“Yeah.” My voice is rough.
She swallows. “Do you think he’ll call?”
It takes me a second to realize what she’s talking about, and when comprehension dawns, it’s the blast of metaphorical cold water that I need.
“Harry,” I say, my voice flat as I say her boss’s name. I’m thinking about her. Us. She’s thinking about making partner. Of course she is.
She nods, and my flare of resentment abates almost immediately when I see that her eyes are a little too shiny.
“Hey. Kates.” I reach out to touch her but let my hand drop. “Whatever happens, whether or not Harry calls this Christmas or next. He’s proud of you. Your dad, I mean.”
Her head snaps up, her surprised gaze meeting mine in the reflection of the bathroom mirror.
I keep my eyes on hers and tell her what I should have told her years ago, what she needs to hear even if she doesn’t want to. “But I also know . . . your dad, he cared about your happiness more than anything. He wouldn’t want you to sacrifice it chasing a dream of his.”
There’s a flash of vulnerability in her brown eyes, which she replaces almost immediately with a spark of anger. Her go-to defense mechanism. “What makes you think I’ve sacrificed anything?”
“Right.” A touch of bite returns to my voice because anger is my defense mechanism too. “Because our marriage was nothing.”
“Our marriage was something,” she says with so much raw emotion in her voice that it’s my turn to be surprised. “Of course it was something. But I guess we just skipped that part in the vows where I was going to have to choose: you or my dad.”
I go still and stop my awkward attempts at bandaging up her wound. “What? That’s how you thought it went down?”
She lifts a bare shoulder.
“No, you aren’t shrugging that off,” I say, moving around to her side, forcing her to look at me directly instead of through the reflection. “Explain that.”
She swallows. “I don’t know, maybe that’s a melodramatic way of looking at it, but . . . you knew what I wanted when we got together. You know how important making partner was, you knew why. You knew it’s what my dad wanted, what I’d promised him. I thought you understood that. That you were there for me. I loved you for it. And instead you just . . . walked away.”
“I did understand all that, Kates, and damn it, I fought,” I say because defensiveness feels easier than the raw pain that threatens. “It’s not like I just up and walked out the door one day out of nowhere.”
“It sure felt like it,” she says quietly. “One day I was trying to learn how to juggle a demanding job and a demanding husband. The next, you told me you were done, and I was . . . reeling. I wasn’t doing a good job at being a wife—I know that. But I was trying. I thought we were trying. I thought that’s what couples did—figured out how to be married. Together.”
I drag a hand over my face, and for perhaps the first time, I try to look at the demise of our marriage through her eyes. I knew we were never on the same page, but hearing her side of it now, I realize we weren’t even reading the same book.
Hell, I’m not sure we were even using the same language.
In that last year, I remember more of a ghost of a wife than an actual wife. She was in the office more often than she was at home. She postponed countless date nights and never followed through on her promises to reschedule. Everything was on her agenda, from sex to vacations, and I swear even in the midst of both those things, her mind was on work. There were times sitting beside her at our tiny dining room table eating breakfast when I wasn’t sure she’d even notice if I wasn’t there.
That’s why divorce seemed, not the easy option, exactly, but the logical one. She didn’t seem to care one way or another if I were around.
I wanted her to care.
But looking at her now, hearing her version, I realize . . .
She cared. She cared a hell of a lot.
“Why didn’t you tell me any of that,” I say, unable to keep the frustration out of my voice.
Her grip on the towel tightens, and the way she shuffles her feet tells me this conversation is uncomfortable for her.
I brace for her to say something snarky and shove me out of the bathroom, but she surprises me by standing her ground with only minimal snark.
“What was I supposed to say?” she asks with a sigh. “‘Hey, Tom, by the way, please don’t divorce me?’”
“Yes!”
Katherine shakes her head. “Nobody wants to be married to someone who doesn’t want to be married back.”
Of course I wanted to be married back.
“That day when I told you I wanted a divorce . . . Kates, I wasn’t even sure you heard me. You barely looked up from your phone.”
“Because I couldn’t! I didn’t know how—I couldn’t believe—” She sucks in a breath and looks up toward the ceiling with a furious look on her face, and I’m stunned to see unshed tears.
On instinct, I reach out a hand to console her but let it drop. Touching her to help out with an injury is one thing. Touching her to comfort her takes us too close to a line I can’t cross.
She gathers herself and looks back at me calmly. “Would it have mattered? You’d already made up your mind.”
I want to argue otherwise, but she’s being candid, so I force myself to do the same. “No,” I admit quietly. “It probably wouldn’t have mattered. Communication issues aside, we both had different expectations of what a marriage should look like.”
She nods and I can see impenetrable Katherine returning, and I don’t know if I’m relieved or disappointed. “Yes. Exactly. Crossed wires, water under the bridge, and all that nonsense.” She arches an eyebrow. “Now, did you want to watch me shower, or did you get your fill from ogling my ass?”
I cup a hand behind my ear. “Thank you, Tom, for helping me with the nasty wound on my back.”
“Does Lolo know how needy you are?” Katherine says, shooing me backward with one hand.
Lolo. It’s the reminder I need to get the hell out of this bathroom, to get the hell away from Katherine. To end this thing.
I’m barely out of the bathroom before she shuts the door all but in my face. I hear the click of the lock and roll my eyes. “Is that really necessary? You think I just can’t help myself and am going to come barging in for another look at your granny panties?”
“It’s you barging in to see me without my granny panties that I’m worried about,” she calls back.
She turns on the water before I can reply. I walk back to my briefcase and pull out the ring once more. Instead of opening it, I sit on the bed and look down at the box, trying to shift my attention toward this ring, toward this relationship.
But my mind is still on my conversation with Katherine.
I cared! Of course I cared!
I close my eyes. I wish . . . I wish I’d known. I wish she’d done things differently. That I had.
My thumb flicks open the ring box, and I stare down at the perfect diamond.
I shut the box again. Shutting out the intrusive thought that it’s the wrong ring.
For the wrong woman.
TWENTY-NINE
KATHERINE