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Lucy crossed the sewing room to Lincoln, her hand on the belly that seemed to grow each time he saw her. “I think it’s going to be a girl. Joseph doesn’t want to find out. I guess your mom thinks so too.”
Lincoln’s body tensed. Even after all these months, over a year, he still had to fight not to imagine it—her and Joseph’s bodies entwined, slick, all while Lincoln sat obliviously by, like a dupe.
But it hadn’t been years of deceit, he reminded himself. Months. A handful of times. He stepped away as Lucy reached for the gown. “I’m sorry, you know. For all of it.” She stared at the gown, fingered it as Lincoln had. “Not just for the affair. But for the lies.” She turned, her gaze soft and beautiful. He hated it, how beautiful she was. The fact that he couldn’t deny it. Is that what had made him so blind? An inability to believe that someone this beautiful, this angelic looking, could be so cruel?
He’d seen her callousness at times throughout their relationship: her desire to control, her apathy, but it had seemed nothing compared to the privilege of being able to hold her in his arms, kiss her, call her his own. Lincoln swallowed; the anger and distaste that usually boiled within him wasn’t there. In its place was an emptiness that felt far worse.
“I was angry and bitter. About the baby. About you, for not wanting it right away. It felt like a betrayal, you suggesting I abort it, even though I was the one who’d betrayed.” Lucy exhaled a small breath of air. “Still, I was angry. And after,” she hesitated, “it felt like your words cursed it in some way, that I lost it because of you, your lack of elation. Which was completely unfair.” She paused. “It wasn’t an accident.”
Lincoln’s gaze narrowed. “What wasn’t?”
“Getting pregnant.”
Lincoln stared.
“I loved you. In a way. At the start. But there was something about Joseph ... I don’t know if I meant to ... to seduce him, you know? I don’t know if it was a conscious choice or if it just happened. But when we first met, you were a bit of a mess. Lack of focus, unsure what you wanted out of your life, and then I met Joseph and he was all the things I wanted in a man, all the things I wanted you to become.” Another pause. “This sounds awful, doesn’t it? I sound awful.”
Lincoln backed away from her until he was almost against the wall on the far side of the room.
“If he’d given in that first night, maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad. We’d only been dating, what, three or four months then? It could have been a simple switch.” Lucy looked to the gown again. “Well, not simple, but not so disastrous.” She turned her gaze to Lincoln. “Anyway, he didn’t. And I cared about you. I did. I decided I was being ridiculous. I decided I wanted you. And so I focused on you, and I saw you turning into exactly the man I knew you could be. The man both of us knew you could be.”
“You and Joseph?”
Lucy nodded. “It became almost a plan between us, pushing you in the right direction, helping you fulfil your potential.
“And I tried to be happy. Satisfied. I was for a while. But I couldn’t get Joseph out of my system. I’m not used to men being blind to my advances.” She rubbed her belly in what seemed an unconscious motion. “Not blind, exactly. But resistant.”
Lincoln continued to stare, his throat tight, his breath hollow.
“And with you, it’s like we created a monster.” She let out a little laugh. “I pushed you so much to be the man I thought I wanted you to be, to climb the corporate ladder. And you did. You were amazing. But the more you did, the more you stopped seeing me, talking to me, touching me.”
Lincoln swallowed. So she’d seen it too. The monster. The one they’d both ended up hating.
“It’s not an excuse, I know.”
Was it? Or at least an explanation? He had stopped noticing her, all his focus on becoming the type of man, a businessman, Joseph could be proud of, that she could be proud of.
“But I allowed myself to be pushed toward my attraction for Joseph because of it. He was focused, driven, yes. But he still made time for the people who mattered. He still had a life outside of work.”
Again, she caressed her belly. “It was of my own creation, I know, the way you’d become, but I started to feel like nothing more than a pretty face to have on your arm at corporate events. It was always the future, the future. With Joseph, at times, we could live in the present.”
Lincoln shook his head, exhaling the breath he hadn’t even realized he’d held. “I thought you wanted the future. I thought—”
“I know.” Lucy perched on the sewing table. “I did. I just didn’t realize that getting it would take over our lives. That I’d feel like ... an accessory.” She glanced to the floor. “Do you remember how many times in that last year I asked to go for a walk in the park or out to dinner or a play? It was always later, soon, next week.” She let out a short laugh. “You had to work or prepare for work or go to some networking event that I could join you for if I wanted—your lovely accessory.
“Eventually you even stopped making Sunday brunch.” Lucy shrugged and smiled. “You used to love that. I loved it.” She shook her head. “If that’s what life was going to be, alone except for when I made you look good, what was the point? Yeah, we’d be rich, esteemed ... but that isn’t everything.”
And yet she’d picked Joseph. Richer, more esteemed, but who, apparently, made time for her. Lincoln held a hand to his head, amazed he was listening to this, amazed he hadn’t stormed out, amazed he could understand what Lucy was saying, see the truth in it. It wasn’t an excuse for her cheating. Definitely not. But it was an explanation.
Lincoln’s head throbbed. He rubbed it, wishing he could back right into the wall, disappear into it, turn back time.
“I’m not saying this to defend myself, really.” Lucy stepped closer to him. “Just to explain. I started to get angry. I started spending more time with Joseph, who was funny, who listened to me, who tried to defend you, to assure me it wouldn’t always be like this. He was so kind and supportive. Those feelings I had when I first met him, they all came back. That’s when I started wondering in earnest what it would be like to be with him, and when he resisted ... well, I already explained that. I tried harder. Eventually I wore him down.” She held the gown in both hands, sliding it between her fingers. “But still, after every time, he resisted. He hated it, hated himself for what we were doing. Each time he said never again, that he couldn’t do that to you.” She gave a sad shrug. “But he was already doing it, and by that time I was so angry with you for letting this happen, for not seeing that it was happening, not even suspecting ...”
Lucy’s voice intensified. “I wanted him. I think I wanted to hurt you. You became an obstacle. And a baby, his baby, became the solution.”
Bile rose in Lincoln’s throat. He held his hand up; he wasn’t sure why, to stop Lucy, or direct her away from the vomit he feared was about to spew.
A choked laugh escaped her throat. “I sound like a bitch, don’t I? I am.” She held out her hands, as if in supplication. “But I’m also human. And when I woke up in that hospital bed and learned the baby was gone, all that sorrow turned to rage. I loved the baby. I did. And I really wanted to hurt you then, for being the reason it was gone.”
Lincoln could see it again—Lucy in the hospital bed, so small, so frail. Joy had surged through him as her eyes opened, as he grasped her hand. Fear and sorrow flooded right after, knowing he’d have to tell her the child was gone. He’d said the words and her eyes clouded over.
We can have another, he’d whispered.
We? she spouted, her face and voice defined by rage. It wasn’t even your baby.
The room had spun. Wasn’t his baby?
“And that’s when the lies came to me.” Lucy’s voice was soft, regretful, barely audible. “I hurt so much. I felt as if an essential part of me had been torn out. I wanted you to suffer like I was suffering.”
Lincoln’s chest rose then fell. She’d wanted to make him hurt, wanted him to suffer. So she’d fabricated not a casual affair, but a relationship that lasted years, lies that lasted years. She’d turned his whole life, everything that mattered to him, everything he believed about two of the people he’d loved most in the world, into a lie.
Lincoln’s words came out in a whisper. “I still wanted you. Even then. Even when I knew the baby might not be mine.”
“But not when you knew I’d been cheating with Joseph. Not when you thought it’d been going on for years.”
“No. Not then.”
“The problem was,” she whispered back, “you didn’t want me before. Not really.”
“I did.”
She shook her head, back to caressing the white gown. “We both made mistakes.” The blonde waves of her hair swished against her face, even now, so beautiful. “Mine were worse. Mine were unforgivable.”
Were they? Lincoln stared at her, at the blue eyes he’d once seen his future in. He couldn’t deny it, he’d taken her for granted. He’d put work first. If he was honest, and it hurt to be honest, at times he had treated her like an accessory, just as she said. He’d betrayed her too. He could see it now—flashes of Lucy, glammed up and smiling as she presented him with Cirque du Soleil tickets for the anniversary date he’d forgotten about due to an important meeting. Lucy sidling up to him on the couch as he sat, laptop in front of him, her hand on his thigh, moving higher, higher, and him pushing it away. Not now, Darling, I have to work. Lucy, time and again, suggesting a walk, a dinner, a play, and him saying no. He’d told himself he’d been doing it for them, for her, and he’d believed it.
Lincoln’s throat tightened. I’m sorry, he tried to say, but the words wouldn’t come.
“Anyway,” Lucy let out the slightest smile, “looks like I’m getting my just rewards.”
Lincoln’s eyebrows raised.
“Joseph is furious.”
They furrowed.
Lucy circled her belly once more, the gown trailing from her fingers. “He says he’ll be there for the baby. Support it. Support me, even if I don’t want to work. Even if I want to stay home with the child. But he called off the wedding.”
Lincoln stepped forward. “What?”
“Maybe not forever. But for now, I guess. Your Dad dying, that’s taken its toll on him, I could see that. I think it’s reminded him how important family is. How important you are. He couldn’t believe I lied. Said he couldn’t even look at me the same. He didn’t accept my explanation that, in a way, you cheated on me first.”
She shook her head. “He said everything we have is based on a lie. And at this point in his life, he can’t have that. He needs something true. Real. He needs family.”
She bit her lip, and an image of Kali flashed through Lincoln’s mind.
“But this baby’s family too. And me now, kind of.” She shook her head once more. “Anyway, I just ... I’ve been wanting to say I’m sorry. For it all.” Her eyes glazed over; she blinked rapidly and held a finger under one eye.
Lincoln stepped toward her, confused and disturbed at the urge to take her in his arms, offer comfort.
She wasn’t a monster. Neither was he. “I’m sorry too.”
“What?” Her eyes widened.
“For not seeing you. For letting you feel alone. Unwanted.”
“No.” She waved a hand between them. “No. That’s not why ... that’s not what ...”
“I’m sorry, Lucy.” He rested a hand on her shoulder, the touch shocking them both. “I hold fault too.”
A tiny sob escaped as she looked up at him.
“We all lie sometimes. I think I was lying to myself.”
Her perfect brows furrowed.
“Blaming it all on you. Feeling like a victim.” Lincoln took a deep breath. “I’m not sure I can say I hope you and Joseph figure it out, but I want to be able to say that.” Lincoln hesitated. “Do you love him?”
She nodded.
Lincoln nodded back. “I should go.”
Lucy’s mouth opened and hung there, no sound coming out. Lincoln left the room and made his way to the noise of the crowd, feeling as if his world had inverted.
If he could forgive Lucy that, and he could. If he could forgive himself, how could he not forgive Kali?