Then
When she’d first met Ethan, at the requisite Friday night cocktail party for the talent, with his smooth smile and too-long, devil-may-care hair (expertly highlighted, she found out later), all she could think about was his skin. Seeing more of it. Touching it while lying next to him in the bed on a Sunday morning. Running her hands along his sides, across his broad back, and down, farther, to the silk she knew waited for her.
The desire for him, for their life to come, was sharp and immediate and she’d never felt anything like it before, with anyone. She watched his lips, full and laughing, and his teeth, shiny and slightly crooked, the front right overlapping the edge of its twin. And she just wanted to get him naked and see all of him.
It disturbed her, this reaction. Especially when she threw everything away and followed through on her urges. If only she’d resisted. Would she be here now?
He was beautiful in the way of hypermasculine men; he knew he was attractive, knew every woman in the room was imagining what it would be like to have him looking at, talking to, being with her.
Somehow, she was the one who caught his attention. She’d been drinking; these events always made her nervous and uncomfortable, so by the time she ran into him she was loose and downright flirty. There were two lines for the bar, and he was to her right. She tried not to stare, truly she did. Not only was he stunning, he was being lauded as one of the best literary minds of a generation, and the idea that she was within arm’s reach of such genius made her giddy.
And there was the skin, that luscious forearm peeking out from his rolled-up sleeve.
And so she’d touched him. Stroked the fine, lightly furred skin of his arm. She didn’t understand the impetus, but she’d done it. He’d smiled down at her, widely, the imperfect front teeth charming, and offered to buy her a drink.
At that point, Sutton was a foregone conclusion.
Later, they were both drunk, pleasantly so. They left the party and went to the elevator. She thought her heart would burst from her chest waiting for the doors to slide open. She knew exactly what was about to happen. The last little bit of rational thought she possessed screamed, Don’t! But the naughty party girl in her, the one she’d so carefully excised when she’d gotten out of college, massaged her skin, slid down between her thighs, and said, You know you want him.
Then they were inside the elevator. The doors whisked closed. There were mirrors. They were alone.
“Here’s my key,” Ethan had said, rubbing up against her like an itchy cat. “Come to my room in ten minutes.”
“Why can’t I come now?” Too much Scotch was making her bold, so bold. “What are you going to be doing for all that time?”
“Trust me,” he’d whispered in her ear, licking her earlobe, sending delicious shivers down her spine. “Ten minutes.”
Trust me. Two words better off never spoken among strangers.
She’d gone to her room, brushed her teeth, her hair, put on deodorant. Glanced in the mirror, ran a finger under her eyes so the mascara wouldn’t run. Took off her panties.
The party-girl lust was making her act completely out of character, and the excitement of it was overwhelming. She couldn’t wait ten minutes, stalked the hall until her watch said it had been eight, knocked lightly. He’d opened the door and swept her inside with a laugh.
“I just wanted to see how good you were at following instructions,” he’d said, and kissed her, long and deep. The sex had been better than anything she’d ever experienced. He looked like he’d be amazing in bed; he lived up to his promise. Those hands. Those long, gorgeous hands.
They’d married three short months later, the flush of their love driving them to promises best not made, self-written vows about lifelong fidelity and never-ending support for one another’s careers, come thick or thin.
Thin came too quickly.
Soon after their marriage, they’d been at a conference together—just once, she’d never do that again—and the moderator asked what their life was like. Two creatives in one house. It must be amazing. You probably share an office, each tapping away.
Ethan laughed, and there was something in that offhand gust of amused breath that made a hand go up in the crowd. A man, of course it was a man, in a voice as pompous and bombastic as Sutton had ever heard, stood and shot an arrow through her heart.
“Don’t you feel, Mr. Montclair, that your books are more important than your wife’s? That you, as a literary author, are creating significant, essential work, and your wife, the genre writer, is simply generating entertainment for the masses?”
Her husband, the literary star, the Author with a capital A, had grinned and waved his hand toward Sutton. “But she’s such a pretty writer.”
The whole crowd had laughed, and Ethan laughed, and Sutton had to smile along, all the while feeling small and insignificant. She knew she was less in his mind, and in the minds of many of his peers. Ethan was God’s gift to literature; Sutton was a second-class citizen. Every time she thought of that moment, the words came unbidden. The words she’d heard when Ethan had dismissed her work, catering to the crowd. You are no one. You are nothing.
That her first award would drive a small but workable wedge between them was understandable. It was the second award, a truly prestigious one, that created the real problem. Oh, on the surface, things looked okay. Ethan claimed far and wide how very proud he was of his wonderful, talented wife. What an amazing writer she was. Never an author. No, never that.
All the while, at home, their happy life was withering away, those beautiful hands no longer touching her or the laptop keys or anything important. He went on long walks in the afternoons, came home smelling of bourbon and other women.
She was failing him. Failing their marriage. And then came the surprise of all surprises.
They named him Dashiell.