“I’m your husband.” He frowned. “How do you think?”
“Right. Sorry.” I exhaled, trying to get my heart rate to slow. “You startled me.”
Purple bruises rimmed his eyes and swollen nose. My heart squeezed at the sight of him. He looked tired, defeated, and though he was dressed for work, I wondered if he’d slept in his rumpled suit.
“You can’t ignore my calls, Olivia,” he said. “We have things to figure out.”
“I wasn’t.” I refrained from pointing out thathe’dcut off my cell service. I ignored him and said, “Your nose.”
“Broken.” He held up his bandaged right hand. “Sprained.”
“I’m so sorry.” Out of instinct, I stood to go to him but stopped myself. Instead, I gestured at a chair. “Come in. Sit. Are you in pain?”
He furrowed his brows at me and finally stepped in the office, closing the door behind him. “We need to talk.”
I nodded and sat back down, scooting my chair under my desk. “Saturday night was awful. I’d really like if we could keep this divorce civil.”
Anger crossed his face but disappeared in a flash. He slumped into the chair across from me and sighed while scrubbing a hand over his hair. “God. Please, just . . . think about what you’re doing.”
I fidgeted with a pen on my desk and said gently, “I wouldn’t have let things get this far if I hadn’t thought long and hard already.”
“Babe, take a step back and look at the facts here,” he said, growing animated. “This guy is using you. He’ll get bored and dump you like the others. You were a challenge, and it won’t take long for that to wear off. For him, it’s just a conquest. It’s . . .” He paused and cleared his throat. “It’s just sex,” he finished.
I shook my head. I’d beat back those same fears too many times to have Bill come in here and revive them. “You don’t know him.”
“I asked around, Livs. I don’t trust him and neither does Andrew. He screws models, never been married, wealthy, charming, all-around player. I don’t know why he bought the house we wanted, maybe to show off, maybe because he gets off on it.”
I sighed. “Hang on.”
This was going to take a while, and I owed Bill the time he needed to work through this. I picked up my phone to shoot David a quick text.
Me:Can’t make lunch. Something came up. Explain later.
“Look, this is hard for all of us,” I said, switching my phone to silent. “Don’t make it worse. What you’re saying about David is conjecture. Gossip. You don’t know him,” I repeated.
“I obviously care about you, and I don’t want to see you get hurt,” Bill said. “But what happens when, six months down the line, he leaves and you’re all alone? I’m not going to be there, babe. I won’t wait for you.”
I looked down at my hands. For the first time since all this began, Bill seemed calm and rational. Not only that, but his words made sense. David had a track record. He wasn’t hiding it, but I suspected I hadn’t even scratched the surface of his past. He’d explained his relationship with Maria. But it occurred to me that David had admitted to me he’d never been in love.
“I didn’t love her or any of them,”he’d said on Saturday night.
Who’d come before Maria? Had he thought he was in love with them at some point and then changed his mind?
I looked back up at Bill. In spite of everything I’d put him through that weekend alone, he met my eyes with warmth—for maybe the first time in months, actually. Even though Bill hadn’t always been there in the ways I’d needed him to be, he’d always wanted me to be happy. He loved me as much as I’d let him.
David was rarely challenged when it came to women. For me, he’d had to work, probably harder than he ever had. If he were to pick up and leave, as Bill was convinced he would, it would cripple me. But what would it be like for David? And had he done that to others before?
Bill lived in a world of facts and order—he was logical. Wasn’t that who I was, too? Therewasa chance David only wanted what he couldn’t have. Even I had accused him of that. He could easily grow bored with the day-to-day of a relationship.
“Look at what you’re giving up for him.” Bill’s quiet voice cut into my thoughts. “Our love. Our future. Our home. Our past. And what has he given up for you?” he asked, suddenly astute, suddenly paying attention in a way he’d never really been.
“I can’t explain what I have with David,” I told Bill, “and I don’t want to try. What you need is someone who wants what you want, and who can love you in a way I’m not capable of. I never let you in, you told me so yourself.”
“It takes work.” He sat back. “Maybe this marriage would benefit from both of us working harder.”
“I never let you in,” I repeated, “and you liked it that way. You didn’t want to deal with my shit.”
“That’s not true, babe,” he insisted. “But if that’s what you need, I will change. I will be better. I will ask questions like you said you wanted me to. We’ll get there, Livs, I know we will.”
