Frenched Series Bundle (45 page)

He closed his eyes and took a breath. “Maybe it’s crazy now, but it’s how I felt at the time. My truck wasn’t good enough for you, my clothes weren’t expensive, I couldn’t take you out to nice places—and if I did, you always insisted on paying the bill.”

“Because I knew how much you worked and struggled! I knew you had loans to pay off. And I was the one who wanted to go to the nice places, so I felt guilty when you’d try to pay.”

“I’m not saying you made me feel bad on purpose. And looking back, I can see that it was probably in my head. But I never felt like I fit in with what your family wanted for you. I had nothing to offer you—until then. When I heard you were accepted, then there was something I
could
do for you in their eyes. Let you go.”

In their eyes? Suspicion snaked up my spine. “Did my parents contact you or something?”

He looked away.

“Did they?” I yelled, my nostrils flaring.

He didn’t answer for a full ten seconds, during which I clutched at the hem of my tank instead of throttling him. He was the one who wanted to talk, so he’d better fucking come clean about everything! “Your mom wrote me a letter on behalf of both of them. She was perfectly nice, so you don’t have to get incensed about it. She just wanted me to know what a wonderful opportunity this was for you, and how all the women in her family had done it for three generations, and how she hoped I would do everything I could to encourage you to go. She said she could see we cared very much for each other but we were very young. She didn’t want you to throw it away for me, although she never said that outright.”

“Goddamn it,” I said softly, putting the heels of my hands to my eyes. “Why did she have to do that?”

Nick took me by the shoulders. “Because she loves you. And she was right. It was a wonderful opportunity and part of your history and your legacy…she was
right
, Coco. You had to go, I could see that.”

“But it wasn’t their decision to make,” I went on angrily, pushing his hands off me. “And it wasn’t yours, either. It was mine, and you all took it away from me.”

“I know. And I’m sorry. So many things could have gone differently if I’d just been honest from the start. I hated myself that night I lied to you.”

We looked at each other a moment, each of us remembering what came next. “You came back the next night. Why didn’t you tell me the truth then?”

“I was going to, I swear to God, because I couldn’t let you go to Paris thinking that I’d betrayed you that way. Not when I’d worked so hard to earn your trust after those other times. All I’d planned to do was tell you the truth and say I was glad you were going.”

I sniffed. “You didn’t stick to that plan too long.”

He shook his head. “One look at you and I fell apart. Begged you to take me back.”

That detail brought a mite of satisfaction. “You did beg, didn’t you?”

“On my knees.”

I sighed, closing my eyes. “We drank a lot of whiskey that night.”

“Still, I meant every word I said.”

My eyelids opened a sliver. “You
proposed
that night.”

“Guess I liked being on my knees.”

I splashed water at him. “Don’t joke. This is serious.”

He swiped at his eyes. “Sorry. Yes, I proposed. It was spur-of-the-moment, but I meant it—I wanted to marry you. I wanted forever with you. In my mind, this was the perfect solution. I’d marry you, you could go to France but you’d go as my wife, even if no one knew it, and we’d stay together. We’d have this amazing secret. I’d know you would come back to me and not run off with some jackass with a title and a trust fund.”

“I wouldn’t have done that,” I said sullenly. “I never wanted anyone else.”

“Maybe, but I was young and stupid and scared and crazy about you. So I proposed.”

“Oh God,” I said, touching my fingertips to my forehead. “What a fucking mess…we flew to Vegas, got married, and then of course I refused to go. Because I was your
wife
.”

Nick nodded slowly. “We fought so hard about it that night. Remember?”

I looked at him helplessly. “How could I forget my wedding night?”

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice cracking. “You deserved a better wedding night.”

I turned away from him, chilled to the bone now, but not ready to end the conversation. “Parts of it were good.” Closing my eyes, I saw him above me in the darkened hotel room, his body centered between my thighs, his skin warm and soft, just like his voice.
My wife
, he’d said, burying himself deep inside me.
My wife.

He cleared his throat. “Yes. Parts of it were amazing. You fell asleep first, you know. And I watched you sleeping. You were so beautiful.”

I swallowed hard. “So then why did you leave me?” My voice shook. It was the question I had to ask. I’d been afraid of the answer for seven years, but I steadied my nerves and turned to face him. “Tell me now. How could you leave me that way?”

Nick held up both hands. “Before I tell you, let me say that I know now that
no
reason was good enough. But at the time, it made sense to me.”

“Just tell me.”

“OK. I was watching you sleep and I started thinking about everything I wanted to do for you. Everything you deserved in life. And what you deserved far outweighed what I could offer. I’d just maxed out my one credit card on the ring and the room. I was up to my ears in debt.”

“I cared about you, not your bank account,” I said through my teeth. He wasn’t really going to blame money, was he? What an insult.

“You would have. You had no idea what it’s like to live without money. You still don’t.”

I threw my hands in the air. “How dare you say to me? I
married
you, didn’t I? And I’m not the one who changed my mind! You did.” I poked his chest. “So don’t pretend I didn’t think you were rich enough for me or whatever. That was all in your head.”

“It wasn’t only the money, Coco. I was lying there thinking about that program, and how much I wanted it for you. About how, if you were my daughter, or if we had a daughter some day, I’d want her to have things like that.” He put a hand to his chest. “I understood what your parents felt. When you love someone, you want what’s best for them, even if it means sacrifice.”

I glared at him. “So it was because of my parents? You dumped me because you understood them, all of a sudden? Well, I hope they fucking appreciate it,” I said bitterly. “No wonder they were so helpful with our divorce.”

Nick shook his head. “It wasn’t just them—it was me. I started to think that you’d wake up one day and regret that you hadn’t gone. And it would be my fault. And even if you said you didn’t resent me, you should—because I had done a selfish thing. I had robbed you of this incredible opportunity. Deep down, I knew if you married me you wouldn’t go. Somehow leaving seemed the unselfish move.”

Mouth agape, I looked at him for five full seconds. “You asshole!” I was tempted to slap his face, but I settled for shoving a wall of water at him. “
Leaving seemed the unselfish move
, are you fucking kidding me?” My eyes felt as if they would bug out of my head. “You broke me! You shattered me! I was…” I shook my head, unable to come up with a word that adequately captured my emotional state. “Devastated!”

Nick wiped the water from his face. “I’m sorry. It was the wrong move, I see that now. But I panicked, Coco. And then when I tried to apologize, you wouldn’t speak to me. Wouldn’t return my texts, take my calls, wouldn’t stop the divorce proceedings.”

“I was hurt, Nick. I loved you, and you
left
me.” This couldn’t be real. He’d abandoned me for my own good? No. No. He was not the hero here. He was not the good guy. For years I’d nursed this anger, and he wasn’t going to evade it now just because he’d had good fucking intentions. “Do you know what it felt like, waking up that next morning and finding you gone? Seeing that goddamn note on the nightstand?

Your wedding band beside it?” The hurt and humiliation of that morning returned to me tenfold, stabbing me repeatedly in the gut. “It didn’t click right away, you know, what you’d done. There was no light bulb that went on, no immediate understanding of what the note really meant. I even thought it might be a joke.”

Nick looked miserable, but he nodded. “Go on. I deserve this.”

“You do, but I don’t even know what words to use to describe what that day was like.”

How could I convey the slow, sickening dread that started with a few erratic heartbeats as I checked the bathroom? How could I make him feel the way it dropped into my stomach like a bowling ball when I saw that his suitcase was gone? How could I tell him what I felt when I turned on my phone and saw those two words from him, like two bullets to the heart?

I’m sorry.

“Do you know how long I lay in that bed, sobbing? Hoping you’d change your mind? Hours went by, and the longer I lay there, the clearer it became—you weren’t coming back. You weren’t sorry you’d done it; you were just sorry I got hurt. And yet I stayed there. All day. All night. Desperately praying for you to return. Smelling the sheets where you’d slept. Crying so hard I made myself sick. Finally I had to face it—you were gone. And you didn’t love me enough to come back.” The violent anger I’d felt moments ago was replaced with a sadness that threatened to pull me under. My vision went silver at the edges, and I swayed in the water. Nick gripped my shoulders.

“Believe me, Coco, I did. I loved you more than I thought it was possible to love someone, and leaving was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I was sick too. Physically ill. I forced myself to get on that plane. I didn’t talk to anyone for two days. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Am I supposed to feel sorry for you? Because I don’t.”

Nick dropped his hands into the water and exhaled. “No. I don’t deserve your sympathy. I don’t even know why I’m even telling you this—I know it doesn’t make up for what I did.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Hit me,” he said suddenly.

“What? Are you nuts?”

“No. I’m serious. Hit me. I deserve it.” He closed his eyes and put his hands behind his back. “As hard as you want. As many times as you want.”

He looked ridiculous. “Shut up.”

“Come on, do it. You know you want to. You’ve wanted to do it for years. Now’s your chance. Come on, hit me.”

I stared at him in disbelief. In all honesty, part of me did want to hit him. How dare he lay all this out for me now, years later, when he’d had so many chances to be honest before but kept lying and manipulating me and fucking everything up? And what about his seven-year silence after the divorce?

Another part of me wanted to kiss him, tell him it would be OK, we would be OK. (But that was a very, very small part. Mostly I wanted to hit him.)

He opened one eye. “Are you gonna do it?”

I glared at him. “No, asshole. I’m not going to do it. I hit you once and it didn’t make me feel better.”

“The night we broke up.”

“Yes.” I looked at the palm of my right hand. “It probably hurt my hand more than your face.”

“Probably. Remind me to teach you how to throw a punch.”

I curled my fingers into a fist. “I’m ready for a lesson.”

He couldn’t keep the smile off his face, the bastard. “That’s your fist? Coco, you can’t throw a punch with your hand like that. You’ll break your thumb.” He unfurled my fist and tucked my thumb alongside my fingers, leaving his big hands wrapped around my smaller one. “There. Like that.”

“Thanks.” I stared at our hands. “I guess if an unsatisfied bride ever comes at me, I’ll be better prepared.”

Nick smiled slightly and took his hands off mine. “Can I ask you a question?”

I shrugged, miserable and cold.

“Did you even come back to campus after Vegas?”

“Just to pack up my clothes. Exams were done, and I had no reason to be there. Plus everything reminded me of you. It was too painful.”

“I know. I left too.”

That surprised me. “You did?”

He nodded. “I applied to the Culinary Institute and got in. I went in the fall. But Coco, you have to believe I wanted you back. I called, I wrote. I even drove to your parents house, but you were gone.”

“My mother and I took a vacation.”

“Did your grandmother tell you I came?”

“Yes. She did.” And I’d gone into the bathroom of our hotel room in Rome and cried my eyes out in the shower. If my mother noticed my puffy eyes that night, she didn’t mention it. “Sitty always liked you because you were Catholic. And because you cooked and were interested in her recipes. But it wasn’t enough to change my mind. I still didn’t want to hear your damn apologies.”

“I know. It was clear the divorce was what you really wanted. Eventually I figured I should just leave you in peace.”

My eyes went wide. “Peace? I didn’t have any peace where you were concerned. Not for years Maybe not ever!” I put a hand to my chest. “I never got over it, Nick. I never got over you.” Admitting it to him now was like cutting out my own heart. I burst into tears, and Nick gathered me into his arms. Maybe it was stupid but I went, crying into my hands against his shoulder. This was all so fucking sad. It wasn’t that I was sorry I’d gone to Paris—it was a wonderful experience, one that I’d want my own children to have—Nick was right about that. But still…

“You gave up on me. You gave up,” I wept. “You left, so I left. And you gave up. You could have fought harder, longer. I was back from Paris the following summer, and not once did I ever hear from you.”

“I didn’t give up on you, Coco, but I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t have the guts to show up on your doorstep after everything that had happened. I thought about it a million times.”

I took a few slow, calming breaths and backed away from him. “It’s better you didn’t. I don’t think there was anything you could have said to make me listen. I was too angry to forgive you.”

“And now?”

We stared at each other a long moment, during which we both realized that a second chance might be impossible. “I don’t know.”

Nick took a deep breath. “Coco, not a day goes by that I don’t regret what happened between us. I thought I was doing the right thing, but I made a mistake. And it cost me the love of my life.”

My lips fell open.

Argue with him. Say it didn’t. Say what you planned to say before you jumped in the lake. Tell him you love him again and maybe you always have. Tell him you accept his apology. Admit that you made mistakes too, that you know what it’s like to act on impulse, that, in fact, part of what thrilled you about his spur-of-the-moment proposal was that it was much more like you than like him. Say that you knew it was a bad idea, that you knew your parents and friends should be a part of your wedding day, that a Vegas quickie was not what you’d had in mind as a young girl dreaming of her wedding day. Own up to the fact that you booked those tickets to Nevada within minutes of accepting his proposal, putting them on your own credit card, because you were scared that
he’d
change his mind. Tell him that you saw getting married as a way to hold on to him, a way to ensure he’d never sleep with anyone else ever again. Tell him you saw it as a way to show your parents they couldn’t control you.

Tell him your wedding bands are still in your jewelry box.

Tell him how you cried the day your tattoo was altered.

Tell him you’d put his name on your body again.

Tell him you might be crazy enough to run away with him again.

Tell him he makes you feel alive.

Tell him he makes you feel everything.

The words were all right there in my mind. But uttering them would’ve meant peeling back every layer of protection over my heart, an open wound.

I wanted to say them, but I didn’t.

I was afraid of bleeding to death.