Carolina Girl (16 page)

Leaving her bags at the door, she slipped out of her shoes and padded to the kitchen. A glass of wine would help her feel at home. She smiled as she tugged open the refrigerator. And didn’t she deserve to toast her own success?

She reached for the open bottle in the fridge. Paused and frowned at the label.
White Zin?
Poor Derek. His standards really
had
slipped while she was out of town. Shrugging, she poured herself a glass. When he got home, they would go out to celebrate. Maybe she would order champagne.

The thought made her oddly uncomfortable. She needed more than wine. She needed . . .

Her phone chirped from her purse by the door, signaling a new text message. She sipped the wine—
awful
—and checked the display.

No salutation. Just an unfamiliar number with a North Carolina area code on the caller ID and below that,
Thinking of you. Sure you did great. Talk to you when you get back.

Sam.

Heat sizzled in the pit of her stomach like the cascading shoots of a Fourth of July sparkler. Her fingers itched for the Connect button. She curled them tightly around her wineglass. She couldn’t call. It wouldn’t be fair. Not to Sam and not to Derek. She couldn’t hear Sam’s voice, couldn’t confide her hopes and plans, couldn’t hear the details of his day and share the excitement of hers, and then throw herself in Derek’s arms when he walked in the door.

Maybe that was what Sam was counting on, the rat.

Restless, she wandered back into the living room.
Later for us, then.
Actually, he had demonstrated a certain consideration, she acknowledged. He hadn’t called in the middle of her day. He hadn’t put any pressure on her to respond in any way.

Thinking of you.

She took another unsatisfactory gulp of wine. Sneaky bastard.

As she set the wineglass on an end table, she heard a key in the lock.

She turned, a flush of wine or guilt climbing her cheeks. “You’re here early.”

Derek came forward, smiling. “I wanted to welcome you home.”

He looked the same, blond and well tailored. He smelled the same, of starch and cologne. He moved in to kiss her, the way he had a thousand times, the standard punctuation at the end of the day or the beginning of sex. But instead of leaning into him, she flinched. It felt weird. Wrong on some basic, instinctive, molecular level, like French-kissing her brother or swallowing a bug.

Derek didn’t notice her involuntary recoil. Or if he did, it didn’t stop him. Meg forced herself to stand still, ignoring the aversion tightening her chest like panic as his moist, warm mouth covered hers. But when he pulled her closer, stabbing at her lips with his tongue, she turned her head.

He noticed that. He raised his head, lifting an eyebrow. “What’s up?”

They had been together six years. How could she explain her prickling repugnance now?

She stepped back, clearing her throat. “Nothing. I . . . It’s been a long day.”

“How did the interview go?”

She felt a spasm of irritation. “My flight was fine. My mom is doing much better. Thanks for asking.”

His well-bred face shuttered. “I was only trying to express some interest in the purpose of your trip.”

She flushed. “Sorry.” She regrouped. “I met all the partners. And I really liked the client. I’ve never done book promotion, but—”

“Marketing’s marketing, right?” Derek interrupted.

“Well,” Meg said cautiously, “in terms of identifying a target audience . . .”

He crossed to the dry bar. “Did they offer you a contract?”

She smothered a spark of resentment. It was natural for Derek to focus on the bottom line. He was in finance. “Yes. Yes, they did. I won’t be making what I did at Franklin, obviously, but I’m excited about—”

“I’m not surprised. Bruce always was a fan of yours.” Derek poured himself a Scotch. Laphroaig, two fingers.

“I like him, too,” Meg said. “But I wouldn’t have gotten the job if I hadn’t demonstrated I could do it.”

Derek looked surprised. “I wasn’t questioning your competence, Meg.”

“Sorry,” she muttered. Even to her own ears, she sounded testy.

“In fact, several people lately have pointed out what a good job you did for us at Franklin.”

“Not good enough, apparently.” Her joke, if it was a joke, fell flat.

“I never recognized how much you did to cultivate relationships outside the company,” Derek continued. “Now that you’re moving to the agency side, you have a real opportunity to branch out.”

She had to talk to him, Meg realized. And not about work. “Derek . . .”

“It’s made me realize,” he continued, smiling at her, “what a good team we’ve always been.”

Guilt squeezed her throat. “Things change.”

He nodded. “I know it was a shock for you, leaving Franklin. But I told you that would work out for the best. In this economy, it’s good for us to have two independent sources of income. It’s like we’re diversifying our portfolio.”

A huff, half laughter, half indignation, escaped her. “Oh, that’s romantic.”

He frowned slightly. “You’ve never required a lot of hearts and flowers, Meg. That’s one of the things I’ve always admired about you. You take the long view. You’re practical.”

Two men, she thought, staring at him. One prized her for her contacts and praised her for her practicality. The other . . .

If you’re too busy living for the future, sugar, you’re missing what you could have right now.

Her mind churned. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t breathe. What was wrong with her?

“Would you excuse me a minute?” she asked Derek politely, as if they were strangers.

Maybe they were. Did he really see her?

I have fantasies about you in black leather.

“Of course.” Derek smiled with the indulgent look of a man who thinks he’s about to get laid. “You go get comfortable.”

She had seldom felt more uncomfortable in her life. She hadn’t come to New York to break up with Derek.

But she didn’t want to sleep with him.

Alone in their bedroom, she faced herself in the mirror. She’d come to New York to resume her rightful place in her old life. And now she was back in her condo with her boyfriend and everything felt wrong. Different. Shaken, she met her gaze in the mirror. Her face was flushed, her eyes fever bright. She bit her lip. Something was ending, something beginning, and she wasn’t prepared for either one.

She stripped off and folded her scarf—an admitted delaying tactic—and opened a drawer to put it away. Nestled among the socks and scarves was a framed photograph that usually sat on her dresser, a picture of her and Derek taken on that long-ago team-building exercise in Arizona. What was it doing out of sight in a drawer?

She lifted it out, a sunlit shot of the two of them standing on a mountaintop, the world at their feet. Only now did she notice that they weren’t touching, all their attention reserved for the person behind the camera, more focused on their image than each other.

She sighed and set the frame gently in its accustomed place. Her reflection watched solemnly from the mirror. She knew she and Derek had to talk. She just wished she knew what she was going to say.

This relationship isn’t going anywhere?

It’s not you, it’s me?

We don’t make each other happy. We haven’t in a long time.

Yeah, that would go over well. She fiddled with her earring, still stalling. Was she really prepared to throw six years of her life away? Relationships took work. Look at her parents. If two people really loved each other . . .

Her fingers fumbled with the earring. Did she
love
Derek?

The diamond stud slipped from her grasp, bouncing off the edge of the open drawer and under the dresser.
Crap.

Her father’s voice played in her head.
If you can’t say yes, the answer’s no.

Oh, hell, Meg thought. I have to break up with him now.

She dropped to all fours, cautiously extending her hand into the shadows under the dresser. Relief washed over her as something pricked her searching fingers. There was her earring. She stuffed it in a pocket. And there . . .

She caught the other object between two fingers and dragged it out. Frowning, she sank back on her heels, staring at the black elastic hair band in her hand. A black elastic hair band with . . . She sucked in her breath. A long, blond hair attached.

Her hand closed into a fist. Pushing to her feet, she picked up the photo from the dresser and carried both items into the living room.

Silently, she set them on the table.

Derek looked from the table to her face, his expression wary. “What’s this?”

“I was hoping you could tell me.”

“Isn’t it yours?”

His dissembling angered her. Maybe she hadn’t been completely honest with him, but she hadn’t lied. “My hair is short. And dark. Someone else has been in this apartment.”
In our bedroom. In our bed?

Derek’s eyes flickered. “I could have done some entertaining while you were away,” he said at last.

Her world tipped slightly on its axis. She fought to keep her balance.

“You could have,” she said steadily. “Did you?”

“It’s possible someone might have left their jacket or . . . a few things in the bedroom.”

He was deflecting, using hypothetical, conditional statements. She’d heard him use the technique in boardrooms a hundred times. But this wasn’t a board meeting. This was their life.

Had been
her life, she corrected silently.

She wasn’t going to shriek at him. She wasn’t that big a hypocrite. But she had to know. “Did that someone also shove our picture in a drawer? Or, I don’t know, buy white Zinfandel for our refrigerator?”

A muscle twitched by his eye. “Don’t you think you’re being a little unreasonable? You’ve been gone almost a month.”

“A month.” The words thumped into her stomach, robbing her of breath. “Wow.”

“Your sarcasm is hardly helping the situation.”

Screaming and throwing things wouldn’t help the situation, you bastard. You’re lucky all I’m hitting you with is sarcasm.

“I’m just trying to understand.” She’d been wrong about him. She’d been wrong about everything, it seemed. “What’s the timetable on infidelity, Derek? Did you wait the whole four weeks, or . . .”

His brows snapped together in annoyance. “Don’t be naïve, Meg. You can’t tell me that in six years you’ve never strayed. That you’ve never been tempted.”

She sucked in her breath. “No,” she said slowly. “I can’t tell you I haven’t been tempted. But I’ve never cheated on you, Derek. I wouldn’t do that to you. To us.”

“Meg, it was a temporary thing. Nothing for you to worry about. It’s over now.”

Her brain was numb. Her face felt frozen. “Who was it? Did you pick someone up in a bar, or . . .”

“It was Nicole.”

“Nicole Hayden? My replacement? Wow. That’s just . . .” There were no words.

A faint red stained his cheekbones. “She’s not your replacement. Not in the way you mean. She isn’t you, Meg. I’ve learned that now. Really, this whole . . . episode was for the best. It taught me how much you have to offer.”

She stared at him in stunned disbelief. “You’re kidding. I win the girlfriend sweepstakes, so you’re my prize?”

Derek frowned. “What do you want me to say? I’ve admitted I may have made an error in judgment. But I’ve moved past it.”

He hadn’t admitted a damn thing. Not really. And he hadn’t apologized. She thought how different he was from Sam.
We can’t go forward until we go back. I hurt you, Meggie, and I’m sorry.

“You don’t get past something like this, Derek. You don’t audition somebody else to be your girlfriend, and then decide, whoops, sorry, made a mistake. You should have talked to me. You should have told me you were unhappy.”

“I haven’t been unhappy. And I didn’t say anything because I knew you would blow everything out of proportion.”

Her heart throbbed in her chest. “How do you blow something like this out of proportion? You
cheated
on me. And then you lied.”

“I didn’t lie. Maybe I wasn’t completely forthcoming, but that was out of respect for your feelings. We’ve never been one of those couples who have to tell each other every little thing.”

She opened her mouth to deny it. But the words would not come. He was right. Their conversation, like their lives, had always revolved around work. Derek had no interest in her fears and weaknesses, in the secrets of her heart, in the details of her family history. She had enjoyed the reflection of herself that she’d seen in his eyes, polished, professional Meg, sprung into existence as a full-blown adult like the goddess Athena.

Except that wasn’t her.

She hadn’t been honest with him, either.

“You’re right,” she said, picking her words carefully. She wasn’t going to put all the blame for the failures of their relationship on him. “I’m sorry, Derek. There are things I should have told you, too.”