“This shirt. This shirt was Richard’s. I should know. I bought it for his fiftieth birthday, three years ago.”
“It happened before I knew you.” Her hands reach up. “Months before I knew you.”
“Just say it.” I pace back and forth, my body not knowing what to do with the nervous energy coursing through me.
“I slept with Richard. I had a fling with Richard.”
Everything inside me seizes. A fling. A fling means more then once.
“Before you started working at the company, we were at the company holiday party, and one thing led to another. We started sleeping together. No one knows.”
“You were with Richard?” Were they in a relationship?
“It was just sex.”
Even though she speaks and I hear her words, it’s as if I don’t understand what she’s saying. None of this makes any sense. They were together more then once. How did I not know this?
“You were with Richard. My Richard.”
“It was before I knew you, and he broke it off with me when you moved in.”
“He broke it off?” Her head bobs up and down.
“Why didn’t you tell me? I don’t understand.”
“I just couldn’t. What did you want me to say? Hi, move in with me but F.Y.I., I slept with our boss, who also happens to be your family friend. My relationship with Richard was purely physical. Just sex, no strings attached, no promises of devotion and happily ever afters.”
“He was more than my family friend and you know it.”
“When I asked you to be my roommate, I didn’t know that, and by the time I found out, it was too late. I didn’t want to risk our friendship. I’m sorry. I never meant to upset you but—”
“But what? You lied to me.”
“I never lied to you. I just omitted the truth.”
“Well, that makes it so much better. You should’ve told me.” I run my hands through my hair. Outrage runs through me. “I have to go.”
“Can we talk about this?”
“There is nothing you can say right now that I want to listen to. As much as it repulses me that you slept with Richard—my Richard—it was before you knew me, so that I understand. What I can’t get over is that you never told me.”
“How could I? God!” She groans, burying her head in her hands before looking up. “I was embarrassed. Don’t let this destroy our friendship, Eve. Please. You’re like a sister to me.”
“Yeah, I imagine you would be . . .” As the words come out of my mouth I realize what a hypocrite I’m being. She slept with her boss and I want my psychologist, but it doesn’t change the hurt I feel.
I need to leave. I need to get out of here. I need air.
Without looking back, I grab my coat and head out the door. I welcome the breeze that gently cools the flush on my cheeks. I don’t know where I’m going or what to do.
Out of nowhere, the phone rings in my pocket and my whole body seizes when I see the name on the screen. Preston Montgomery. Shit. What do I do? Do I answer it? I have to. But what do I say?
“Hi,” I answer, almost on a whisper.
“Hello.” I want to apologize for my behavior and just hang up the phone. I can’t talk to him now. Not when I’m on the verge of losing it. Of falling apart.
“I-I’m really sorry about last night,” I stammer.
“Listen, what happened last night can never happen again.” An uneasy feeling passes through my body. You can’t risk losing him. Just agree and get off the phone.
“Yes, I understand.”
“I was wrong to do that. I don’t want to stop treating you, but if anything like that happens again I won’t be able to continue our sessions. You will have to find another psychologist.” His voice is cold, professional.
This is not Preston.
This is all Dr. Montgomery.
I bite my lip and carefully choose my words, willing my voice not to give away my hurt.
“I understand, and it won’t happen again. I promise.”
“Okay. Then I will see you at your scheduled appointment this week.”
His cold tone finally has me snapping and falling apart. I start to sob uncontrollably in the phone.
“Eve, please don’t cry. I didn’t mean to make you cry.” The sobs come out in heavy broken breaths. “Shh. It’s okay, you’re okay. Please calm down. Where are you?”
“What?”
“Where. Are. You?” His voice leaves no place for argument.
“By my apartment.”
“Meet me.”
“But you just said—”
“Forget what I said. None of that matters right now. Meet me.”
“I can’t, I’m a mess.”
“I don’t care, and you could never be a mess. I’ll see you in ten minutes. I’m on Thirty-Fifth between Park and Lexington. Number 115.”
My brain and my heart are at war. I know I shouldn’t go, but there’s no one I want to speak to about this but Preston.
CHAPTER TWENTY
PRESTON
WHAT AM I DOING? What the fuck am I doing? I just told my patient to meet me for the second time in a matter of days. Talk about crossing into completely unprofessional territory. But fuck, when I heard her crying she broke me. She’s cried before, but that was when she was just my patient.
Ever since the day with the kids, I’m having a hard time distinguishing the woman who sits in front of me week after week from the woman at the diner. I knew she was strong. I knew she was caring. But the side I saw . . .
She is special. The kind of special that makes you question everything you believe in or everything you thought you believed in before her. I know I’m doing something I shouldn’t, and in the past that would have mattered to me, but hearing how distraught she was . . . something inside of me snapped. This can’t wait until next week to get fixed. I can’t wait. I need to help her. I need to take her pain and make it mine. I need to see her now.
So what am I doing?
I’m now pacing my apartment thinking I might have made the biggest mistake of my professional life. I invited Eve Hamilton into my house, and by doing so I invited myself into her world, and worse . . .
I invited her into mine.
I take a swig of my scotch. The amber liquid coats my throat and burns, but I need it. I need to drown the voice inside me. The one telling me to call her back and say I’ll see her on Friday, but instead I throw back another shot. I need to see her and make sure she’s okay.
Even if her presence consumes me.
Even if seeing her destroys me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
EVE
AS I TAKE a step toward the large wooden door. It swings open. Preston is standing there. The moonlight peeps out from a cloud and bathes him in its glow. I suck in a breath. He’s beautiful, mesmerizing, consuming. I feel bare before him. Being here, standing at his door feels so right, yet wrong at the same time.
“Are you okay?” he asks as I move closer to him and he ushers me inside.
“No.”
“Come in. Come on, I got you.” He takes my hand in his and I’m instantly warm.
“I feel betrayed. They betrayed me,” I blurt out, and I can tell by the look in his eyes he has no clue what I’m talking about.
“What happened?”
“Richard and Sydney had sex,” I huff out on a sigh.
“Can you please start from the beginning? So I can understand.”
“I found a shirt I bought for Richard in her closet. I confronted her. Apparently they had a relationship. It happened
before I started to work at the company, and it ended when I moved in with Syd, but neither of them told me. I mean for crying out loud. I always knew he was weird about me living with her, and she was always weird about him, but neither of them said anything.”
“I understand why you’re angry. I really do. But I think if you sit for a minute and take a step back, you might see that this is not so black and white.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think right now you’re feeling blindsided by Richard. But since he’s not here to explain himself, you’re lashing out at Sydney because you’re hurt. You feel Richard betrayed you, but did he? Furthermore, did Sydney? They were both consenting adults, and Sydney didn’t know you. So, I believe your real problem is with him. You’re afraid the Richard you knew might not necessarily be the Richard everyone else knew. But you need to realize and accept that that’s okay. He didn’t love you any less because he had a clandestine relationship with her. He just put you in a bubble and as your “father,” he didn’t want you to see him as anything other than perfect. This isn’t really about Sydney at all.”
His words seep into my soul. He’s right. I know he’s right. I just wish Richard were here. I wish I could talk to him one more time. I wish I had a chance to say good-bye.
My tears flow again and this time, Preston pulls me close to him on the couch. I turn my face toward his body and bury my head in the crook of his neck. Needing comfort, needing him to hold me. Needing more of him.
He does. He holds me until every tear is expelled from my body. When I have no more tears left in me, I peer up. He’s looking at me in a way that makes my body quiver. That makes me want to close the tiny distance between us. Effortlessly I inch forward.
“Eve,” he groans my name as if it pains him to say it. His hands gently sliding up my arm until he strokes my jaw. “We can’t do this.” He takes a deep breath, his eyes imploring me to heed his plea.
“I know.” My lids close briefly as he presses his forehead to mine. A single touch that ignites a fire deep in my soul.
“I can’t.” His voice is barely a whisper.
I swallow back my emotions and separate our bodies.
“It’s getting late. I should go.” For a moment I think he’ll object, tell me to stay, but instead, Preston makes his way to his feet and nods.