“Come in,” I say. I want to pull her into the house. I want to pull her into my arms. I want to pull her to me, grab her face, and kiss her lips. The whole day has been shot to shit. We left yesterday for the game, and for the first time ever, I had no emotion for it. I was there, but my head was back here in Dallas, wondering how she was.
She walks in, and I take her in. My memory is nothing compared to the real thing. “I don’t want to interrupt you,” she says, and I can see that she’s nervous, and I hate it. I hate all of this fucking shit.
“You can never interrupt me,” I say to her and I hope she looks up at me again. But she just looks down, and I’m internally roaring in madness. “Can I get you something to drink?” I ask, hoping it will keep her here longer if only for one minute more.
“I think I’m okay.” She laughs, but you know it’s a fake laugh. Her eyes don’t light up, and her smile doesn’t fill her face. “I don’t want to take anymore of your time.”
“Becca,” I say her name in almost a plea. The minute I say her name, I see the tears fill her eyes, and if I thought I knew pain before, I was wrong. The sight of her in this state is more than I can cope with. The fact that I made her feel like this. I feel like someone has cracked open my chest and pulled out my heart. “Let’s go into the living room.”
She blinks away the tears and follows me. The last time I was in this room with her, she was naked and in my arms. I wait for her to sit before taking a seat. “I’ve been calling you,” I say, and she nods her head. “I’m so sorry, Becca.” The lump forms even bigger in my throat when I see her trembling hand wipe away a tear.
“Well …” She shakes her head and looks down at her trembling hands. I want to get up to go over to her and hold her hands in mine. “Laurene came to see me.” She shocks me with those words.
“When she came to me, I thought she was joking, to be honest,” I say. Whatever happens, she has to hear the truth, and she has to hear it from me. “But then I went with her to a meeting, and I knew the guy wasn’t going to budge.” I knew that if anything would come out of this, you would at least hear it from me.
“I just …” Her voice trembles. “I just don’t understand why you didn’t tell me.”
I shake my head, the pit of burning starting in my stomach. “I wanted to. The night that you came over for dinner.”
“I knew something was bothering you,” she points out to me. “I asked you, and you said it was nothing.”
“I was a coward,” I admit. “I didn’t know how to bring it up.”
“You think me finding out when I turned on the television is better than hearing it from you,” she says bitterly.
“I wanted to tell you in person,” I say, and she shakes her head. “It’s just how do you bring up the fact that you have to marry someone for ninety days while you’re with your new girlfriend?” I get up, the nerves running through me. “It’s not exactly ‘hey, can you pass the salt, oh, and by the way, I’m getting married tomorrow.’”
“Well.” She stands, and I see she’s angry. “It’s fucking better than turning on the television and finding out that way, I can tell you that much.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say, my voice coming out in almost a whisper.
“How would you feel,” she starts, “if you woke up one day, and the news is all over that I was married to Manning?”
“I would kill,” I answer honestly, the blood in my veins running cold.
“I keep thinking about it over and over in my head,” she says. “Everything that Laurene told me, and I am going to be one-hundredpercent honest with you right now. If the roles were reversed, I would have done the same.”
“What?” I ask, shocked.
“If I had to marry one of my clients for whatever reason, I would do it. If it hurt no one,” she adds at the end. “That is what gets me the most. I would have understood. I might not have liked it, but you didn’t even give me a chance.” She points at herself.
“I wish I could go back,” I say softly. “I wish I could go back to the beginning and tell you from the start. I have never regretted anything more in my life,” I say, and she nods her head. “What I feel for you, it’s something.”