“Well, I for one am happy you’ll be divorcing her,” Diana announces and comes to stand next to me, like she’s occupying the space that Mia left.
She’s a little breathless, like we’re about to plan the afterparty.
“Well,” she begins, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I guess it’s finally out. It’s for the best, Aiden. Now we can move forward.”
I look at her like I’m seeing her for the first time.
She smiles tentatively, as if not sure what my perusal of her means. “I’m just saying…now that she’s left, we don’t have to hide how we feel.” She turns to the family. “I know this was…terrible, but we have some good news.”
She holds my hand. I pull it away and frown. “We?”
She gives me that soft, sympathetic look I used to mistake for affection. “You’ve been halfway out of that marriage for years. We both know it. She just needed to wake up to it, and now she has. I wish she’d been moredignified about it, but it is what it is. At least it’s all contained within the family.”
My parents nod. My siblings and their spouses do as well, like they can see the sense in what Diana is saying.
I taste what she just said, roll her words through me, and the world goes silent around me as epiphany strikes like a bomb.
“She just needed to wake up to it, and now she has.”
“Diana.”
“Yes, darling.”
“Did you know Mia was outside the gazebo that night?”
Diana freezes and then titters. “What?”
“Did you know Mia was there when you planted your mouth on mine?” I pick one of the photographs. She used a vintage filter on this one.
I shove it under Diana’s nose. “Did you stage this?”
She says nothing. But her eyes speak volumes.
“Jesus Christ,” I breathe. “You kissed meon purpose,knowing she’d see it.”
“Son, she did it for you,” Mom says, chin lifting.
“You knew?”
Mom looks sheepish, and when she feels my shock, she turns away.
Dad clenches his jaw. “We all know that you’re both right for each other and the whole office knows….”
“That you both are having an affair,” Tristan finishes.
At the wordaffair, Betty sobs, her hand on her mouth as if she’s trying to hold it in. She won’t leave Tristan.She’ll just fire Lulu and get a new nanny, this time someone unattractive.
“I did it foryou,” Diana puts her hands on my shoulder, forcing me to look at her, like she can convince me out of sheer will. “You’ve been miserable for years. She made you small. You needed someone who understands you.”
“And you thinkyoudo? Understand me?” I huff out a laugh. “God, Diana, you have no idea who I am.”
“I know,” she counters. “I’ve grown up with you, and the past two years?—”
“You know Aiden, the CEO. You have no clue who Aiden the man is, mostly because you’re so in love with yourself and focused on what you want, you can’t give a crap about anyone else.”
She recoils like I slapped her. “Aiden, we’re meant to be. Ask your family. No one wants Mia.”
Except me.
