every few days.”

  “I’d like to see them. Will you show me when he sends them?”

  She slides her thumb along my hand. “I would love to. And I want to hear you play again.”

  “I will. For you.” That is an easy promise to make. No more nerves. Playing for her feels like what I’m meant to do with music now.

  “I’ll be your audience,” she says.

  That feels right too. Playing for the one I love.

  When we reach her flat, I press a kiss to the back of her neck, and she shivers as she works the key into the lock.

  As she pushes the door open, I graze my lips along her neck, inhaling her perfume.

  “You’re wearing it,” I say as the door snaps shut behind us.

  She gives me a flirty, dirty grin. “My husband bought it as a gift. He likes the way it smells on me.”

  A rumble works its way up my chest and out of my throat. “He’s mad about you.”

  “Is that so?” she asks as she leans against the wall inside her flat.

  “He’s absolutely crazy in love with you,” I say, and I press a kiss to the hollow of her throat.

  “What else?” she asks in a heady whisper as I graze kisses over her skin, savoring her.

  “He wants to fuck you and love you and cherish you.” I raise my face, meet her eyes, and look deeply into them. “Because you’re the only one, Scarlett.”

  “And you for me,” she says, sliding a hand over my heart, pressing her fingers against it. “For the record, I never thought your heart was black.”

  “What color did you think it was?”

  She brings her face close to mine, her eyes gleaming with heat and desire. “Red-hot.”

  I take her to bed, and I show her exactly how red-hot I can be as I slide inside her, fill her, fuck her.

  She wraps her legs around me, hooking her ankles together, bringing me closer. I go deep, deeper than I have before. And we are a tangle of limbs, flesh, heat, and skin.

  Of love, trust, and intimacy.

  Like that, we let go, moving beyond our fears, fucking and loving each other into a whole new possibility of us.

  Epilogue

  Scarlett

  * * *

  I sign the final page of the contract with a flourish.

  We pulled it off. My first big acquisition since I became a partner in this luxury hotel group. Pride suffuses me—pride in a job well done. We got a screaming deal with terrific terms, and everyone is pleased.

  I set the fountain pen down on the desk in Cole’s office at The Invitation in Las Vegas, where we’ve finalized the paperwork.

  “And it’s done, gentlemen,” I say.

  Daniel claps. “Congratulations, you savvy, moneymaking businesswoman,” he says with the same kind of sexual innuendo that rolled off his tongue the first time I met him, when he said he wanted me to help him make money turn into more money.

  Cole lifts his chin, flashes a big smile, and says, “Congrats.
Also, I’m glad you two so thoroughly worked through that little issue of ‘Can business partners date?’ and are now flirting in my office.”

  “We did indeed,” Daniel says, dropping a kiss onto my cheek.

  We worked through it in the simplest of ways.

  By doing it.

  By taking a chance.

  By believing we could have it all.

  We work together most of our days and play together most of our nights. It’s a good life, inking deals, running a worldwide business, making decisions, taking chances, and taking them together.

  Meeting family too—tomorrow we go to New York for Daniel to meet my parents.

  Tonight, though, we’ll celebrate with friends here in Vegas by going to a concert headlined by the rock star Stone Zenith. We’re meeting Nadia at the show on one of her last nights in town before she relocates to San Francisco.

  I grab my purse, shoulder it, and rise. “On that note, I have a concert to go to, so I better get ready.”

  “I better go as well, then, since this means I can stare at you while you shower,” Daniel offers.

  Cole rolls his eyes. “Really?”

  “What? Did you think we’d be chaste?” Daniel asks, as if that’s the height of foolishness.

  “No. Not in the least.” Cole pauses, licks his lips, then grins. “Before you go, though, remember how you two knew that Sage was right for me?”

  I furrow my brow. “Yes. I do remember Daniel engineering things between you and the love of your life.”

  “You played a part too. You knew we were right for each other.”

  “Fine. I did play a part,” I acknowledge.