“I’m here to see my wife.”
I stood, slightly stunned by his audacity, as he strode forward, took me by the shoulders and pressed a kiss to my cheek.
“What are you doing?” I hissed into his ear as he pulled away.
He smiled but it didn’t suit his face the way it suited King’s. It was impossible not to compare the two now that I’d sort of had both. They were the only two men to ever touch me sexually and now William was here at school, in King’s domain. Goosebumps broke out like a premonition written in Braille over my skin.
“You won’t return my phone calls or my emails so I decided to see you in person,” he said as if he was the most reasonable person on the planet and I was a shrew. “I have a very important client dinner to attend at the end of the month just outside of town here and I thought you could accompany me. I even bought you a new dress.”
I seethed. Visions of punching William in his clean-shaven throat, slamming his head into Georgie’s half-moon-shaped desk until his perfect head was bloodied, swam through my mind like shark-infested waters.
The audience, Georgie and now Shawn Walters, one of the Math teachers, were now both avidly watching and kept me from acting upon my baser instincts.
Thus, I cleared my throat of fire and said, “I’ve mailed you the divorce papers four times now, William. I see you every other week at court-mandated couple’s counseling for exactly this reason, so that we can talk about our problems is an appropriate venue. What in the world would make you think that the middle of the day at my place of work would be a good time to discuss the dissolution of our marriage?”
It was William’s turn to frown. “Cressida, there is no need to speak so harshly.”
Oh my God. I was this close to tearing out my hair and I freaking loved my big head of hair.
I took a deep breath as I vaguely registered two more people slipping into the room.
“I’m sorry if it seems like I’m angry though, to be honest, it is almost undoubtedly because I am angry. I do not appreciate being ambushed at my place of work,” I told him in what I felt was, irrefutably, a calm tone.
“You tell him, girl!” Tayline chorused from where she suddenly stood with Georgia, Shawn and Rainbow behind the desk.
I shot her a look but she only raised her hands in the air in the universal sign for ‘preach.’ Giving up on her before smoke came out of my ears, I turned back to William and made my voice sweet because I knew honey worked better than vinegar with men like my ex.
“Why don’t we go outside? We can speak more privately there.”
He hesitated, which was smart because I was being tame with our audience but would absolutely not be if I were alone with him. I decided to take the decision from him and immediately pushed through the door that led to the teacher’s parking lot. A moment later, William followed. I knew if I cared to look that the little grouping left inside would have their noses pressed to the windows but I focused on William instead.
“Seriously, what were you thinking coming here and making a scene like this at my school?” I asked, my anger still starch through my muscles but the hurt was creeping in, wrinkling my resolve.
Did he really care for me so little?
“I wasn’t the one making a scene. I merely wanted to speak with you, Cressida. You didn’t give me the chance at Christmas and those sessions are a joke. I wanted to give you a chance to tell me what you think went wrong in our marriage so that I can attempt to fix it with you,” he said.
It was a good response. Or it would have been if I hadn’t had the exact same conversation with him a good twenty to thirty times before.
I ran a hand through my hair and tried to find my inner zen. “I honestly don’t know what to say to you anymore, though. I don’t love you, William.”
He stared at me for a long moment before he nodded curtly. “I understand that I work a lot—”
“It wasn’t about the work,” I practically growled. “You can’t give me what I need anymore.”
He snorted. “There are very few things that I can’t afford to give you.”
“For Pete’s sake, I don’t mean financially. I mean emotionally, sexually.”
“You’re just going through something right now. In another six months, you’ll be begging me to let you back into the house,” William said for the umpteenth time; he just kept extending the timeframe it would take for me to return to him.
“I won’t,” I said gently, stepping forward to touch his arm lightly.