"That's the price." He shrugged like that applied to his lifetoo. "If you want anything worth having, you do it scared. So send it, with fear."
I did. A few months later, Carl, my agent, called with an offer, but by then, I moved to LA with David. A boy with red flags the size of Oscar carpets.
I thought about sending Ben a thank you message, but he had a girlfriend and probably wouldn't care anyway. I told myself I made us into something bigger in my head, and if we ever met again, I'd tell him in person.
Come to think of it, without Ben, there probably would be no Emma Foster, the author, which means, no Emma Lawson, the wife—since I met Richard at my book signing.
I hope Ben never figured that out. That would be... pretty bittersweet.
"Em, we should start getting ready. The event starts in two hours." Richard's voice snaps me out of the memory. He's back in the doorway, looking at me like the earlier intimacy never happened.
I don't even care anymore. A part of me is actually glad it didn't.
"Yeah. I'll get ready soon," I mutter, flipping another page of the magazine defiantly.
He walks behind me and whispers in my ear, "We'll finish what we started when we get back home?"
I manage to give him somewhat of a smile. "Yeah. Don't worry about it."
My phone dings from my office and I rush there before Richard says anything else.
The second Ben's last name flashes over it, I nearly jump, but then I focus on the screen and realize it's Mara.
Mara: Hey babe, me and my brother are in the city! Coffee?
Staring at her name, I feel guilt starting to creep in.
After things with Ben fell apart, I let the thread between Mara and me burn too. Figured she'd take his side. Hate me even, for how things ended.
But once upon a time, Mara wasn't just his sister...
Meeting her felt like fate.
It was Valentine's Day and I sat in a café. Heart garlands were everywhere—too many when your own heart's broken—and when we locked eyes, she made a face at it like someone had pulled her teeth, which was the first thing that made me laugh in weeks.
Ten minutes later, I was reading her a message from my ex's side chick and I just knew Mara was going to become family because she simmered over it like it was her personal matter.
Then she said, "My brother's just going through that. Told him there's a special place for cheaters in hell."
I thought,Poor guy, I know that feeling. Didn't know I knew him too.
Anyway, remorse has to wait. I don't want to listen to Richard's speech about punctuality when he sniffs I could slow him down, because the rich and successful aren't late—they simply don't have time for it.
So I scramble and before I know it, we're there at the old landmark, walking through the Art Deco ritz and sconcesspilling honeyed light over women in couture gowns and men in tuxedos, all of them flocking around my husband.
Richard smiles and moves through the room with that quiet entitlement you can only be born into.
He comes from lineage tracing back to forefathers with oil portraits and lands.
His hand's on my lower back like I belong.
I don't.
My father is middle-class; my mom comes from French immigrants and it's not that long ago I wiped similar floors to these, cursing my life.
Still, I smile and listen to the gossip he can narrate with barely moving lips. Something he inherited from his mother.—both skills. Somewhat adorable.
I once teased him he should've become a mime and he laughed that controlled laugh, and then said to never mention it in front of anyone. Not because it's not funny, of course it is, butbecause good families keep their secrets private.
