I try to quash a new wave of unease. I hope it’s not Archer West.
Not likely, I tell myself. I haven’t seen Dean’s younger brother in five years, but I know that a blue sedan is not his style.
Dean pushes the door open and dumps our suitcases in the foyer. The sound of running water comes from the kitchen. I follow him inside.
He stops abruptly in the kitchen doorway. Tension lances through him. I put my hand on his back and pause beside him. Cold silence vibrates in the air. He moves to block my view of the kitchen. I peer around his shoulder.
A tall, blond woman is standing by the sink.
My heart plummets to my toes. I know exactly who this woman is. She turns her head to meet my gaze, and I find myself staring at my husband’s ex-wife.
CHAPTER FOUR
Olivia
our months ago, I didn’t know Helen Morgan existed, much less that she’d once been married to my husband. She’s standing there now, this woman who shares something with Dean, a painful history I will never comprehend and didn’t even know was a part of him until our marriage began to crack from the inside out.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I’d asked him.
The answer clicks into place for me now, like a key turning in a lock. It’s the same reason he didn’t want me to come with him to California. Dean has never given me any of his dark places easily or willingly. He knows far too well the danger and consequences of telling secrets. He’d learned that lesson as a boy of thirteen and his family has never let him forget it.
I move closer to him, tightening my hand on his sleeve, my gaze on Helen Morgan.
Patrician is the word that comes to mind. Helen has fine, sharp features and is dressed in a knee-length skirt and tailored blouse. Her body is slender with narrow hips and small breasts. She wears her shiny, blond hair short in a casually sophisticated style that emphasizes her high cheekbones and blue eyes.
Just looking at her, I can see how Helen would fit into the West family. I can even see her with Dean—but not my Dean. Not the warm, sexy man who likes ear massages and boring foreign movies about the Huguenots.
Not Dean of the unshaven jaw and messy hair who always finishes crossword puzzles and gets crumbs on the table whenever he eats toast and peanut butter. Not Dean who can’t draw a recognizable picture to save his life, but knows all the geometrical proportions of cathedral architecture. Not Dean with his easy, hint-of-wicked smile that takes my breath away.
No.
I can see Helen with the renowned Professor West who wears tailored suits and lectures at European universities. The financier who can discuss the movement of the stock market, mutual funds, and expense ratios. The scholar who consults with museum curators around the world and oversees archeological digs of medieval treasures. Perfect Dean.
Not the real Dean.
I want to dislike Helen. She looks like she’s from the same circle as the girls who once had a hand in my undoing—elegant, fashionable, secure in her elevated status. She’s successful in her field. She knows what hairstyle and clothes look best on her. She probably spent her childhood with a sense of entitlement.
Helen also had a plan for her life that broke apart in ways she couldn’t have anticipated. She suffered three miscarriages and a bitter divorce from the man with whom she expected to have a family. She once thought she would be married to Dean for the rest of her life, until her image of them as a perfect couple shattered.
I know all about plans that go horribly awry.
I know all about shattered images and dysfunctional families.
So does Dean. And even early on, he tried to shield me from it.
During the busy fall semester after Dean and I first met, we grabbed every spare moment we could find together. We had lunch and coffee between classes, he picked me up after my shifts at Jitter Beans, we went to the movies and spent weekends holed up in either his apartment or mine. Whenever we were together, I hoarded bits of information about him and added them to my store of knowledge.
His favorite food is pizza.
He wears a plain, analog watch with a leather strap.
In addition to the King Arthur tales, his favorite childhood book was about a boy detective named Encyclopedia Brown.
He doesn’t wear cologne, but uses shaving cream that smells deliciously woodsy.
He knows how to make intricate patterns with a loop of string.
He actually has an opinion about apocalyptic imagery in medieval Castilian poetry.
He likes it when I kiss the hollow of his throat.
I liked that too. I liked everything about kissing and touching him. With every moment Dean and I spent together in those early weeks, the more I wanted to do with him.
“No touching,” he said.
I turned from where I was tending the three plants I’d brought him over the past couple of months. With a braided ficus, a peperomia, and an English ivy (Groucho, Harpo, and Zeppo), plus a vase filled with dried eucalyptus, his utilitarian apartment both looked homey and smelled good.