“WE PULLED IT OFF. One more year come and gone.” Sara sat on the couch in the man cave, the only room that was finished and dust free. They had set up the tree there, even though the room was the coldest in the house, with its sleek black leather furniture and dark wood-paneled walls. It was not the Christmas Sara had hoped for, the one in the new family room with the soft yellow walls and fireplace, cushy sofas, and the smell of turkey pouring in from the kitchen. None of that had been possible, thanks to Roy and the construction delays. Still, it had been nice. Santa’s arrival. Annie’s glee at the pile of gifts. Now she was in bed, exhausted and fast asleep, and Nick and Sara were alone.
They had taken the first commercial flight back from West Palm Beach, and it had been nothing short of blissful. Long lines, overcrowded airport, and crammed seating on the plane. There was no food service, and they’d been too rushed to get anything in the terminal. Through the aggravation and hunger, the pushing and shoving as people struggled with their packages, Sara had been smiling. This was her world, one she understood, and the relief at the normalcy of it had almost made her forget the odd connection she’d forged with Ernest Barlow, and the horrific circumstances that had necessitated their hasty departure.
Nick sat beside her on the black leather love seat, bundling her in his arms as they watched the lights flicker on the tree.
“It was great. You did a nice job with everything. And . . . ,” he said, kissing her on the back of her head. “You seem like yourself again.”
“Thanks, sweetie. I feel like myself again. I’m sorry I was such a pain in the ass down there.”
“No. Don’t be sorry. You’ve always been a pain in the ass, and I love you anyway.”
Sara nudged him as she leaned back farther against his body. “You really like the sweater?” she asked, noticing that he’d already put it on.
“What’s not to like about cashmere?”
“True. It feels nice from where I’m sitting.”
Nick felt warm against her. They’d placed so many things on hold until after the holidays. The construction problems, the talk of another baby and everything else that had come up around it, things that involved every corner of their lives. Sara had said nothing more about her unhappiness in Wilshire, and the possibility that she was unhappy with her life as a whole, their life that they had begun to build together. Now Christmas was taking its last gasp, and these things would soon be back on the table.
“I wish we could stay like this. Just like this.”
“It does feel good.”
“Why do you think it’s so hard? When we wake up tomorrow and it all starts again. Work, Roy, Nanna, the club membership . . . ,” Nick said, his thoughts rambling.
“And the baby.” Sara knew it was on his mind, and probably a lot farther up on the list than the country club. He didn’t respond. He didn’t want to, not tonight. But he was right. Here she was, feeling about her husband the way she had the night they met, safe and warm and fiercely attracted. And yet, if she let herself, the memories of their trip to Florida could just as easily come back in, making her wonder if their marriage would survive the daily struggles of life. She had felt disdain for her husband at how much he seemed to enjoy the whole damned thing—the jet, the golf, the steak dinner. She had clung to Ernest Barlow as though he were the only air to breathe down there, simply because he was the only human being who seemed to share her X-ray vision of the place. And it had made her wonder if that was how easily it happened, affairs and divorces. A slipped connection with a spouse, replaced by a new connection with someone else. She had felt vulnerable to it, and it made her question everything, even now as she felt the strength of her love for Nick. Was it just them, or were all marriages that vulnerable? She was too damned young to know the answer.
“I remember your face,” Nick said after a moment.
“I’m sitting right here.”
“No. From that night. I remember your face. It killed me.”
Sara smiled as she turned to kiss him. “It almost killed me.”
“You were so pissed,” he recalled; then he laughed at the thought of the night they met less than four years ago. “Pissed and distraught, crying, but mostly you were mad as hell and I thought damn—I have to know what that’s about.”
Sara closed her eyes and pictured him at the bar with one of his work buddies. They were downtown near their Wall Street office, and a few blocks from where Sara lived because it had been so cheap back then. She’d come in from the rain, drenched to the bone and reeling from events that seemed a lifetime ago.
“How he could have left you, I’ll never understand.”
“He was a coward. Or maybe just selfish. I should have known.”
“His loss, my gain. You were hell-bent on finding revenge sex.”
“Ah!” Sara elbowed him, then turned around to see his face. “Is that what you thought?”
“No question. You had that look in your eye like you weren’t leaving that bar without a man to go home with.”
Sara sighed. “Great. I’ll have to remember not to have that look ever again. If I remember correctly, though, I went straight to the bathroom to clean the mascara from my face, then I ordered a beer and sat in the corner sulking.”
“Yeah, but that’s what made you so intriguing. You made this grand entrance, then played hard to get. It’s classic.”
Sara laughed with him. Maybe it was true. Maybe she had been hoping to pull someone in, to go home with him, screw all night, and the next day, until she could begin to forget the guy who’d left her standing in the rain as she begged and pleaded for him to stay. He was off to Afghanistan, where so many new journalists were flocking. She had not heard from him since. It had felt like divine intervention that Nick Livingston was the one who’d come to sit with her that night.
“I remember watching you walk over to me. You didn’t have the slightest hint of insecurity.”
“Oh, I was plenty nervous. But I had a hundred bucks riding on it.”
“I still can’t believe that’s all I was worth. A hundred bucks to see if you could buy me a beer.”
“But you didn’t want to drink. Didn’t want the one you’d bought, didn’t want me to buy you another. I lost the hundred dollars on that technicality.”
Sara laughed harder, then wrapped her arms around him. “You should have bet you could take me home if I looked so desperate for revenge sex.”
“Yeah. But I wasn’t exactly caring about the money when you stood up and headed for the door.”
“But you just sat there.”
“Until you turned around and looked at me like I was a total idiot.”
“Did I?”
“Oh, yeah. Then you said ‘Are you coming?’ And I was gone in a shot, left my coat, my briefcase.”
Sara kissed him on the neck and pulled him down around her on the sofa so they were lying together. She looked into his eyes the same way she had that night. “You never got any sex that night. After all that.”
“But I got to hold you. All night, and into the next day.”
“Yeah, and hear about another guy for hours and hours.”
“That’s ’cause I knew if I listened long enough, I’d eventually get sex.”
“You did not!”
“Maybe not. But I hoped. And I was right.”
Sara nodded. “You were right. How could I resist a man who would do all that for a complete stranger.”
“You’ve never seemed like a stranger to me.”
“And I don’t ever want to.”
She closed her eyes and drank in this feeling, this blissful tranquillity that all was as it should be. She loved her husband. They had a beautiful little girl, wealth, and comfort. She opened them again and kissed him, longer this time until he pulled away.
“Can we christen the couch? It’s been weeks, and you drive me out of my mind, Sar.”
Sara sat up and pulled off the silk pajama top he’d left in her stocking.
Nick grabbed her, kissing her neck, her breasts. “I don’t want this to be a mistake for you,” he said, breathless.
His words nearly killed her. Here she was, secretly back on her birth control pills, and he was concerned about making a baby. All because of her, because of her indecision and selfishness.
“Forget it. Forget everything, just for this one night. I’ve never wanted you more than I do right now.”
Nick looked at her to make sure she knew what she was doing, but she couldn’t meet his eyes. Instead, she tore off his sweater and shirt, the jeans and boxers until he was bare and against her on the sofa. They had so much waiting for them on the other side of this night, but she needed to be with him, to feel him the way she used to. Straddling his body, she grabbed his face in her hands and kissed him again and again, then whispered, “I love you.” And when she pressed her face against his, their bodies touching head to toe, she could feel the tears on his cheek.