Beautiful Secret (Beautiful Bastard #4) (33 page)

“What chance
does
she have? An even fifty-fifty?”

He laughed uncomfortably because what I’d said was awkward and sharp. But I couldn’t regret the edge to my tone. “God, no, Ruby.”

“But you’re
going
,” I reminded him, aghast. “I mean, we’re talking zero chance of reconciliation with your ex-wife, right?”

His expression straightened as if he hadn’t really thought about it this way. Clearly, he’d only considered it a courtesy. But if it was just a courtesy, and there was no chance he would take her back, then why wasn’t the answer too-little-too-late? Why not just tell her that his girlfriend had just left his flat in a bit of a hysterical state and could she fill him in later—
over the phone
?

“Well, I can’t imagine being with her again—”

“So you’re going only as a gesture?”

He closed his eyes, exhaling a gust of breath. “It sounds terrible when you say it like that.”

“So you’re
not
just going as a gesture?”

“I don’t—”

“Just tell me!” I cried. “Because right now it sounds like you’re telling me that you slept with me last night and tonight you’re going back to your ex-wife?” I felt tears burn across the surface of my eyes and by now I was too fucking tired to bother wiping them away.

“Ruby, I’m not having dinner with her tonight to go back to her.”

“But you
might
.”

He closed his eyes. “I can’t imagine that I would, no. But Ruby, I know you’re young and that you’ve n—”

“Don’t,” I said, my voice frightening, even to me. Unconsciously I had balled my hands into fists; I was at the dead end of my patience with his wishy-washy game. “Don’t do that. This isn’t about my age. I’ve
never
acted naïve with you. I’ve only been understanding while you work through your enormous pile of . . .
baggage
.”

He cleared his throat and nodded, looking appropriately contrite. “You’re right, I’m sorry. What I mean is that it feels cruel to not at least have the conversation I’ve felt we needed to have for so many years. You of all people, who are so good at expressing things, must understand this. It might relieve something in both of us to simply discuss things for
once.”

My heart hurt so horribly that I could barely pull in a full breath.

He leaned forward and took my hand but I pulled it out of his grasp. The pain in his eyes was nearly unbearable.
What was he doing?
We had such a good thing.
Had I scared him off this much?

“Darling,” he said calmly, and something in my brain crawled over the word, trying to excavate any condescension there. “I want to ease your anxiety somehow, but I don’t want to be flippant about what it means to meet with my ex-wife to hear her out. I realize now it would feel dishonest if I told you it was nothing and then I still went and listened to her with an open mind.”

“
Do
you have an open mind?”

His answer broke my heart. “I suppose I’m trying to. I owe her that, at least.”

I nodded, remaining silent. I could see his torment in this moment and my heart hurt for him, too, but it hurt more for me. He wanted to talk to her to ease something in him, to achieve closure. But I knew there was a tiny part of him, the part that couldn’t hear her out over the phone, which also wondered if maybe she
had
changed enough. If they might be able to find something comfortable together, and better than what they’d had before.

“I’ll see you here tomorrow, then?” he asked. “Perhaps we could do lunch?”

I nearly laughed at the absurdity of it, of “doing lunch” almost like one would with a
client. I’d essentially forfeited my job so I could stay with him, and he was going to have dinner with his ex-wife to discuss reconciliation.

Was this really happening?

I nodded, jaw tight, unable to even look at him. “Sure.”

Tilting his head, he asked, “Could you tell me what happened with Tony? We exchanged words earlier. He urged Richard to put a rather strongly worded letter in my file. Hopefully I’ve borne the brunt of what happened between us in New York.”

Between us. In New York.

Not last night. Not the night I pushed you so far you’re considering going back to a woman who made you miserable, but left you alone in your shell
.

“Oh, yeah,” I said absently, sinking into an odd numbness. I stood, walking toward the door.
“He basically just gave me a letter, too.”

Despite my suggestion that we meet somewhere neutral, Portia insisted I come to her flat—our old flat—for dinner. I’d had an odd weight in my gut since talking to Ruby, some residue of regret about the conversation. I’d texted her as I left the office, saying I would call later, or come ’round if she liked, but she hadn’t answered. I knew she was a bit offended that I wanted to talk to Portia at all, and I couldn’t exactly blame her. But I hoped, too, that she understood the intent behind it. After all, I wasn’t here hoping to reconcile with Portia; I was with
Ruby
now. We were an
us
.

But Ruby made a good point: then why
was
I meeting my ex-wife for dinner? Could I honestly say the only reason I agreed was to let Portia speak her piece so we could both truly move on? Was there a part of me—no matter how small—that wondered if we could find a better place together, with more communication? We knew each other’s rhythms, after all. It would be easy to slip back to it.

But the thought turned sour in my mind and guilt clawed its way up my throat. I
had
truly moved on. I didn’t
look back on my marriage with longing or any type of ache. It had been lonely and passionless. It hadn’t even felt like being married to a best friend; it had nearly felt like cohabitation with a colleague.

What could I expect her to say that would change how I viewed any of that? Was I going just because, in my new happiness, I simply
felt bad
for my ex-wife?

I wanted to call Ruby before I went to dinner, to tell her that, no, Portia honestly had no chance, and maybe that was wrong of me to let her think she did by my coming, but a dark and furtive part of me was simply
curious:
Portia had
never
in our relationship sounded as open and pleading as she had on the phone that morning.

It had thrown me enough to forget, for a few minutes, that Ruby had been waiting in my flat for me to drive her home before work. By the time I’d emerged from the bathroom, hand clutched over the receiver to beg her to wait just a minute more, she’d already left.

Even on the steps I could smell the pasta Portia had cooked—my favorite, with sausages and peppers and thyme. I could hear the music playing—my favorite Vienna Philharmonic recording of Brahms. The front door was unlocked and still required the familiar shoulder shove—low kick combination to open.

I bent to pet Davey as he ran across the floor to me, hopping on his hind legs and resting his paws on my knees. “That’s a good boy,” I said, scratching behind his ears.

Hearing the clang of plates on the
counter, I looked up. Portia stood barefoot in our kitchen in casual cotton pants, a T-shirt, and an apron. I blinked, mouth agape. I’d rarely seen the woman without her pearls.

When she turned to me, she wore her wide, dazzling smile. I was immediately on edge.

“Hello,” she said, picking up a second glass of red wine from the counter and walking to hand it to me. She placed it in my grasp and then stretched to kiss my cheek. “Welcome home.”

I nearly wanted to turn and leave right then. It was disloyal, being here. I felt like my skin had been replaced with damp wool and I itched all over. It was wrong, and I knew it. Ruby had known it.

“
Your
home,” I reminded her, putting the glass down carefully on the sideboard. “I live several Tube stops away.”

She waved me off, returning to the counter where she was dishing up pasta into two bowls. “I’ve still not seen your flat.”

“There isn’t much to see,” I said with a shrug.

Portia nodded to the dining room and I startled slightly. I’d barely been here two minutes and she was leading me to the table as if I’d simply come home from work. No reacquaintance, no small talk. Certainly no playful banter.

I followed her in. It was surreal seeing the table set with candles and flowers, the placemats we’d received from the Wynn family for our wedding. The candelabra her parents had given us for our fifth anniversary. When we lived here together, Portia would cook on
occasion, but it was always clearly communicated to be a production and used as a form of currency in the
look-how-much-I-do-each-day
ledger of our marriage.

I felt for my phone in my pocket, now desperately wishing I’d called Ruby before coming here.

We sat. Portia passed me the pepper and then set her napkin in her lap. Davey curled up on the floor, resting his head on my feet. Outside, cars drove by, their tires wet on the pavement. Inside, as always, silence reigned supreme at the dining room table.

“How was your day?” she asked finally, looking down with interest at her bowl of pasta.

My
day
? How about my month, or, better yet, the last eleven years of my life?

“It was . . .” I began and then stopped. The revelation struck me with a nearly physical blow: There was no mystery to be unearthed here. There was no secret to the silent isolation of our marriage. It was, and would forever be, like this between us.

Portia was lonely and having a hard time finding her footing in her new life. It had been true for me, too, in a way. I’d focused on routine, buried my free time in sport. I’d barely looked up long enough to see Ruby watching me, enamored, for months.

And now Portia was watching, waiting for me to finish my thought.

“It was an odd day.”

It was a strange thing to say;
the perfect opening for her to ask more. But the quiet returned and I attempted to tuck into my meal. The sound of her chewing was as familiar to me as the smell of the wood from the dining room hutch or the cold stone scent of our kitchen floor.

“How was
your
day?” I asked in return, attempting some stab at a normal conversation. But it wouldn’t work. The bite of food I’d eaten sat like a lead weight in my stomach, and my head was full of nothing but Ruby. “Portia, I can’t—” I started, but she was already speaking.

She didn’t say at all what I expected: “We were terrible together, weren’t we?”

Finally, a laugh broke through the unease in my thoughts. “The worst.”

“I thought we could . . .” She paused, and for the first time since I arrived I saw a weariness, a vulnerability there. She rubbed a hand over her face. “Honestly, I don’t know what I was thinking, Niall, wanting to have dinner to talk. I wanted to see you. I’ve missed you, you know. Not sure I ever really appreciated you enough to miss you before.”

I lifted my glass of wine to my lips and said nothing. I tried with my eyes to tell her that I understood, that a part of me was glad to see her, as well.

Clearly I’d never been good at false sentiment. I closed my eyes, remembering last night. And in this dining room, that used to be mine, with a wife who also used to be mine, I knew the reason I felt so sick to be here was that I loved
Ruby.

I loved her.

“It’s just that,” Portia continued, poking at her dinner, “now you’re here, I’m not sure what to say. Where to start. There’s too much, isn’t there?” She looked up at me. “Too much habit, really, where we don’t say very much at all.”

It was another needle in my thoughts. Ruby spoke of her feelings, her fears, her dreams and adventures. She wanted to hear mine. She took time to make it a habit of ours that we spoke, and I praised her for it. Told her I appreciated her honesty.

I appreciated it, even when it terrified me. Earlier, she’d told me she needed to talk something out with me—that she’d needed
me
. I’d been unable to get out of my own head long enough to be there for her.

“I don’t even have to ask you what you’re thinking to know your thoughts are elsewhere,” Portia said quietly, pulling me from my revelation. “You’re here out of courtesy.”

I didn’t reply, but my silence was as good an answer as any.

“I appreciate that, I do. I wasn’t always a good wife to you, Niall, I know that now. And I was wrong to think we could go back. I wanted to think we could find something we didn’t have before, but having you here now, looking so wary . . . I see it, too. It’s well and truly done between us.”

“I’m sorry, Portia,” I said, putting down my fork. “I wanted to hear what you had to say because I felt I owed you that. And I owed it to myself, too, to understand what you’d been thinking the whole time we were married. But it’s true: I’ve other things on my mind tonight.”

“I can tell,” she said. “It’s quite a shock to see you looking so . . . upset.”

I apologized again. “It wasn’t fair of me to—”

“Do you know,” she began, cutting me off, “when you moved out, you never once seemed anything but completely sorted? The last thing you said to me when you left was ‘Cheers.’ I’d handed you the folder with your passport and vital documents and you’d smiled kindly and said, ‘Cheers.’ Isn’t that amazing?”

I bent, putting my head in my hand. “It wasn’t sadness I felt at leaving our marriage, Portia, but I did feel
something
. I simply don’t know what to call it, or how to express it. Failure, maybe. Or regret.” I looked up at her, admitting, “Also relief.”

“Oh,” she said on an exhale. “I felt that, too. And then guilt, over being so relieved. And I’ve gone back and forth in the months since. How could I spend so much of my life with someone I was so relieved to leave when he did? How could I have made it better?”

I smiled sadly, nodding in agreement.

“Well,” she said, folding her napkin and putting it on the table. “I for one wish—”

“Portia, I’m in love.” The words came out so suddenly and raw, I instantly wanted to pull them back in. I bent my head, wincing.