Chapter 9

I STARED AT nothing and felt nothing. The ocean didn’t even soothe me. I pretended I was numb until a crash downstairs startled me. A moment later, I heard the same sound…breaking glass. Covering my ears as more breakage followed, I moved my feet in the opposite direction, ignoring the dull thud inside my chest where my heart had been beating so steadily before because of him, because of the new beginning I thought I had found with him.

In the bathroom, I gripped the edge of the counter and stared into the mirror. My eyes seemed big inside my face, and my skin was pale beneath my newly acquired tan. Shuffling through life with little smiling and less emotion except when it came to my boys had its benefits. I turned my head side to side. No laugh lines but no double chin, either. And only a slight worry crease between my brows. Still youthful. And yet I didn’t much like the woman I saw staring back at me.

Peeling the wet chemise from my body, I stepped into the shower and turned it on. The water got hot quickly, but I didn’t really register it. I went through the motions feeling like I was a sleep-walker disappearing inside myself all over again.

I wasn’t the type of woman who inspired unbridled passion in men. I wasn’t Mary Timmons, the often photographed picture perfect CEO of Black Cat Records, once the college sweetheart my husband had never gotten over and now his chief professional rival. He had settled for me…for a time…or so it had seemed. In reality, I was the one easily set aside, as unmemorable as I had always been. It had been a foolish fantasy to have believed even for a moment that I was the type of woman who could hold the attention of a sexy man like Johnny.

I knew what I wasn’t. It was time to come to terms with what I was, and move on from there.

I was belting my robe when I heard my cell ring in the other room. I sprinted across the floor and scooped it off the nightstand, my heart pounding when I realized the display was lit up with a picture of my son.

“Yeah, Mom. Only you didn’t call this morning and I wanted to catch you before I went into school.”

“He and Claire really got into it after that but he said he’s sorry, Mom. It’s over between him and Janice.” It had never been on between him and her. There was only one woman he really wanted. One that he could never have. But I didn’t tell Trent that. I didn’t want to taint his relationship with his father. “He wants to move back in, Mom. He doesn’t want to commute back and forth from San Francisco anymore. Would you give him another chance? Please.”

I crushed the hard plastic of the cell between my fingers. I hated that Charles was putting Trent in this position. His manipulation of me had reached new heights, obviously. “Sure, baby, I’ll consider it.” I would do anything for my boys. Charles knew that.

After I verified that CJ was doing okay, I ended the call. I sank onto the bed and dropped my head into my hands. My stomach churned. I hadn’t put anything in my stomach since those mango margaritas the night before. I knew that I should eat, but I wouldn’t. I would focus better on an empty stomach.

I heard the sound as soon as I buttoned my shorts. The piano again. Not music though. Noise. Horrible noise. It sounded like I felt inside, like I had been speeding along at a hundred miles an hour on these wonderful feelings between us only to crash into a brick wall. Was he slamming his fingers on the keys? He was going to damage his hands.

My eyes filled. I couldn’t stay here and do this, listening to and analyzing everything I heard downstairs.

I called the airline and moved my return to the next morning. I grabbed the keys, peeking out to the driveway to make sure it was clear before I made a dash for the jeep. All was eerily quiet downstairs now. Pressing my lips into a determined line, I steered out of the driveway without hitting the retaining wall. My grip was so tight on the steering wheel that my knuckles turned white. I moved my unruly curls out of my eyes when I came to the stop sign. I hadn’t bothered with styling gel or makeup since my first full day on the island.

Right or left? My thoughts were all over the place. I couldn’t deal with my indecision. Everything grated. Even the soft cotton sundress chaffed my skin. Left. I went left. Avoiding the north shore beaches and town, I drove over the mountain and down into Coral Bay which was much less crowded. I forced my lips into a smile when I passed others with their windows down enjoying the island and the tropical breeze, but it was all fake. I was so very good at being fake.

At the bottom of a hill, I parked the jeep alongside the road and locked it. I needed to feel the breeze on my skin and hear the steady churn of the ocean. Johnny had pointed out this beach the day we had hiked to Salt Pond. He said it was usually deserted until later in the day. It was certainly deserted now. I found some shade and cleared off a spot to sit on the sand. I drew my legs up underneath me and stared out at the water.

I had come to the island mainly looking for the strength to move forward alone. I’d found that and much more. I had found a man who made me feel confident. A man who made me feel right. A man who made me feel needed. Reflected in his eyes I thought I had seen a woman who could be desired.

I took a couple of deep quick breaths in and out, but I refused to cry. I had done enough of that. I didn’t want to be the person anyone felt sorry for anymore. Not my husband. Not my children. Not Claire. Especially not Johnny.

My chest ached. The sun was high, and the beach wasn’t quiet or deserted anymore when I finally reached a decision. Not an easy one. A scary one, but the right one. Being with Johnny had showed me how good it could be between a man and a woman. Being with Johnny had convinced me that I had to change my life.

I stood, rubbed the pins and needles from my legs, and made my way back to the jeep. My grip wasn’t as tight on the way back. I wasn’t exactly sure why, but I guessed it had something to do with the clarity I had found.

The sun was setting when I pulled into the villa. Every single light was on. There was a car I didn’t recognize in the driveway. Curious, I pulled up alongside it and parked. My heart started pounding as soon as I walked through the entryway. I knew who it was. I recognized his cologne.

“Charles,” I acknowledged, the tension inside me returning as he turned away from the refrigerator, a scotch on the rocks, his drink of choice, in his hands.

“My dear.” He leaned in to kiss the cheek I offered him. His lips were cold and a little moist from the scotch. I hadn’t seen him since I had walked in on him and the coordinator. He didn’t touch me and I didn’t touch him. But we were so polite. We observed all the niceties.

I scooted around him and opened the fridge reaching for a bottled water, but froze when I saw the note tucked beside it.

I crumpled the paper in my hand, sliding it into the front pocket of my shorts. I withdrew the water I had been reaching for, hoping Charles hadn’t noticed my hesitation. I turned casually uncapping the bottle and chugging the cool liquid from it as he watched me with his careful steel blue eyes.

“Where were you? You were gone all day. You’re not wearing makeup. Your hair’s a mess, and you’re sunburned.”

“Oh.” I hadn’t really noticed, nor had I really cared. I doubt that he did, either. He was just avoiding my initial question. Stalling, it seemed. I wondered why. I didn’t want to assume he had seen the note and was seeking to trip me up. I decided to go the nonverbal route, using one of his techniques on him. Make him uncomfortable enough that he would get to the point of his visit. Then I could tell him my decision and go see Johnny.

“Did Trent tell you about our conversation?” he asked finally, after an awkward silence.

“What you knew I would tell him. That I would consider it. But honestly,” I lifted my gaze angry tears stinging my eyes, “why bother anymore?”

“No, I never forget that. Not the first time I discovered you were stepping out on me, and not this last time, either. I’m the one who stays. I’m the one who takes care of Trent and CJ. I’m the one who makes excuses for you. I’m the one who never strays.”

“Really?” He lifted a silver brow the same color as his hair, and the sharp gleam in his eye should have given me a clue that he was going to hit me with something that would knock my knees out from under me. Years of experience negotiating contracts for Zenith with his hard-earned law degree gave him an irrepressible glee when he was getting ready to close a deal in which he knew he had the upper hand. “If that’s so, why is there another man’s shirt by your bed, Annabelle?”

The blood drained from my face. Never mind the note, he had uncovered something equally as damning. The bottled water sloshed nauseatingly in my stomach. None of my reactions were lost on him. If I informed him now of my intention to seek a divorce I would be lucky to get half of the settlement that I had hoped for. I opened my mouth to speak, but snapped it shut when I saw Johnny on the other side of the entryway watching us. How long had he been there? His hair was messier than usual. His eyes were bloodshot. And yet, my eyes drank him in greedily in that moment, knowing that this vision of him would probably be my last.

“Annabelle,” Charles prompted again unbuttoning his suit jacket and moving closer. I wanted to slink away from him. I wanted to disappear into the grout between the Saltillo tiles. He touched me, his hands on my upper arms as cold as his lips on my cheek had been.

I sucked in a breath when Johnny took a step closer. Charles would see him if he glanced that way. I couldn’t allow that to happen. Johnny had no idea the type of man my husband was. I had been remiss in not telling him, but I had felt too safe here, too blissfully content in Johnny’s care. And now it was too late to warn him.

“My dear, I think I deserve to know who the man is at the very least.” Charles searched my face for the answers he wanted and usually got.

I licked my lips. “Just some guy I met at a local bar.” I needed to sprinkle in enough truth to pass off the lies. “He told me what I wanted to hear. I believed him. We had a glorious night together. The sex was wonderful,” I added as an intentional dig.

Good. I hoped he felt even a tenth of the pain he made me feel every time I found out he had slept around on me.

“But it was just a night,” I continued making my tone more conciliatory so Charles would drop the interrogation. “He was gone by the morning. I didn’t even get his name.” Charles was a powerful possessive man. If he thought Johnny meant something to me, he would go after him, destroy the things that mattered to him, and it would be my fault.

“An indiscretion then. A moment of weakness. An island dalliance. But nothing more. Is that correct?”

“Yes.” I nodded, though it had been so much more. The man I had found, the woman I was with him, the strength I had discovered in myself, I had no choice but to let all those things go.

Johnny made a low sound that only I heard. He squeezed his stormy grey eyes shut. My heart stalled, the new beginning for us disappearing without his vision or my own to sustain it.

“I’m glad to hear that.” Charles wrapped his arms around me. An awkward embrace. There was no emotion attached to it. Not from his side and certainly not from my own. “It’s best for the boys if we stay together.”

When Charles released me, I pulled in a shaky breath and turned my head toward the entryway, hoping to catch one last glimpse, to offer an unspoken apology for the words I hadn’t meant, to say a silent goodbye, but Johnny was no longer there to receive it. There were only dark shadows where he had once stood.

Annabelle's story continues in Remember Me - Part Two,

and Keep Me - Part Three, the conclusion.

Available for purchase now.