“Bye.”
I waited until she was inside, the supercenter’s doors swallowing her up, and then I walked back to the car and got inside. I shut the door and took a long moment to collect my thoughts. Inside, my emotions warred over what I had expected versus what I had seen. Finally, I let out a breath and turned to face Matt. “She asked about you.”
“She did?” There was such painful hope in his voice. How did he still love her, a year later? A year full of blind dates, and one-night stands, and eating whatever he wanted, and pure freedom, and yet he wanted her back. Yearned for her. Called me in the middle of the night, drunk and heartbroken, aching for her.
“She said to tell you”—I sighed, terrified to open his emotional floodgates—“that she loves you.”
He froze in the seat, his eyes pinned on a spot on my dash. I could sense his mind working, could feel the emotional war of decisions in his head. He looked at me helplessly, and maybe her dictatorial manner was what he needed in his life. “What do I do?”
I reached over and gave him a long, firm hug. “You go to her,” I whispered in his ear. “And you let her win you back.”
That night, I crawled into bed beside William and allowed him to pull me into his chest, his arms wrapping around me, his leg sliding in between mine. I rested my head on his shoulder and relaxed into his warm embrace, the huff of his breath against my neck, the beat of his heart, solid and sure, against my shoulder.
I thought of our adoption applications, pending in the system. The children whose photos we’d looked over, the interviews we’d had, the nursery three doors down that I hadn’t yet placed a baby into.
I couldn’t pull the trigger. Couldn’t sign the paperwork. Couldn’t adopt a life. My therapist says that I don’t believe I’m worthy of a child, and I think she’s right. I don’t think either of us are. William was ready to throw us away over an ego boost. I was ready to destroy a woman’s life out of protective spite. How can I raise a baby if I can’t even control myself?
I expected, at this point in time, to feel happy. And I have, at times. Brief moments with William, when he told me he loved me, and I really felt it in his gaze. Brief moments when I looked out on our gardens and heard the silence in our life, the heartbeat of peace that seems to foreshadow another storm.
Brief moments. To be honest, I’m not sure I deserve anything more.
AUTHOR’S NOTE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wrote this book for all those who have ever been cheated on. Those who have felt the rage against others and wanted to punish them in a hundred ways but felt helpless to do any of it.
Different women and men will read this book in different ways and associate with different characters. Some of you may hate it. Some of you will love it. If I made you feel something, then I’ve done my job. I will tell you this—Iloveevery one of these characters. I’veknownevery one of these characters. Built into their personalities and stories are a hundred minute moments of interactions, and I hope you enjoyed living in their world and experiencing their emotions.
This book changed a great deal in its many different drafts. I moved it from a small mountain town in North Carolina to Atherton, California. I changed Neena’s job from that of a psychiatrist to a business/life coach. I added in Neena’s father’s storyline and tweaked her personality traits to be less anal and more relatable.
I owe a tremendous thanks to Megha Parekh with Thomas & Mercer and Maura Kye-Casella with Don Congdon & Associates for weathering countless discussions over these characters’ journeys and their fates. Thank you, Charlotte Herscher, for fine-tuning the elements of the story and raising the bar it needed to jump over. In addition, thank you, Susan Barnes, Amy Vox Libris, Terezia Barna, and Tricia Crouch—all of you read and dissected early drafts and gave this book the love and attention it needed to reach one of the biggest publishing houses in the world.
An additional thank-you to the Thomas & Mercer team: Gracie Doyle, editorial director; Sarah Shaw, author relations manager; Laura Barrett, production editor; Oisin O’Malley, art director; and Erin Mooney, marketing manager.
I am indebted to many, but most of all to you, the reader. Thank you for picking up this novel and reading this story. Please consider leaving a review and recommending it to others. Your continued support is appreciated more than you will ever know.
If you would like to be in the loop on my novels, please subscribe to my email updates at nextnovel.com.
Until the next novel,
Alessandra