California Girls (Page 18)

He glanced at her quizzically. “I didn’t know you had curly hair.”

“Oh.” She touched the now-dry curls. “I usually blow it out straight.”

“Why? The curls look great on you.”

“Thank you. Glen didn’t like them.”

Rather than comment on that, Daniel rose and walked to the refrigerator. “Another beer?”

“Yes, please.” When he was seated, she said, “I appreciate you not judging me for being so stupid about your brother.”

“I can’t explain Glen, but I do know he’s going to be sorry he lost you.”

“I can only hope,” she said lightly. “Now let’s see… I’ve whined about my family, my ex-fiancé and pretty much everything else. I’m going to be done now. Let’s talk about happy things.”

“You mentioned you had to move. What’s up with that?”

“Not a happy topic.”

He waited.

“Fine,” she grumbled and explained about the lease. “I’m looking for something now. It’s just I need it so fast. No way I’m moving in with my mom. When Finola gets back from Hawaii I might ask if I can crash in her guest room for a few weeks while I get it all together. Don’t worry, I’ll figure it out, I swear.”

Daniel studied her for a second, then nodded. “I know you will. Now about those happy topics, I bought us tickets to another Dodgers game.”

“You did? Yay! I can’t wait. I had such a good time.”

“Me, too.”

His gaze locked with hers and for a brief second, she would have sworn she felt something. Not heat, exactly, but something unexpected, like a pretingle.

Stop, she told herself sternly. Just stop. Daniel was being the world’s nicest guy when he didn’t have to do anything. He’d saved her. The last thing she was going to do was turn weird and get some kind of inappropriate crush on him. He would be embarrassed, she would be humiliated and it was a terrible way to thank him for all he’d done. No, she would be a good friend who didn’t take advantage of him. As for the almost-tingles, well, no doubt they were the result of too much Chinese food. In the morning she would be completely fine.

Chapter Eight

Cheetos stains were difficult to remove. Finola had never had to learn that before, what with rarely eating carbs, but in the past few days she’d let go of alcohol and had moved on to Cheetos. Cheetos and potato chips with ranch dip and, embarrassingly enough, a box of instant mashed potatoes. She felt bloated and a little nauseous and worried when she realized there were orange fingerprints all through the downstairs.

After spray cleaner and a sponge had done little, she’d found one of those white eraser things and it had done an excellent job on everything but her laptop, where she’d spent hours looking at funny baby videos while sobbing for the child she and Nigel would never have, and eating Cheetos.

Under normal circumstances, she would have left the stains for the cleaning service that would start up again next week, only these circumstances weren’t normal.

Nigel had texted to say he was back from the Bahamas and wanted to come by. She’d read his words a dozen times, trying to find hidden meaning in the brief message. Was he coming by to pick up something? To talk to her? To beg her to reconcile? She had a feeling it wasn’t the latter, but she couldn’t help hoping for the best.

To that end, she showered and washed her hair, using a scented body wash Nigel liked. While she dried her hair, she applied a plumping eye mask under her eyes, then put on just enough makeup to look fresh.

What to wear required thought. She wanted to look fabulous without appearing to have actually tried. She pulled on jeans and a tank top, then a loose weave sweater that always fell off one shoulder. Flat sandals completed the outfit. She knew she looked good, at least for her. When compared with the twentysomething Treasure, she was less sure.

She went downstairs to wait for Nigel. Emotions chased each other through her stomach. She tried to hang on to righteous anger and indignation—they would give her strength. Unfortunately loneliness and hurt were right there beside their friends and threatened to take her down.

She tried to relax on the sofa, then got up and paced. She was just about to retreat to her office where she could at least pretend to be busy on her laptop when she heard Nigel at the front door. He turned the handle and walked into their living room.

Her heart jumped in her chest, a happy bounce filled with love and hope. He looked good. Nigel was tall and lean, with curly brown hair and hazel eyes. Normally he looked slightly harried and tired but today he was tan and relaxed. At least until he saw her.

“Oh, you’re here.”

Her happy heart deflated. “What do you mean? You said you wanted to talk.”

“No, I said I wanted to come by.” He looked away. “I’m sorry. I should have been more clear.”

There was something in his tone, she thought in dismay. As if she were an unwelcome inconvenience. Not that an inconvenience was ever welcome, but how could he sound like that? She was his wife!

She half turned away, then forced herself to stare him down. He wore khakis and a Hawaiian shirt she’d never seen before. Despite his obvious discomfort, there was a contentment about him, no doubt brought on by sex with Treasure.

She squared her shoulders. “This is my house, Nigel. Where else would I be? Oh, wait, I know. Hawaii with my husband. Hmm, what happened there?”

Nigel had never handled guilt well. She waited for him to shift uneasily and then start talking. She found herself anticipating the apology and told herself no matter what, she would wait before she begged him to come back to her.

“Do we have to discuss this now?” he asked.

“Why yes, we do.” She walked toward him. “I think our marriage is worth a few minutes of our time.”

He was being a jerk on purpose, she told herself. Trying to rile her so she would lash out and he could play the victim. He wanted to distract her so he wasn’t the bad guy. Well, he could try, but that wasn’t going to happen. He’d betrayed her. Betrayed them. He’d let her face his mistress on her own, on live television. He’d never warned her, never even hinted about what was going to happen.

“I’m sorry about what happened,” he said.

Before she could go off on a rant he more than deserved, he added, “But I really just wanted to get my ski stuff.”

His statement was so at odds with what she was thinking that she had trouble processing the meaning.

“It’s almost summer.”

He sighed heavily. “Yes, Finola. It’s summer here, in the northern hemisphere. In the southern hemisphere, it’s nearly winter and there’s good skiing. We’re going to Valle Nevado in Tres Valles, Chile.”

He glanced toward the garage, where his ski equipment was stored, then back at her.

“I suppose you’re right. We should talk.”

“Talk?” she asked, feeling anger burning inside of her. “No, Nigel, I don’t want to talk. I want you drawn and quartered. I want you suffering in every way possible. How could you do this? It’s one thing to have an affair. That’s its own pool of slime, but what you did to me last Friday was inhuman.”

“Don’t you think that’s a little dramatic?”

“No, I don’t. You announced you were having an affair right before I was going on live television. As if that wasn’t bad enough, you didn’t have the balls to tell me your mistress was my first guest.”

His eyes widened. “She told you?”

“Of course she told me. Why do you think she booked the show in the first place? It certainly wasn’t for the exposure. She told me and left me hanging there, not knowing if she was about to announce it to the world on my show!”

He had the grace to look chagrined. “I didn’t know that. I didn’t think she would…”

“You suspected it, otherwise why tell me about the affair?”

His shoulders slumped a little, as if the guilt was starting to get to him.

“I can’t believe you did this. I can’t believe you abandoned our marriage. What were you thinking?”

He straightened and glared at her. “I was thinking that you walked out on us a long time ago. You’re all about your career. Nothing else matters, certainly not me. You put off having kids for five years. Five. Every year we’d talk about it and you said it wasn’t a good time. Well, I got tired of waiting.”

“Poor you. Is Treasure going to give you children? I don’t think so. This is just like you, blaming me for what you did. You’ve always done that. I never cheated, I never moved out, but hey, sure, make me the bad guy.”

“I had to do this, Finola. I didn’t have a choice.”

“There’s always a choice.”

His tone gentled. “No, there isn’t. I wasn’t looking for anyone. I’ve never done this before. I was doing consults and she came in with a girlfriend who had a botched nose job. The second I saw her, it was electric. I can’t explain it, but one minute everything was ordinary and the next, it wasn’t.”

Each word stabbed her, going so deep she didn’t know how she stayed standing. There was too much pain, too much of her love for him pouring out until she knew she would die. She had to—no one could survive this.