KEPT: A Second Chance Fairy Tale (38 page)

Now, looking down into my ex-wife’s saddened eyes and remorseful expression, I’m uneasy as I realize I feel absolutely nothing.

No sadness.

No hatred.

No regret.

Nothing.

“What are you doing here?” I question. All this time, we’ve managed to live in the same city and have managed to always miss each other.

So why tonight? Why, when I’ve finally found some kind of happiness, must I be reminded of the misery she once made me feel?

Because the fate of life really must be so cruel.

“Michael, please,” she begs. “I really didn’t know you’d be here. Greg didn’t think to check–”

“Shut up,” I snap. Her voice is already starting to grate on my nerves.

The woman I once knew has become what looks to be nothing more than a shell of her former self. Her eyes are sunken, her skin is pale, and the wrinkles around her mouth are prevalent. Like the person I recently was, I recognize Victoria is living a shade of hell within herself. The familiarity of what she’s feeling carries the power to send me back to the same.

I won’t let it.

Her hand moves up to touch my chest. It’s an intimate gesture I’d have given anything to feel the night she told me she was leaving. “I haven’t been able to remember his face for so long,” she brokenly admits.

“Stop,” I hiss. My hand moves to strike hers away, but I pause. Touching her is too much.

“He had your eyes,” she whispers, looking into mine as though trying to find him there. “And your strong jaw and mouth.”

Her hand touches my cheek and my skin burns at the contact. Sensing I’m nearing a loss of control, she removes her hand, but doesn’t make a move to give me any added space.

“I can’t forgive you,” I tell her coldly, watching any light she had in her eyes dim to nothing. Again, I recognize it because it’s the same I had in mine. “If forgiveness is what you’re after, I won’t do it.”

“Five years, Mike. It’s been five years now.”

I don’t offer a response. In my heart, the loss of my child has no expiration date. There aren’t enough minutes, hours, days, weeks, or years that will eventually ease the pain.

Victoria clears her throat before looking throughout the crowd. “The woman you’re with…” she starts. “Is she–”

“Lucy is
nothing
to you.” The mere thought of Victoria recognizing or realizing whom Lucy is causes my head to pound.

“Lucy,” she repeats, testing the name on her tongue.

“Yes,
Lucy
,” I insist, making my allegiance clear.

Even after my deliberate attempt to shut her down, her saddened gaze doesn’t waver. “I miss him, too. I think about him every day,” she painfully whispers. “He’s still everywhere.”

“But you can’t remember what he looks like.” It’s a harsh observation, but if she’s looking into my eyes to find him, he won’t be there. He’s gone, as are any feelings I have for her. “You need to go, Victoria.”

She scoffs to herself, then quickly regains her composure. “Greg’s working tonight.”

“A lawyer,” I presume. “You’re dating a lawyer.”

“Not dating. I married him this spring. I’m Victoria Marks now.”

“My condolences to him then,” I let slip, immediately wanting to take it back. Not because I give a shit, but because my reaction makes it appear as though I do.

“You haven’t changed,” she tells me in the same tone I had used, equally uncaring. “You’re incapable of the word.”

“I need to go,” I dismiss. Looking over her shoulder, I see a blond man with a piercing glare headed our way. “Looks like your new husband has found you.”

Lucy

“H
OW’S THAT POSSIBLE?” I ASK
, barely hearing my own voice. “Victoria died.”

Corbin walks in a small circle, the light from the brightly lit street pouring inside as an intangible weight in the room. It casts a glow on his face, which is etched in sorrow and disbelief. I’m smothering, suddenly feeling very alone. If it weren’t for the wall of windows behind me, I’d fear as though I’d fallen into a rabbit’s hole with no escape.

“She didn’t die in the accident, Lucy. Their son did,” he regretfully informs me.

“Caleb,” I whisper, remembering the reasons no one says his name. In my own way, even in the wake of finding out his mother survived the accident, I’m paying respect to a little boy lost.

Corbin nods. “Yes, Caleb.”

“Why didn’t Michael ever tell me?” I ask myself more so than Corbin.

“Why doesn’t Michael tell you a lot of things?”

Stepping back, feeling Corbin’s question deeper than the surface of his words, I prod, “There’s more, isn’t there?”

The fear of deceit surges through my body, pinning me in place. I feel raw, exposed, and suffocated beneath the truth, and I can’t yet see under any of it.

“Yes,” he answers quietly.

“What’s more?”

Corbin looks at the ground, lost in thought.

“What, Corbin?”

“Why do you think Michael hired you without any experience?” he questions.

I hadn’t given it too much thought, figuring I ended up at Mercer Law purely by a random act of kindness.

“I don’t know.”

“Michael knows who you are.”

“Of course he knows who I am,” I snap with impatience.

Corbin shakes his head, the anger in his expression palpable. “No, Lucy. He knew you before he met you.” He pauses, losing his anger. “Lucy, Michael’s…”

“Tell me.”

“Fuck.” He looks at the ceiling.

“Say it.”

His eyes drop to mine. “This will hurt.”

At his words, I shudder. With the painful way he says them, the agony in his voice on my behalf, the despair in his stance, this clearly runs deep.

“Tell me,” I insist again.

“Lucy, please.”

My body shakes and my head spins slightly, feeling the pressure of what’s happening. “Tell me!”

“Victoria was with your husband the night he died,” he blurts.

“What?”

“The night Caleb died.”

He’s not making sense. The fragments of information aren’t piecing together. I feel the pull from deep in my gut that once they do, I’ll never be the same.

“Corbin, I don’t understand.”

“Christ, I don’t know how to do this,” he hisses. He’s angry. Every piece of him radiates the power of what he’s about to tell me.

“Please,” I beg.

He steps closer, changing everything I thought I knew. “Your husband was having an affair
with Michael’s wife.”

“That’s not true,” I whisper my immediate denial.

My eyes fill with tears, not because I’m truly denying what he says, but because it could very well be true. Gabe could’ve been looking for the same thing missing in our marriage as I was.

Passion, love, lust, desire. Even mutual understanding and companionship. All of which we hardly had an ounce of.

“Lucy, it’s true. I wouldn’t say this to hurt you.”

Time stops, and it’s as though I’m talking in slow motion when I ask, “Does Michael know?”

“Yes, he knows. After the accident…”

My body rocks in place. I don’t hear whatever else he explains. All the air in my chest rushes out in a burst of betrayal coated with grief. I cover my mouth with my hand, hoping to assuage the loss somehow.

Michael knew my husband was having an affair, but he kept it from me all along.

“He hated me my first day, Corbin. When I was in his office… God, the way he looked at me for existing. Is that why? Do I remind him of what he lost?”

Corbin inhales. I feel the breath he’s taking, although I can’t take one of my own.

“No,” he states.

“Corbin,” I snap, my voice nearly breaking. “I need you to tell me.”

“You’re sleeping with him, aren’t you?” he blatantly questions, but still with the care I recognize. “You’re not already in love with him, are you?”

I don’t respond, biting my tongue to stay quiet.

“Lucy,” he says gently. “You’re in love with Michael.”

“I was,” I admit with defeat. “I didn’t realize it until just now, but I think I was.”

“Fuck,” he hisses. “I’m so sorry.”

“I’m in love with the man who never told me my husband was having an affair.”

The information processes through my mind faster than I can deny it. The lies Gabe told, the secrets Michael kept, and my own denial in believing any of it comes breaking through the surface of everything I thought I knew.

“How long had that woman, Victoria…” I choke her name out quietly, no longer admiring it as I once had. “How long had she been with Gabe?”

Corbin shakes his head. “I don’t have those answers, Lucy.”

“Does Michael?”

“Probably, but I don’t think–”

With all that’s still whirling in my head, I point out, “But the woman with Gabe that night wasn’t Victoria Holden. That wasn’t her name.”

Corbin realizes I’m putting together the wrong pieces of the puzzle. “Victoria Leigh was the name the press released. She didn’t die, so her name was never mentioned. She wasn’t only a mother and wife, Lucy. At the time of the accident, she was a successful model. Her agent welcomed the publicity. If you’d have looked further into it, you’d have known her and Caleb’s last name was Holden.”

God, he’s right.

I didn’t look into anything. I truly believed Gabe was sharing a cab with a stranger by chance. Of course, I mourned the little boy who died that night. I didn’t have to know him to feel his parents’ pain by extension. Knowing Michael now, I’ve been given a front row seat to the grief and loss, but from the other side this time. It’s like reliving the nightmare again.

“I need to go. I can’t be here,” I voice in a rush. “I can’t be here anymore.”

“Talk to your landlord,” he says quietly, placing his hands in his pockets and looking down.

His suggestion makes no sense. “What? What does my landlord have to do with any of this?”

“Do it, Lucy. If you honestly think you’re ready to hear it all, call him. He’ll tell you everything else.”

Michael

“Where is she?” I snap.

Corbin’s standing in front of a window in the small room I finally found him in. I was looking for her, but since he was with her last, he’d know where she’s gone.

And I feel she’s gone in more ways than one.

Corbin doesn’t turn around to face me. Rather, he continues staring outside at the brightly lit city below.

“She went home, probably to lick her wounds,” he utters, finally looking away from the window, but not turning around to face me. He looks down in front of him, appearing to contemplate. “Why, Mike? Why didn’t you just let Lucy be?”

Don’t hurt her.

My eyes close, reliving the heartfelt advice he offered during a time I hadn’t believed it was needed. I was too wrapped up in my defenses to resist her. Corbin’s pissed because he saw this coming.

I see how she looks at you.

It’s not just her doing it, Mike. I see how you look at her when you think nobody’s watching.

“Tell me why she left,” I insist.

Turning around, squaring his shoulders as though readying to fight, Corbin looks at me still standing by the door. “She knows everything. Victoria, Gabe, and she’ll soon know who you are to her and what you’ve been doing without her consent.”

My chest seizes. A sharp pain strikes like a flame behind my eyes. It’s bad enough Lucy found out from someone other than me, but knowing she’ll never forgive me pierces my gut with unrestrained revolt.

“You fucked her,” he claims with pierced venom. “In more ways than one.”

His way of putting together Lucy’s and my relationship, tainting it with vulgarity and labeling it for all it isn’t, pisses me off and offers a distraction.

“Don’t talk about her like that again.”

“You did. You couldn’t resist her. Young, beautiful, single mom. You lost your family. Lucy was your chance at redemption. Does that cover it?”

“Corbin, I swear to Christ, shut your fucking mouth.”

“You’ve taken care of her all these years. I thought it was enough. I thought if you could do that, you’d eventually move on. But you moved on with her.”

“You pleaded with me to meet her, Corbin. Spontaneous, remember? You urged me to talk to her, then you fucking hired her.”

“So you made sleeping with you part of her job description?”