Bombora (40 page)

Back on track to what, I wondered? Everything’s gone. And if I was honest with myself, I wasn’t all that happy before either, unless I counted the delirious year I spent with Nate. No, the most I could hope for was a blank slate and some assurances my best friend wasn’t going to take out a hit on my life before the end of the day, and maybe after that I could hit the road and find a new dream. First, however, I had to get through this conversation. “Talking about Emilia Santos-Fessenden makes that possible?”

With another chuckle, Willa sighed and tapped her pen against her writing pad. “No,” she said wistfully, “maybe not. But I must admit I’m curious, myself, as to how things unfolded. And also why Emilia is the one person in this whole affair, other than Hugh and Liam, you don’t bear any ill will towards.”

Shrugging, I hesitated to answer. “I’ve had time to feel many different things towards Emilia,” I began, “but ill will isn’t one of them. She’s what my father would call a class act. Despite being in a position to make my life even more of a living hell, she never did. Not like I would have done. She never gave any sign she resented me either.”

At this, Willa frowned. “I thought you said she’s the reason you were outed to your family?”

“She is,” I answered with a nod. “It wasn’t intentional on her part. I guess Nate must have given her the details after she caught us, told her who I was… which I suppose is only fair, since I’d want to know too. Even though I did everything in my power to keep Nate from contacting me after we broke up, Emilia practically made it her life’s mission to track me down. It wasn’t hard—just about everyone in the Midwest or on the East Coast knows who my family is. And anyone with a passing familiarity with Columbus could tell you exactly which building I worked in, since my last name is written on the side.”

“So she came to confront you,” Willa concluded. I half expected her to write that down, but she didn’t.

“Not at first. Emilia didn’t storm into my office like a jealous housewife—she went about trying to contact me the traditional way, with phone calls and messages left with my secretary.”

I thought back to those couple of weeks and the dozens of messages and missed calls I found waiting for me every time I sat down at my desk. I’d disconnected my home phone and changed my mobile number, even the locks on my apartment, but there was no way to prevent Emilia from calling me at work except to keep avoiding her. Word got around the office pretty fast, and everyone, including William Carpenter, a visiting executive from my father’s offices in New York, assumed she was the jilted woman with whom I’d been having an affair. It was almost enough to make me smile, remembering the lecture I received from Mr. Carpenter about keeping business and pleasure separate, the potential scandal that could rock my family’s Christian values if it came out I’d been carrying on with a married woman, not least one with a family. Despite all that, I was pretty damn nervous when Carpenter threatened to contact my father if I didn’t clean up my mess and the news became public.

Willa considered this for a moment. “Did she seem agitated that you were avoiding her?”

I shook my head. “That’s just it… she never did.” I’d listened to some of those voice mails and Emilia never sounded anything but sad, desperate to talk to me and get some of the answers we’d both been denied, but still calm. Maybe she did yoga too. I had no idea how much Nate had told her, but it obviously wasn’t enough. “I felt bad for her. Then one day I guess she decided to put an end to things for good and came to the office in person.”

“Yikes.” Willa inhaled sharply.

“No,” I corrected, shaking my head again. “It wasn’t like that at all.”

Emilia walked into our offices with her head high and asked to see me in a voice so calm and composed that my secretary, Amy, didn’t think twice about letting her in to see me. Smartly, Emilia had dressed in a conservative pantsuit and had her hair pulled back in a neat ponytail; she looked every bit the high-powered businesswoman, not at all out of place. When Amy rapped on my door and ushered Emilia inside, even I had to admit she was a beautiful woman, tall and with striking Mediterranean features I immediately recognized from Liam. She could have been the dark lady of Shakespeare’s sonnets. I suppose she was exactly as I pictured, though in that moment I couldn’t decide whether or not to be threatened. It was necessary to remind myself she wasn’t the one Nate had the affair with, though all that thought accomplished was to send me back into another tailspin of guilt. I couldn’t help but notice the shadows that crowded beneath her eyes, the faint puffiness that came from days of crying, which no makeup could hope to conceal. I recognized these things because of what I saw each time I looked in the mirror. No doubt Emilia took one look at me and knew I wasn’t handing the situation much better. It gave me an odd sense of solidarity I didn’t want to feel.

“Mr. Price,” she said, voice even. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything… I know you know who I am.”

Defeated, I slumped back in my chair and gestured for her to close the door of my office behind her, though not before asking Amy to hold my calls and suggesting she go get us both coffees from the bakery a few blocks away. It would keep her away from the office for a good twenty-five minutes. Amy, as much as I was grateful for her talents as an assistant, was an incorrigible gossip. I knew she’d otherwise be listening in to every word.

Turning back to Emilia, I attempted a smile. “Mrs. Fessenden.” I swallowed heavily around the name, which felt like lead on my tongue. “I—I’m sorry I’ve not returned your calls. I just didn’t….” No ready excuse came to mind, and I shrugged. “I had no idea what to say to you. Though it’s obvious you’re far more certain as to what you’d like to say to me.”

To my surprise, Emilia chuckled. “I’m not Mrs. Fessenden,” she said, irony heavy in her voice. “My last name is still Santos. And no, I have no idea what to say to you. But I’d like you to call me Emilia anyway.” She paused, watching me, and as the seconds ticked by, I could feel her thinking,
What the hell is it about this guy that made my marriage worth destroying?
I had no answers for her. “Can I call you Phelan?”

I rather appreciated the use of my formal name, since Nate and Aurelia were the only ones who ever called me Phel. Everyone else, even my parents, called me Phelan or Mr. Price. I nodded and gestured for her to take a seat on one of the Barcelona chairs in front of my desk. “Can I get you anything to drink?” I asked, compelled to carry on with as many pleasantries as possible before all hell broke loose.

Not fooled, Emilia crossed her legs and folded her hands in her lap, a gesture I read as quiet determination not to appear defensive. It mostly worked, except I could see her fingers trembling. “Phelan,” she began, “we can just cut to the chase. I know it was rude to barge in here, but it became clear after the fourth or fifth missed call that you knew exactly who I was, and had no intentions of speaking with me. I get that, but—I deserve more than the brush-off from your secretary. This is my family we’re talking about. My family that’s ruined.”

“Because of me,” I offered, voice tight.

She shook her head, surprising me yet again. “No,
not
because of you.” I caught her blinking rapidly in a sure-fire sign she was fighting off tears, and the pain in her face was almost enough to make me choke up too. “Nate has been pretty sparing of the details,” she said, “and yet the one thing he made pretty clear is you had no idea about any of this—that you were just as surprised to find me at the house that day as anyone. He’s defended you from the start, so know that. Whatever the reason we’re here now, it’s not because of you—it’s because of Nate. At least he isn’t trying to deny it.” Her mouth twisted. “Funny time for him to start showing a sense of chivalry; I might have appreciated it more if I hadn’t just found out he’d been screwing another man for over a year.”

I flinched.

Once we got down to it, the information Emilia wanted to know was pretty basic—I got the impression Nate had already given her most of the answers, but she seemed disinclined to trust them until she heard it from me: where Nate and I met, how long we’d been seeing each other, whether I’d ever had any idea he might still be married. If I thought he was really gay. I told her everything without hesitation, only pausing when I found myself too overcome with emotion to continue talking without breaking down entirely. Truth be told, I was afraid not to, not trusting the lengths to which such an emotionally exhausted woman as Emilia might go to find some peace of mind. As I sat there trying to compose myself, a hand came out and covered mine on top of the desk.

“Do you love him?” Emilia asked frankly. She was crying too, albeit in more of a controlled way, and her voice didn’t waver. In fact, it was such a mixture of hard and worn-out I almost wanted to ask what was going through her head at that moment. Her face betrayed little, or rather, so much that I didn’t know where to begin.

At that point, at least, I wasn’t yet able to lie, not to myself or anyone else. It had to have been pretty damn clear on my face how I felt about Nate. “More than anything,” I answered, and she sighed, not with impatience, but resignation.

“That’s what I thought,” she said. I must have looked confused, because she gestured vaguely and settled back against the chair rest with a far-off expression on her face, which looked ready to crumple at any moment. “When I walked in and found you together, that was the first time I really realized, without a doubt, that something in my marriage was irreparably damaged.” She paused to look down at her hands, then back up at me, biting her lip. “I know Nate didn’t marry me because he thought it was true love,” she stated. “We were both too young when Liam was born; Nate wanted to do what was best for everyone. He’s been a good husband and an amazing father, but I know it’s not what he’d have chosen for himself if things had worked out differently.” Grimacing, she added, “Sometimes I wish he had. Sometimes I wish I’d never told him about Liam at all.”

Such a bald statement made me shift uncomfortably. “I don’t think that’s what he thinks about,” I told her. “He’s never regretted being a father to Liam, and I doubt he’s ever resented being there to support you either.”

When I said it out loud, it seemed to fit. Even if Nate truly wasn’t attracted to women, to Emilia, there was a sense of duty about the man that would have overridden everything else, every regret and secret desire he was too scared to acknowledge, let alone pursue. I knew this because I felt the same conflict within myself whenever I thought about disappointing my family. It wasn’t a simple matter of choosing one over the other, nor was it a case of erasing my sense of grief and bitterness just because I didn’t envy Nate his position. At the end of the day, he’d done this with his eyes open. Maybe if I hadn’t been the one to get burned, I’d have been a lot more understanding—being with me in secret was incredibly cowardly, but in some ways also the single biggest act of bravery he’d committed.

“I know all that,” Emilia assured me, smiling weakly. “But that doesn’t change the fact that when I saw him with you, there was this look on his face I’ve never seen before except when he looks at Liam—real love. You can’t fake that, and you can’t hide it. At first I didn’t quite know what it was, because he’s never looked at me that way, ever. But that’s how he looked at you, Phelan. You know I have absolutely no reason to lie about that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“‘I’m sorry’ doesn’t change the fact that I’m not the one my husband’s in love with, does it?” she shot back.

Her words made me squeeze my eyes shut until she got the message and stopped talking. We were both silent for a while until I opened my eyes again and found her watching me. “It doesn’t matter how he looks at me,” I forced out. “Just like it doesn’t matter what he says or how many times he says he loves me, wants to be with me. What matters is honesty and trust, and knowing the person you’re with. I don’t know Nate at all.” Inexplicably, this made me angry with Emilia. “How can you just sit there and be so calm when he ruined those things with you too?”

Emilia hesitated, but when she spoke, her voice was still steady. “Because deep down I knew there was something going on,” she replied. “I didn’t know what, but obviously you don’t have your husband carry on an affair for a whole year without picking up on
something
. I just couldn’t get any proof there was another woman. If I’d known Nate had found someone he cares about so much, I wouldn’t have tried so hard to ignore all the signs—”

Despite knowing how cold I sounded, I cut her off. “I don’t want him,” I snapped. “Whatever Nate and I had is broken, do you understand? You might as well just keep him. Or throw him back, for all the difference it makes.” Broken certainly didn’t mean the same thing as forgotten, but I pushed onward, determined to sever myself from the whole business as cleanly as possible. “It’s over. But you—you’re still married to him, and what Liam needs most is a strong family who loves him. Whatever your ideas about how Nate feels, he obviously values your marriage far more than he valued his relationship with me. You should fight for it. I certainly won’t be one to stand in your way.”

Whatever Emilia had to say in response, I never got to hear it.

To Willa, I said, “All hell broke loose after that. Next thing I knew, Nate was storming into our firm—not like he was on the warpath, but like he was scared half to death of me talking to his wife. He must have figured out Emilia came to see me, and I guess he thought if he got there in time, he could stop us from meeting or my coworkers from hearing the truth. But that’s obviously not what happened.”

Consideringly, Willa said, “You fought with him?”

I chuckled. “Quite the opposite—we left my office to see what all the commotion was about, and I stood there dumbly and watched as Emilia came to my defense. She tried to get him to leave, accusing him of trying to keep more secrets, which only upset Nate more. He was aware no one else knew I was gay, but as soon as he started arguing with his wife, it was pretty clear which of them was my lover. No one had any doubts after that as to which team I played for. When I snapped out of it enough to try and get them to leave quietly, Mr. Carpenter had already called security. Not long after that, he was on the phone to New York to tell my father everything.”