Crossroad to Love (Fab Five Series)

chapter 14

Angie had gone to the lobby shortly after Katy had met Ryan. She sat nervously in a maroon and mauve plaid winged chair in the corner, enjoying the roaring fire in the brick fireplace as she waited for Michael. She thought she might run into him on the elevator, but luckily, she had not. She was still very nervous about this evening. What in the world did she think she was doing? She had not had time to call her mother and tell her that Michael was back in her life. Mom had always liked Michael. She had tried her best to convince Angie not to go through with the divorce. She had tried to talk her into telling Michael the truth about what happened. Even though Angie could not do as her mother wished at the time, her mother had finally supported her decision, although she had always felt that her daughter had made a huge mistake. She would be very much in favor of the idea of the two of them working out their problems and reuniting. Deep in thought, Angie did not hear Michael come up behind her.

He leaned over and whispered, “Penny for your thoughts, pretty lady. Thinking about me?”

She laughed. “You wish!”

“Where would you like to go for dinner? How about my room and we can order room service?” He smiled down at her devilishly.

“What and waste my new outfit just to go to your room?”

“Ah, so you bought a new outfit for me? And it is gorgeous, too, I might add. Pink. You remembered that I always loved you in pink?”

“Don’t flatter yourself, big guy. I was shopping with the ‘Fab Four’ today, remember?” She would never admit to him that she had, indeed, bought the pink outfit just for him.

“Seriously, Ang, there are some things I would like to talk to you about. I thought we could have more privacy in my room. I am not trying to seduce you. I promised you that I would be a good boy and I will keep that promise. We do need to clear the air and it might be better to do it with no one else around. I will behave as long as you want me to, I promise.”

Angie could tell Michael was deadly serious. There was no joking around now. He really did want to talk to her. Was he thinking along the same lines as Angie was? Did he want to try for reconciliation? Or did he want to clear the air and tell her there was no future between them and that theirs was to be a strictly professional relationship now? There was only one way to find out. She would agree to go to his suite, have dinner, and talk. Whatever happened after that, well…I really need to make sure nothing happens after that. If I sleep with Michael again after all these years, I will be lost forever. It had taken her years to get over missing him. She could not risk opening herself up to that kind of hurt again. But wasn’t that exactly what she was doing by working with him, dining with him, talking with him? And what if the conversation came around to her secret, which she was going to have to eventually tell him if they were going to work out their differences? How would he react? And how could she relive the agony all over again?

She took a deep breath, looked Michael straight in the eyes, and said, “All right, I will call your bluff, Mr. Gray. I’ll agree to go to your suite, order room service, and have polite conversation and possibly a serious discussion. I will hold you to your promise that nothing will happen after that, unless I agree to it.”

Michael looked at her for a long moment and said simply, “Right this way, Mrs. Gray.”

Where did that come from? Mrs. Gray? Yes, she had kept his name all these years. She had not been able to give it up. She had given up too much. It was the one thing she could hold on to of his. Of course, when asked why she still went by the name Angie Gray, she always said it was because that was how she had been known professionally. I’ve always used that career as an excuse when I did not want to face reality. It had become her crutch for all of these years.

“Mrs. Gray, now is it? We are being formal this evening,” she teased him as she walked beside him.

“No, I just like calling you Mrs. Gray. It still has a nice ring to it after all these years.”

She smiled to herself. Her heart leapt into her throat at his words. This was going to be a very strange evening indeed. Was she up to it?

He led her into his suite on the fourth floor of the hotel. “Actually, my dear, I was hoping you would agree to my plan, and I took the liberty of ordering the food already. I ordered all of your old favorites. I just have to call down and let them know what time we want the meal delivered. I’ll go ahead and give them a buzz. Pour yourself a glass of champagne. It’s chilling over there.” He pointed to the desk, where the bottle of bubbly sat in a bucket of ice, two fluted glasses next to it.

“You really have thought of everything, haven’t you?” She could be angry that he was so presumptuous, but she wasn’t. Why spoil a nice evening?

Michael made his phone call and came over to the couch to sit beside Angie, taking the glass of champagne that she had poured for him.

He toasted her with his glass and said softly, “Angie, we have to get our feelings resolved before we get back to work next week. We are going to have a long, serious talk about where we stand with each other. Don’t you agree?” He took a strand of her long, brown hair between his fingers and twirled it. He brushed her forehead with his hand, caressed her cheek, and touched her lips with his fingers. His touch scorched her skin.

She slowly took a sip of champagne and looked at him. She touched his face and smiled, “I agree, but Michael, you can’t just rush me up to your room, order dinner and expect fifteen years to disappear.”

“I know that, sweetheart. Let’s relax. You are as tense as can be.” He began to massage the tight muscles in her shoulders, the way he used to do after a long day at work. “Just relax, enjoy the champagne. We’ll enjoy our dinner and catch up on small talk. But then we can’t put this off any longer, Angie. We have to talk about what happened fifteen years ago, what has happened since, and where we go from here. I didn’t walk into your office last Friday morning by sheer coincidence. I told you that I asked for the assignment. I miss you, Baby. I had to know if you were still single. I had to know if we had any kind of a chance together. What better way than to approach you at your work? You have no idea what the last fifteen years without you have done to me.”

So, there it was. Michael had laid his cards out on the table. He does want me back. Those words should have brought sheer joy to Angie’s soul. But would he still feel that way when she told him her secret? Maybe she would never have to tell him. Maybe it would not even come up in conversation. But deep in her heart, she knew that if the subject came up, she would have to finally tell him. If they were ever going to have a chance at happiness again, she would have to tell him the truth. She was older and wiser now, she could see that her mother had been right. She should have told him back then, but the pain had been so fresh and raw. She had tried to shield him from feeling the same pain that she had felt. She had given him a chance to find happiness. But at what cost to herself? At what cost to him? The last fifteen years had been no picnic for her either.

Their dinner finally arrived. True to his word, Michael had ordered all her old favorites. Angie was amazed that after all this time he still remembered her favorite foods. The blackened salmon was prepared just the way she liked it, with twice baked potatoes and steamed asparagus as the sides. He had even ordered her favorite dessert, peanut butter pie. How could he have still remembered this? She knew more and more with each passing minute that she had made the biggest mistake of her life fifteen years ago. As they ate their food and talked about old times and old friends, she realized it all seemed so easy with Michael. Being with him seems so natural. Why couldn’t I have seen it back then? Actually, you big dope, you did see it. You were just too devastated to think about it.

She told him about Katy’s big date with Ryan. Michael thought that was interesting. He had liked Ryan instantly when he met him and felt he and Katy would be a good match. He told her he hoped it would work out for them. He also said he was proud of Katy for starting her design business after all this time. He spoke of the times he and Katy had spent together after the death of her husband and daughter. He told Angie how he had done everything he could to help Katy at the time. Katy had always been the strong one of the group and he felt she had needed a shoulder to lean on for once.

Angie told him that Marianne and Jon were going through difficult times.

Michael remarked, “I hope they are not as foolish as the two of us have been and

they don’t lose something very precious.” The words he spoke touched her heart. She felt tears spring to her eyes.

They also discussed Lizzie’s venture with advertising and the chance she had taken by going ahead and doing the ads for the O’Gradys without checking with Rex. Michael said that it did not surprise him in the least. Lizzie had always been very resourceful. He added that he was looking forward to seeing Rex again when he flew out to Dallas later in the week. They discussed each other’s families and caught up on all the happenings with each family member.

After they finished dinner and the dishes had been removed from the room, he poured her another glass of champagne.

“You know, I’ve had my limit, this is my last glass. I won’t even be able to walk back to my room.” Angie laughed as she gazed into Michael’s gorgeous eyes.

“Who says you have to go back to your room?” he teased her as his hand gently caressed her face, her ear, and her neck.

She stopped him with a gentle reminder. “Michael, you know the rules of this game.”

“Angie, my darling, I am going to be quite frank with you. I have led a miserable life without you for the last fifteen years. Professionally, I have done well, very well. But what has it all been worth without the one person in my life with whom I’ve always wanted to share it with? No one that I have been with since you has mattered to me the way you do. That’s why, when I found out that you had hired our firm to do your work, I maneuvered to get the assignment. I knew I had to see for myself if you had moved on, if you were happy, or if there was a chance for us. I was elated to find that you were single.”

“Michael, we might discover that we don’t even like each other now.” She laughed, knowing full well that was not the case.

“I highly doubt that, my love. But we won’t know if we don’t try, now will we?”

“Michael, are you saying that you want us to try again?”

“That is exactly what I am saying.”

“I won’t have an affair with you. You were once my husband. I won’t ruin the memory of that marriage with an affair. Can you understand that?”

“We can take this as slow or as fast as you want, but I am determined to make you my wife again. And hopefully, that will be in the not too distant future.”

“I just don’t know.” She looked at him helplessly.

“Do you love me?” he asked a simple question, waiting breathlessly for her reply.

“I never stopped,” she admitted it finally, looking down at her lap.

“And neither did I.” Simply stated, he took her in his arms and held her quietly for what seemed like an eternity. Her heart was pounding so hard she thought it would pop right out of her chest. Surely, he could hear it. But his heart was pounding just as hard. She caressed his tired face. All the pent up emotions from all the years past came flooding to the surface for both of them. She had missed him so much. She had missed this so much, the time spent in his arms, his kisses, and his love. This was where she was meant to be. They sat on the couch kissing and savoring the moment for several minutes. With a question in his eyes, Michael pulled away. “Why?” he finally asked. He had to know.

The moment of truth had arrived. The moment she had dreaded. Angie could not speak. She looked deep into his chocolate brown eyes and nodded. He grabbed her to his chest and held her close. Slowly, he kissed her again, on the forehead first, moving to her nose, then her lips.

When the kiss ended, she licked her lips and finally began to speak. “You have to understand that this is very complicated. I didn’t divorce you because I didn’t love you. I did it because I do love you.” Her emerald green eyes glistened with tears as they begged him to understand.

“Angie, I love you and I always will. We were so good together. What you are saying makes no sense. Why in heaven’s name would you divorce a man that you love?”

“I have always loved you, too, Michael. I am so sorry that I’ve put us both through hell all these years. We have missed so much time together.”

“Shhhh.” He kissed her again. They had many long years to make up for and tonight he was determined to get to the bottom of this whole mess and put it behind them once and for all. It was time to stop the nonsense and get their lives back on track, start a family.

“You know, Ang, maybe we should say to heck with taking it slow and get remarried right away, the old biological clock ticking and all.”

Angie winced. She was very quiet for a few minutes. How could she tell him?

“Michael, we have to talk about that.”

“If you’re saying you still don’t want kids, especially at this stage of the game, I will understand. But if you think that you might want to have a baby, we probably should get right on that pretty soon, don’t you think?” He pulled her close to him again.

Angie shook her head. “Michael, we have to talk about this. Please listen to me very carefully. This is very hard for me and I only want to have to say it once.” She looked away as she spoke softly, “I can’t have children.” There now, at least part of the tale is told, she thought with a twinge.

Michael looked at her in disbelief. When he finally spoke, it was with great concern. “I am so sorry, Angie, I had no idea. How did you find this out? When did you find this out?’

“I had a miscarriage several years ago. The doctor ran tests to find out why I did not carry the baby to term. Everything had seemed so normal. It seems that I have some sort of problem where my body thinks the fetus is a foreign object and rejects it, causing me to miscarry. Can you imagine how it felt to be told that my own body was rejecting my baby? To be told that I could never carry a baby to term. My body betrayed me, Michael.” Angie began to sob, the old pain returning tenfold.

Michael felt as if all the breath had been knocked out of his body. So she had tried to have a baby with someone else. He could not believe the incredible hurt and jealousy that he was feeling at this news. “How long ago was that, Angie?” he asked her warily. Do I really want to know?

Angie hesitated before she spoke again. Her mouth was parched, her body shaking. The time had come. There was no going back. She had come this far, she had to see it through. “Fifteen years ago, Michael.” She searched his face, waiting for the truth to sink in, waiting for his reaction.

Michael’s face was ashen. What was she saying? What was she trying to tell him? He looked at her with a question in his eyes. Was there another man back then? Or had she carried and lost his baby and not told him? But why on God’s green earth would she do that?

She went on to explain. “Not long after we began discussing starting a family, I found out that I was pregnant. You had gone on that three-week-long business trip. Remember, we had thought it better for me not to go because I was so busy at work. We thought I should not take time off so I could take a long maternity leave when we finally had a baby. I was incredibly happy when I found out. I couldn’t wait for you to get back from your trip so that I could share the news with you. I was so sure that we would be starting our little family and that we were going to live happily ever after, raising our babies together and building a life. The great American dream. I was making all kinds of plans for the nursery already. I couldn’t tell you over the phone with hundreds of miles between us. I had planned a special night for when you returned to tell you.”

“But then, one night, I began cramping and bleeding. I called Mom immediately and she came over and took me to the hospital, where I miscarried later that night. As I said before, the doctor ran a series of tests and the news wasn’t good. I was devastated. By the time you got back home, I was so upset by everything, I was simply numb. There is no other way to describe how I felt at that time. I just couldn’t bring myself to tell you. I thought I could at least spare you from feeling the same pain I was feeling, knowing we had lost our baby and knowing that we would never have a child of our own. If you never knew about the baby, you wouldn’t need to grieve. Believe me, I did enough of that for both of us. So, being in the state of mind I was and knowing how much you wanted children, I filed for divorce, giving you the chance to have a family with someone else. At the time, it seemed like the best thing to do. I will admit that I probably wasn’t in the best frame of mind and wasn’t thinking clearly at all.”

Michael was silent. Angie thought that he would never speak again. He did not know whether to comfort her or to throttle her. How could she not tell him? How could she not give him the chance to grieve for their child as she’d had the chance to do? How could she say she had done it for him? She had given him no choice. She had taken away all of his choices. She had divorced him, giving him a freedom he did not want. He did not want to have a family with someone else. If they could not have a child of their own, they would have still had each other. How could she have done this to him? How could she have never told him? And how could she have thrown away their love like that? And why, if she still loved him, had she not found the courage to tell him before now? All these years, and she could have fixed it.

“Who knew about this?” he finally spoke.

“The only people who knew were Mom, the doctor, and me. For what it’s worth, Mom did not agree with my decision not to tell you.”

“Wish her daughter was as smart as she is. Angie, what could you have been thinking?”

“I wasn’t thinking straight back then. Like I said, I was totally numb. I thought I was doing it for you, Michael. I was grieving so much and I loved you so much. I wanted you to be happy and I felt that you could no longer be happy with me if you knew we would never have a family. I was afraid you would grow to resent that over the years. I gave you your freedom so that you could have the family you wanted with someone who could give you that.”

“Angie, I love you, Baby. But I have got to have time to process this. I have to grieve for that child, too. You have had fifteen years to deal with this. But it’s like it just happened for me.” He rose from the couch and extended his hand to help her up. “Let me walk you to your suite.”

“No, I will see myself out, if that’s what you want.” She watched in disbelief as he walked into the bathroom and closed the door. So just like that, he had walked out on her. This was how it was going to be, just as Angie had feared. She knew he was hurt. She hurriedly grabbed her purse and let herself out of the room. As she stood outside the door, she could not believe that just a short time before, she was in his arms, reunited. Just a few short hours ago, they were planning their future, planning to remarry.

Now, Angie did not know if they even had a future together. She had known that she was taking a chance by telling him after all these years, but it had to be done. If they were getting back together, she wanted there to be no secrets between them. He had to be told the real reason she had left him. She could only hope that in time, he would understand and be able to forgive her for what she had done all those years ago. She made her way back to the fifth floor. She hesitated before entering the room. She so needed to be alone for a while. What I really need is for Katy to come back from her date. Katy was her rock. But Angie had never told any of the girls about the baby, not even Katy. Would they hate her for it?

As Angie finally unlocked the door and walked into the suite, Lizzie saw the distress in her face. “Angie, what happened? You look terrible.”

“Michael and I probably won’t be getting back together, after all.” She walked into the bedroom, stripping off her new pink outfit, remembering how only a short time ago she had been in this very room, dressing for her date. She slipped into a nightgown and slid between the cool sheets. She felt cold and alone, the same way she had felt for fifteen years. Maybe I got what I deserved. The tears started to flow, all the tears she had held in check for all these years. Tears for all she had lost and for all she had given up. Tears for the baby she had lost, tears for all the babies she would never have. And most of all, she shed tears for Michael, the one true love of her life. Will I ever feel his arms around me again? Will we ever be lovers again? Would they ever be man and wife again? She lay in bed for quite some time, crying her heart out.

The other two girls sensed that Angie needed some time to herself. They waited a respectable amount of time before Lizzie finally knocked softly on the door and asked, “Do you need anything, Angie?”

Angie knew that the ‘Fab Four’ had to be told her secret too. She only hoped they would not hate her as Michael did. She could not lose Michael and her friends all in the same night.

“I’ll be out in a few. There’s something you all need to know. I might as well wait for Katy so I only have to tell it once.” Angie went into the bathroom, splashed her face with icy cold water and ran a brush through her thick hair. She put it into a pony tail, threw on her robe and looked around. Just a few hours ago, she was in this very bathroom, getting ready for her evening with such high hopes. And she’d almost gotten what she’d always wanted, a chance to make things right with her true love. How things can change so much in such a short time. she thought sadly. She walked out of the room to face her friends.