“How dare you!” Mrs. Greenberg barked beside me, rapping her cane on the floor, and I’d never thought I’d be grateful for her, but my own throat felt too choked with raw pain to speak.
“This is not a matter for the whole town to hear,” Frankie bluffed, and I felt my heart turn in on itself, and tighten. The whole town was going to know about Frankie cheating on me.
“BLOOD AND BETRAYALS,” Athena squawked into the silence.
“Hush!” Frankie told her, but Athena only tapped her claws back and forth and said it again.
“I’m so sorry,” Christabelle interrupted in a languorous voice, leaning back against the doorframe so her tiny skirt slid up her lovely thighs. “We didn’t want to hurt you. This isn’t how Frankie wanted you to find out.”
We
Find out
There was a collective exhalation in the coffee shop as everyone let out their breaths in a whoosh.
They were all turning toward me, their faces overflowing with sympathy and love.
Oh my god.
It was strange what kind of things you noticed when time was standing still—the way baby blonde waves curled over his ears, the way his Adam’s apple pulsed as he swallowed hard.
“There is—nothing to worry about,” he repeated. “I may have—done a stupid thing, though.”
There was a quiet groan from one of the patrons and their faces swam in front of me. I’d lived in this town for ten years.
I could see it now. The sympathy casseroles. The pity. The worried looks. The silent “what shall we do about poor Jilly” conversations. The way the whole town would rally around me with love and care and hugs.
Instead of being the lucky woman married to the sexy mayor, I’d be the scorned woman. The betrayed one. The one the whole town would work day and night to cheer up and love and encourage.
I wanted to scream and rage, but I refused to let them see my pain.
I could not bear the thought of their sympathy.
I closed my nails into my palms to let that bite of pain stiffen my resolve and I took a deep, careful breath.
“The Perk Up & Read is closed for the day,” I said in a firm voice. “Please, give me a minute to collect myself and then things will be back to normal.
Everyone started to protest, big loving eyes turned toward me, and then suddenly Cash was there, shooing everyone out of the coffee shop.
“You heard the lady. Everyone out.”
“Jilly bean, this doesn’t have to be a big deal. It was one thing. One mistake.”
“One mistake?” I asked numbly. “You went out to see her last night, didn’t you?”
Our patrons were leaving, and with each one, I felt the loss. The life I thought I’d been living. The husband I thought I had. The loss of me being the luckiest girl in the world.
Isn’t that what you were supposed to ask? When you were the betrayed wife? Even though I didn’t need to ask. I could read Frankie like a book and he was guilty.
“Yes, I—got a little caught up in old memories, I guess,” he said, running a hand through his hair and darting his eyes back at Christabelle, who was applying a fresh coat of red lipstick. “I shouldn’t have. It was wrong. But I absolutely do not want to mess up our marriage! We can work through it!”
“I’ll tell you anything else you want to hear,” he added eagerly, grabbing my hand.
But it was cold as ice.
Everything about Frankie after ten years was familiar to me. The handsome lines of his strong jaw. That boyish rueful grin, because it always got him out of everything. He rubbed the back of his head nervously when I didn’t say anything else, and that too was familiar. If there was one thing he hated over anything else, it was not getting attention.
“I don’t want to hear anything else,” I said, pulling away.
