New Beginnings (40 page)

“Exactly. Stephen found me as I was on my way to get lunch. He asked for a few moments of my time. I was in the middle of the market on a busy weekday afternoon. I figured I was safe.”

“But you obviously didn’t stay there. So tell me, Ella, what exactly did he say to get you into a car with him? Alone.” He reached for the bottle of whiskey.

I cringed as I watched him pour more of the alcohol in his glass. “Since when did you start drinking whiskey?” I frowned at him as I stood back up.

“Since my wife decided to sneak off with her ex for an afternoon,” he said angrily, throwing back half of the glass.

His comment cut through me. He made it sound as if I snuck off to have an affair, which, given what Stephen had done to me, really made me angry. Xavier was in no condition for a discussion about this either. I picked my bag up off the floor. “Once you’re sober and ready to talk about this, you come find me. In the meantime, I’ll leave you and your bottle to it.”

Turning and heading out of his office, I kept waiting for him to stop me, but he never did. Just as I was heading down the hall, Stewart came barreling around the corner nearly knocking me to the floor.

“Ella, I’m so sorry,” he said, grabbing my arm to steady me.

“Whoa! Where’s the fire?” I asked.

“Is Xavier around?” he asked urgently.

I motioned toward his office. “Yup. You’ll find him down there nursing a bottle of whiskey.” Stewart frowned at me, but I turned to continue down the hall toward the bedroom without further explanation.

“Ella, wait. I think you’ll want to hear this, too,” Stewart said, reaching out for my arm.

“Stewart?” Xavier called from his office.

“Come on.” Stewart, keeping a firm grip on my elbow, led me down to Xavier’s office.

“What are you doing here?” Xavier asked, frowning at Stewart.

“I’ve got some news.” Stewart gave me a grave look. “Stephen’s dead.”

“What?” I whispered. My hand covered my mouth as a wave of nausea rolled through me. A fine sheen of sweat formed on my brow as the room began to sway. Through the fog my head started swimming in, I heard Xavier curse and saw him jump up out of his chair.

Grabbing my waist to keep me upright, he led me into the living room and guided me down onto the couch. He crouched in front of me. “Get her a glass of water,” he said to Stewart, before focusing back on me with a hurt, but concerned look on his face.

“I just saw him. How can he be dead?” I murmured.

With that Stewart came back into the room with a cold glass of water. He handed it to Xavier who handed it to me. Tentatively I took a sip. The water was so cold; it trailed an icy path down to my stomach, causing me to shiver.

“What do we know?” Xavier asked Stewart. He moved up off the floor to sit next to me on the couch. He took my left hand in his and gently squeezed. I frowned realizing how sober Xavier suddenly seemed.

I looked up at Stewart, who was giving Xavier a strange look. It was almost like he was unsure if he should continue and was silently asking for his permission.

“I’m fine. Really. I’m just a little shocked to hear that someone I was just with hours ago is now … dead.” I took another sip of the water, and placed the glass down on the coffee table.

Xavier nodded at Stewart. “Go ahead.”

“What I know so far is that it was a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Carline apparently found him parked in the garage slumped over the steering wheel,” Stewart said.

“Estimated time of death?” Xavier asked.

“Approximately two hours ago. Carline claims she received a text message from him, which apparently was just minutes before he pulled the trigger.”

Xavier looked at me. “That would also make it shortly after he left you. You want to tell me what your conversation was about?” he asked gently.

Squeezing my temples, I tried to stem the major headache I could feel coming on. I looked up at Stewart and then back to Xavier. “He apologized for everything. The affair, the hateful things he’s said and done to me … us.” Xavier’s scowl had me closing my mouth.

“And you believed him?” he asked skeptically.

I frowned at Xavier now. “I was suspicious of his motives. I even asked him why he was doing this now. He said he realized how awful he’s been and how much he’s hurt people, especially me. Listen, he gave me no reason not to believe him. He seemed sincere, remorseful even. He said you were a good man. That you were who I deserved.”

Xavier raised his brows in surprise. Stewart shifted his weight uncomfortably, acting as if he didn’t want to be present for this conversation but I continued.

“Before I got out of the car, he said he never stopped loving me. That from the moment he stepped into Mr. Peterson’s math class our junior year of high school, I owned him. He said he didn’t expect me to do anything with that. He just wanted me to know so if anything were to happen, I would know, and that I was never the mistake he tried to make me out to be.” Remembering the feeling I had gotten as I exited Stephen’s car, I cursed.

“What is it?” Xavier asked.

“I knew something was off. The tone of his voice, the sadness in his eyes, what he was saying, it just felt … wrong. Something just didn’t sit right with me. I felt like he was saying goodbye, and that I was never going to see him again. That he was giving me closure. I just didn’t realize that he was doing this so he could go home and end his own life.”

Xavier looked to Stewart. “Are the police going to want to talk to Ella?”

Stewart shook his head. “There’s no pending investigation. It’s a definite suicide. Besides, I don’t think anyone knows Stephen was with her before he died.”

Xavier released his breath in relief. “Let me walk you out,” he said to Stewart, leaving me on the couch.

As I reached to grab my glass of water from the coffee table, I noticed my hand was shaking. I pulled my arm back, and wrapped both around me. He’s dead. No matter how many times I said it, it was still hard to fathom. I might have fallen out of love with Stephen, but it didn’t mean that I had totally stopped caring. He had been my husband for sixteen years after all.

Suddenly my thoughts turned to Carline. Was she upset that Stephen was gone? Was it true when Stephen said not to worry about her getting hurt? Did the two of them just use each other with no feelings between them at all? I knew both Carline and Stephen could be cold, calculating, and manipulative, but when Carline talked about Stephen back at that dinner at The Four Seasons her face just lit up. She seemed to genuinely care for him. Maybe Stephen never realized that she truly cared, and how sad would that be? For both of them.

A soft blanket being wrapped around me snapped me out of my reverie. Xavier sat down next to me. Cupping my face, he swiped the tears from my cheeks that I didn’t even realize I was shedding. “Are you all right?” he asked softly.

“Yes,” I mumbled, nodding my head at him. I suddenly felt extremely exhausted.

He let go of my face and settled us both back into the couch. I leaned into him resting my head on chest. “I’m sorry I was so angry with you earlier. When Stewart called to say he found you in some park sitting on a bench holding hands with him, I just … I didn’t know what to think.” He voice cracked and he cleared his throat. Gently, he kissed the top of my head. “I’ll get the information concerning the funeral arrangements so we can go.”

“Thank you.” My stomach suddenly rumbled loudly.

“You haven’t eaten anything other than breakfast today.”

It wasn’t a question. I simply shook my head.

“Come on. I think there is some left over pizza in the freezer.” He stood up and held his hand out to me.

“That sounds good.” I let him pull me up from the couch. He wrapped his arm around my waist as we made our way into the kitchen. “You reheat. I’ll make the salad,” I said.

As soon as we entered the kitchen, I held on to him tightly. “You know how much I love you, right?” I asked, looking up into his breathtaking eyes.

“Of course I do. As much as I love you.” He kissed me thoroughly before I released my hold on him. In a now comfortable silence, we went about fixing our dinner together.

The following evening when Xavier arrived home from work, he approached me apprehensively as if he didn’t want to disturb me. I was comfortable, curled up on the couch reading under the softest Sherpa blanket that held such delicious memories of the two of us together. I put my book down, straightened up, and smiled as he approached. The smile quickly slid off my face when I fully took in his look of concern.

He bent down and kissed my forehead. “Did you have a good day, sweetness?” he asked, brushing some hair behind my ear.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, ignoring his question.

He let out a sigh and sat down next to me on the couch. “This arrived in the mail at my office today.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a white, standard, letter-sized envelope. It was addressed to Xavier. There was no return address. Personal and confidential was scrawled in the lower left corner. I immediately recognized it as Stephen’s handwriting.

My eyes snapped up to Xavier. He held the envelope out to me, nodding his head in encouragement. Why was Stephen writing to him? Was this some kind of suicide note?

Letting out a sigh, I took the envelope from him. As I held it in my hands, I ran my fingers over the writing on the front, feeling all the little groves of the lettering. Stephen always did have a tendency to press down really hard while he was writing. Our old kitchen table could have told quite a story with all the times he wrote checks or notes on the table without anything underneath it, easily embedding what he was writing on its hard surface.

I realized I was stalling. Flipping the envelope over, I gently pulled it open. With a shaky hand, I took the letter out. I stared down at the scrawl over the notebook paper, before my eyes could focus on the words.

After reading the letter, I remained quiet as I scanned over the words once again. It’s a pain he can’t live with anymore? Losing me was the reason he killed himself? No, I refused to believe that. He’s the one who cheated and then lied about it all those years. He’s the one who hurt me. The bastard lied about the reason for our infertility for fuck’s sake. Who does that? Now he’s trying to make me feel guilty for offing himself? I tossed the letter aside and stood up.