Rain slashing against the window awakened Susan. She stirred, her heart lifting at the feel of being wrapped in Paul’s arms. She watched him, loving the scratchy feel of his beard stubble against her shoulder and the way his eyelashes curved darkly upon his cheekbone and the early morning feel of him, as if he were thinking of the two of them together, even in his sleep.
He came awake quickly, and she found herself staring into his eyes. They crinkled at the corners when he smiled.
"Good morning." She loved his early morning voice, deeper than normal, as if it hadn't awakened with the rest of him.
"Hello." She framed his face with her hands and kissed him softly on the lips.
The taste of her was still on his lips, and she even loved that about him, that he hadn't gone into the bathroom like Brett to brush his teeth and gargle after they made love. She moved closer to Paul, fitting her hips tightly against his. He kissed her so hard, she nearly lost her breath.
Then he leaned back, concern darkening his eyes and etching lines around his mouth.
"Susan, I don't want there to be any misunderstanding about this."
"Shhh." She put her finger over his lips. "When we're together nothing else matters." A vision of Jean in her white dress came to Susan's mind. "Nothing," she whispered.
Reaching for him, she blocked out everything except the moment, real and magnificent. She couldn't imagine how she had survived the days before he came nor how she would survive them after he was gone.
o0o
At precisely ten o'clock Jean's doorbell rang. A delivery boy stood on her front porch with an enormous bouquet of red roses.
The card read, Curt, with apologies for last night and promises for tomorrow night.
She got crystal vases and divided the flowers so she could enjoy their beauty and fragrance in her bedroom as well as her workroom.
How like Curt to send two dozen roses when one would have sufficed.
She was putting them in water when the bell rang once more.
"I'm getting popular." Her voice echoed in the empty house.
Paul stood on her porch wearing jeans and a white shirt that made his skin look tan. His nose was slightly sunburned and his hair was tousled, making him look as if he'd just come down from climbing a mountain.
Jean's heart quickened. "Hello, Paul."
"Jean." He nodded. So formal. "May I come in?"
She held open the door. "Look, Paul, if it's about the ballet . . . Curt means nothing to me. He's just a friend."
"It's not about the ballet."
Paul sat in the chair next to the roses. If he noticed them he didn't say anything. Didn't he care that another man was sending her flowers?
She sat opposite him, pleased that she was wearing yellow. It looked good with her hair. She was also pleased that in spite of all the weight she’d lost, her legs still looked good when she crossed them.
"Jean . . ." He crossed his legs and folded his hands over his knee. The old Paul, so casual, so totally unaware of his gut-wrenching sex appeal. "We've been apart a long time."
"I know."
"It's time to do something about that."
"Paul . . . I'm not sure I’m ready.” Still, she felt a little wave of something akin to hope. “We hurt each other so that I don't know whether we can ever repair the damage."
"I'm not suggesting we repair the damage, Jean. I'm suggesting that we get this divorce over with.”
"Divorce?" She hoped her horror didn't show on her face. "You really want a divorce?"
“Why do you think I filed papers?”
“I thought you were just mad at me. About Sonny.”
“This is not about, Sonny. Our marriage was already on shaky ground. His death just brought it to a head.”
“I can’t believe you’re talking to me like this.” Tears streaked down her face, probably smearing her mascara and leaving ugly tracks through her makeup, but she couldn’t seem to stop them. “How can you do this to me?”
“For God’s sake, Jean. This is not something I’m doing to you.”
“If you going to take that attitude, I have nothing else to say to you.”
She was proud of how she could rise from her chair, still elegant and self-contained in spite of the tears. She’d always been good at exits. God knows, during their years together, she’d had plenty of opportunity to perfect them. Still, in spite of his complaints that she threw too many parties and her frequent outrage that he kept such awful hours at the hospital, how dare he act as if the two of them had been falling apart.
“Jean…don’t make another of your drama queen exits. I’m not going to live the rest of my life in limbo, and I don’t think you want to, either.
The salty taste of tears was in her mouth and she knew without looking that her face was wrecked and she wanted desperately to run. To the bathroom, the kitchen, to hell. Anywhere but here in this room with a husband she had lost., whether she wanted to or not.
But she’d be damned if she’d leave without the last word.
‘It's Susan Riley, isn't it?"
Paul’s face reddened, and Jean felt a shiver of triumph. If she could still get to him, maybe all was not lost.
“This is my decision and mine alone." There was no shred of compromise in the look he gave her, no hint that she moved him to anything except exasperation.
If Jean could relive the last few minutes, she would still be sitting calmly in her chair, her makeup and her manners intact. Paul detested bad manners.
But she was beyond that now. A total mess. A wreck. A woman spurned. She jumped up and began to pace. Divorce was so final. Like a death, a burial.
She whirled to face him. "I can't do it, Paul."
“Can’t or won’t?”
“How dare you!” She picked up the crystal vase and held it aloft. Every fiber in her body screamed with the need to throw it at his head. Jean Beaumont Tyler. A pillar of society, a perfectly reasonable woman…until tragedy unraveled her.
“We’re not done with this conversation, Jean.”
Paul strode to the door, but he even in his fury, he was too polite to slam it behind him.
Jean flung the vase at his departing back. It crashed against the door in an explosion of crystal and water and roses. Red petals scattered across the polished floor like blood.