“Don’t say that.”
“Why not? It makes sense.”
“Don’t. Say. That.” He looks furious and distraught and desperate, his hands curling into fists at his side and his eyes pleading with me to believe him. “Don’t ever say that. You know I love you. You know I would do anything for you—”
“That’s not true and you know it.”
“I don’t—”
“I asked you to give this vendetta up. I asked you to let it go, to let time and distance continue to heal me. To heal us. It’s the only thing I’ve ever really asked of you—that and not to lie to me—and you couldn’t do either one. You won’t do either one.”
I should stop there, I know I should, but there’s a little voice inside of me that just won’t let me. A little voice that keeps pushing and pushing and pushing, telling me to keep going until I’ve said everything I have to say. Until I’ve laid myself—laid our relationship—bare. Until we’re totally exposed with nothing else to hide behind. “You’re lost in the past. Lost in what happened to me, lost in mistakes you made, lost in shit that can’t be changed no matter how much you wish it could. You think you’re the only one who wishes the past was different? You think you’re the only one who hates the way things are all twisted up between us?
“Because you’re not. I think about it, too. I think all the time about how the fuck I could fall in love with a man who, however inadvertently, helped hurt me the way you did. But the difference between you and me is I let it go. I have to, and not just for my own sanity. I let it go because you matter more to me than all of that. You matter more than the rape. More than my family’s betrayal. More than anything. And so I let it go. I let it all go—the pain, the rage, the memories, the fear. I let it all go so that I can be with you and we can try to build a life together. But you won’t do the same thing. How can you blame me for thinking that I’m not nearly as important to you as you are to me?”
I’m shaking by the time I’ve said my piece, and this time, when I reach for his shirt, Ethan doesn’t stop me. He doesn’t do anything but stand there staring at me, all white face and tortured eyes. It’s not the reaction I was hoping for, but then, it never is with him. Not when it comes to this.
I can see his thoughts moving behind his eyes, and I wait for him to say something. Anything. But he doesn’t. He just continues to stand there until I can’t take it anymore.
Not sure what else to do, I walk over to my suitcase, pull out a change of clothes. Then I head to the bathroom for a shower. For the second time today, I close the bathroom door firmly between us. This time I don’t lock it, but then I don’t have to. Ethan never once tries to open it.
Chapter 11
Fuck.
Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck!
I stare at the closed bathroom door—a door that suddenly seems to represent so much more than just a privacy measure—and try to figure out what the fuck I’m supposed to say to Chloe. What the fuck I’m supposed to say to my wife after she looked at me like I’d broken her heart. Again.
Fuuuuuuuck.
My phone beeps, signaling a text coming in. I glance at it more out of habit than any desire to know what it says, and grimace at what I find. A list of requests, forwarded by Stu, for interviews with Chloe and me from some of the biggest gossip and news sources in the business. As well as a reporter from the LA Times asking for a confirmation or denial of a source that claims Chloe and my family entered into an NDA six years ago.
With a growl of frustration, I hit Stu’s icon and wait impatiently for him to pick up the phone. It takes only two rings.
“Bury it,” I order before he can say anything but a cautious greeting. “I don’t care what it takes, I don’t care what you have to do, bury it. Now.”
“I already have, Ethan,” he assures me. “But I had to offer them an exclusive interview with you and Chloe to get it done.”
I think of my wife, with her devastated face and the nightmares she just can’t shake. “She’s not ready for that, Stu. She needs media training. She needs—”
“I know that. But I don’t think we’ve got a choice. For whatever reason, the LA Times has really dug their teeth into this one. If we don’t give them something big, they’re going to run with it.”
“They’re going to run with it? Jesus Christ, Stu, what the hell do I pay you for, then?”
“To talk them out of publishing stories like this. Which I’m doing.” He pauses, lets his words sink in. “Maybe if you told me what was in the NDA, I could find some more wiggle room—”
“No. That’s not an option.”
A long, pregnant pause. Then, “Yeah, I figured. So without knowing what the LA Times is going to dig up, I have to tell you that I really believe doing the interview is the best course of action. You and Chloe meet one of their top reporters for drinks or dinner, you chat for about an hour, and then it’s over. They get the juiciest story to hit the West Coast social scene in years and Chloe gets to keep her privacy. It’s a win-win situation, Ethan.”
He’s right. I know he’s right. This is the best thing to do—up to a point. And still I hesitate, because I don’t want to expose Chloe to all that yet. Because I don’t want her to have to dress up and play nice and give the vultures what they want just to protect herself. Just to keep them from violating her in some other way. My wife has already been violated in too many ways by too many people. I don’t want her to have to go through anything like that ever again. And doing this interview, placating the LA Times—it’s a stopgap measure, not a solution. It’s one more thing I’m not okay with.
Normally, I’d talk it over with Chloe. See how she feels, what she wants to do. After all, this is her life and her privacy we’re talking about. But considering that closed bathroom door, I don’t think that’s going to be happening right now. Especially not when I can’t bring myself to open the door.
The thought makes me furious. The last thing I ever wanted was barriers between Chloe and me and yet here we are, on two different sides of a divide with no way to cross over the gaping chasm between us. It’s not that I don’t see her point of view, it’s not that I don’t understand why she thinks we need to leave the past in the past. If I were her, I’d be terrified of being hurt again, too.
But ignoring the past, hiding from it, won’t work for so many reasons.