She closed her eyes and rubbed them. When she opened them again, she expected Connor to smile cynically or look at her skeptically. She expected to see that he didn’t believe her.
But he just stared at her. The anger in his expression had given way to cold irritation. “What?” he asked tonelessly.
“Well, you were so keen to know why I had to go to court,” she snapped, unable or unwilling to turn back now. She felt like she owed him the information anyway; she knew so much about him even though he’d never confided in her. “Here you go: I’m going to court for breaking my stupid rule about never actively imposing my personal opinion on a couple. The husband didn’t like that.”
He narrowed his eyes. “The husband can’t sue you for giving his wife advice.”
“No,” she said wearily. Because, naturally, the lawyer latched onto that. “But he can for physically assaulting him and accusing him of domestic violence in front of his entire workplace.” She bit her lip. “Connor, I’m not perfect. You seem to be the only one who gets that, but it’s true! Yes, I meddle in strangers’ personal lives too often. And, yes, maybe I shouldn’t have spoken to Mrs. Teager, and maybe I shouldn’t have had such a hopeful, seemingly contagious attitude, but…don’t accuse me of preferring that people be unhappy together rather than happy alone. Just because I believe marriages are worth giving a second chance doesn’t mean I’magainstdivorce or that I don’t realize some couples should never have been together. It’s just that people these days are so incredibly bad at communicating with each other, at addressing problems openly, and that’s what I’m here for!” She swallowed. “That’s my job. Nothing more.”
“Okay,” Connor said calmly, his gaze sliding over her face. He still looked confused, as if he were discovering a new side of her that he wasn’t quite sure how to classify. “And why exactly are you being sued now?”
She laughed dryly. “Do you really want to hear the story?”
“Call it professional curiosity,” he replied flatly. “You owe me a story since you pieced together mine so easily.”
She swallowed, but he was right. His opinion of her couldn’t get any worse and he might understand her better.
“I had a troubled couple as clients. They wanted to save their marriage. But the man was… I always had a bad feeling about him. Whenever he walked into the room, I had this lump in my stomach.” She rubbed her forehead. “He was a classic narcissist. He patronized his wife and blamed her for everything. He wanted her to admire him, but he wouldn’t give anything in return. It got so bad that at one point, I couldn’t hold back any longer. I got involved. Which I don’t usually do! I’m an objective authority. I don’t make decisions for couples. I just give them the tools and resources to figure out how to make their own decisions. But… God, that man made me so angry. So I took his wife aside after a session and told her I didn’t see a future for her and her husband and that they should separate.” She narrowed her eyes. “I crossed so many professional boundaries — but she was so relieved to hear that from someone. She cried and nodded and said she’d been trying for months on her own but wasn’t strong enough and that she had needed to hear those words. So, before she left him that same night — he beat her.”
Connor closed his eyes. “Fuck.”
“Yes.” A bitter taste flooded her mouth. “She came to me that night. She looked so bad and yet…yet shethankedme. As if I’d done her a favor. She said she was leaving and never looking back, that he wouldn’t find her, and that she could finally start over. I wanted her to go to the hospital and the police, but she said her husband was a lawyer and she didn’t stand a chance against him. That no one would believe her because he could be so kind and charming when he wanted. She didn’t want to waste any time and…then she was gone. Just gone. And I was soangry.” Remembering it made her clench her hands. “Sofuriousthat I hadn't seen it coming and couldn’t protect her. That he could do something like that to her, that she knew she couldn’t stop it, that she felt so powerless, and…and…”
“The imperfect, the real Rachel took over,” Connor murmured.
She swallowed. “Yes. The calm, collected Rachel was gone and the angry, unstoppable Rachel was there. The next morning, I went to see him. I stormed into his office and screamed at him. Hit him. Accused him of being a jerk, a thug, and a wife beater. Told him he wasn’t going to get away with it, that he couldn’t beat his wife without suffering the consequences. Dozens of people witnessed it. They all heard me, just like I wanted them to…and, yes, there were consequences.” She rubbed her face wearily. “I have a defamation suit on my hands. A suit for assault. A suit for professional misconduct. He is accusing me of persuading his wife to leave him. Of abusing my power and position as a psychologist, of breaking my confidentiality agreement. God, the list of accusations is long. And his wife has disappeared, so she can’t confirm my story. She doesn’t want to testify against him out of fear. He knows that. She just got away from him, and maybe it’s even a relief for her that he’s no longer trying to ruin her life but is completely focused on me. And I don’t want to drag her into this anyway. So…so I’m stuck in this damn lawsuit, and can’t practice therapy while it’s ongoing. I mightneverbe able to practice again, if he wins and they revoke my license. I can’t prove that I’m in the right and that I had his wife’s permission to break my oath to protect others. It’s…shit. It’s such a mess. I’ve used up all my savings, and he’s deliberately drawing out the trial so that I can’t work. He is trying to discredit me so that I’ll be sad and alone, and he can demonstrate his power. And it’s working. I hate him for it!” Her eyes stung as tears welled up in them. “He's right that hecan bring me to my knees, that his wife was right. That there’s nothing I can do.”
Connor stroked her cheek with a thumb, catching a tear of anger that she hadn’t even noticed had escaped the corner of her eye. “This is why you hate lawyers,” he murmured. He let his thumb linger on her chin, as if he knew she needed the contact.
She swallowed and looked up at him. “Not all of them, but…the profession isn’t exactly a favorite of mine right now. So there you have it. That was the only time I’ve ever told clients to get a divorce — and look where it got me.” She took a deep breath. “So, I’m truly sorry for interfering. I should know better by now, but apparently, I still can’t control myself. I’m sorry for psychoanalyzing you and knowing things you didn’t want to share. That was…not nice of me. I crossed a line. And I’m sorry I hurt you by doing that.” Shaking, she closed her eyes. “I really wanted to stop hurting people. I tried by dredging up Perfect Rachel, but I think you’re right: I like chaos. Because in chaos,everythingis messed up, not just my life. With chaos, no one really examines things — and it was so damn exhausting that everyone always did that to me. They only ever wanted to see the perfect Rachel. Maddie got to be the sensitive one, Lucy the stubborn, tough one, and I was…the perfect one. And, actually, deep down, I’m a rebel. But you seem to be the only damn person in the world who has realized that! I hate you a little for not letting me pretend to be perfect, levelheaded, and in control of my life. But it’s also such a relief to be able to yell at you without you staring at me in shock.”
Connor ran his thumb up her cheek, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear…and gave a barely perceptible smile. “Anytime,” he murmured dryly.
She had to laugh and hiccup at the same time. “But we’re also chaos, Connor,” she whispered. “Maybe that's why I wanted you so much. Because chaos doesn’t feel as terribly uncontrolledwith you as it does in real life. But who knows how long it’ll continue to bother you that I’m not perfect, that I'm a disaster, and…I have too many other things going on to haveyoutoo. I need to start looking for chaos less and leaving when it becomes too much, instead of facing my problems. So…can you forgive me, forget we ever slept together, and call a truce? We need to put the bet on hold. It’s too much. You are…we are…too much.”
She knew she sounded pleading, that it should feel like she was swallowing her pride, begging him for room to breathe. But it wasn’t. She was just explaining…so he’d understand.
“You shouldn’t be carrying this burden alone, Rachel,” he whispered. “Do you have anyone to talk to about this shit? Your sisters…”
“I owe my sisters a confession, an apology, and an explanation, Connor, not a hundred new problems.”
He nodded — and she knew he understood, maybe better than anyone else. He did the same thing with his siblings.
Connor dropped his hand and took a step back, still looking at her…and finally nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yes. A truce sounds good. I have to…” He hesitated, but finally added, “I have to get out of this state, Rachel.”
“What state, California?”
“The state of wanting you.” He raised one corner of his mouth cynically. “Constantly thinking about you. Falling asleep to the sounds you make when you come. And waking up with the image of you beneath me.”
Heat crept through her veins and pooled heavily in her abdomen. “Then you have to stop saying things like that to me.”
He laughed mirthlessly. “I do, don’t I? You’re right. We’re not… We can’t resort to it. Us. The escalation.”
“No, we can’t,” she whispered.
