“All out would have coordinated whales. Their union wouldn’t agree to demands, but I’m hoping we see some tonight.” I nod to the waves. “I was told this is the spot to see them breach.”
A moment of silence falls over us as she wraps her coat tighter and glances out at the water. I wish for a whale, for nature to prove its support of our union with one dramatic show of grace. In my right pocket, folded and unfolded a hundred times, my speech. I don’t need the paper; I know the words. Had recited them perfectly while shaving. Tried a different take, a different tone, while driving to the office. Have changed the format ten times, the wording twenty. The weight of the paper has been comforting all day, yet suddenly seems wrong. I throw away the plan and reach for her hand. “You know I love you.”
Her eyes move to our hands. “I know.”
No. I need to see her eyes. To have that connection, to read her. The Layana I know doesn’t hide. I don’t understand it, yet forges onward. “You know that I will do anything for you. To make you happy.”
She looks back up. Finally. “I know.”
Standing, I move next to her chair and kneel, pulling out the box that holds our future. “I love you with every piece of my heart. Will spend my life making you smile. Please do me the honor of spending the rest of your life as my wife.” I crack open the box, the top opening easily, the darkening sky making the blue diamond no less impressive. I hold it out, realizing—before my arm finishes the action, my eyes glued on her—all of the things wrong with this situation.
The flush of her face.
Panic in her eyes.
A bite of her cheek.
Regret in her stare.
Wetness on the edge of her mascara.
She closes her eyes tightly and a lone dark tear drips down its side. I stare at that tear, and feel every piece of my carefully constructed world break.
She doesn’t give me a reason. Doesn’t do anything but cry as I stare, examining every line of her as she covers her face. Eventually, there is a stiff shake of her head and I close the lid, putting the ring box back into my pocket, a place that has already grown cold in the last few minutes, the scrape of my knuckles against the cashmere of my coat a sickening texture. Something is wrong. Something has happened and broken the perfection of us.
I need to find out what has happened. We are fixable. Nothing will change that.
I will wait until the day I die for her. For me, there isn’t, and will never be, anyone else.
Chapter 21
Our relationship had been perfect. A gorgeous, brilliant man. One who loved me with every spare inch of his heart. Spoiled me. Listened to me. Valued me. One who I loved passionately in return. I had gone ahead and made plans for us. Big plans sucking up large parts of my heart. Plans involving a house full of children, growing old as one, a joining of our lives that would never end.
Then, I found out his secret. And on that night, my world imploded. Every fantasy I had of happily ever after, of children and marriage: gone. I was faced with a hole of deceit and had to decide if I wanted to jump in or walk away. I could have ended everything. Broke it off and continued on—tried to find another love, a different happy ending. Instead, I stood at the rabbit hole of hell and looked down. Toed the line of indecision, even while turning down his proposal. I waffled, I moped, and I drowned my sorrows in chardonnay. And then… finally? I squared my shoulders and stayed. Didn’t let on that I knew his secret. But that day, when my fairy tale died? I lost my trust in him, in our relationship. And a few months later, I met Lee.
Lies. A mountain of them between us.
Chapter 22
2 YEARS AGO
A few months after Belize, I was in a convenience store, examining colorful lines of candy, trying to decide which one was worth my change, when he walked in. Out of my normal neighborhood, I had driven down to Palo Alto to visit Brant at work. Stopped in an area I shouldn’t be in because my Mercedes needed gas and my bladder wouldn’t shut up.
I felt him before I saw him, a presence behind me, uncomfortably close, and I turned my head and caught his eyes. Staring right at me. Not evasive, not ashamed. Looking at me in the same way a baby does, innocent and direct, so direct you wanted to break contact but I didn’t. His stare was so unlike Brant’s that I mentally stuttered, caught in this moment in time where we both stared and then he smiled.
Wow. Cocky. Confident. Sexual. So different from Brant’s. Brant’s fixed expression was intensity, his face still and stoic. Brant was a man who listened, then reacted, impulse not a trait in his wheelhouse. Neither was carefree, playful, or flirtatious. This man’s smile was all three, and I was drawn to it, my own smile curving in response.
“Hard decision,” he said, nodding his chin to the shelves.
“Yeah.” I nodded, my smile still on. Like I was a marionette doll, the goofy expression painted in place. I should turn back. Move away. Instead I kept the eye contact, my damaged relationship at the type of fragile place where decision-making abilities should be revoked.
“I know you…” he said slowly, squinting slightly, his smile a little more guarded, recognition dawning in his eyes. Actual recognition, no ‘Don’t I know you?’ flirtation to follow.
I stopped breathing, my smile still in place, dreading yet curious about whatever words would come next.
An ‘aha’ moment when he made the connection. “Aren’t you Brant Sharp’s girlfriend?” He whirled away from me, his head tilting as he scanned the magazine rack behind us, his hand skimming over and grabbing a magazine. A groan slipped through my clenched jaw.
Wired Magazine: the go-to for geeks worldwide—had just proclaimed me Tech Hottie of the Year, an honor that should have been bestowed on someone actually in the electronics industry, not just a girlfriend of this century’s brainchild. Yet there I was, on the glossy cover, covered in nothing but wires, the confident grin on my face making this their bestselling issue so far. Geeks apparently liked nudity, no matter who wore it. And there, in giant letters across my midsection, my appearance’s validation: “Lucky Layana: where Brant Sharp gets his creative inspiration.”
I stopped smiling, reached out and snatched the magazine from his hands, took four steps to the side and stuffed it behind a few issues of Martha Stewart Living.
“Well now, that just answered my question,” he said with a smile, putting a hand on the rack and leaning in, just enough that I could smell the scent of fresh grass coming off him.
God, that’s a good smell. I stole a discreet sniff and then stepped back. So…the gorgeous man didn’t know me. Had just recognized me from the magazine, either the Wired cover or another one. Over the last few months, Brant’s media machine had gone into overdrive, put me on seven of them, the PR campaign headlined by Jillian, a woman who had jumped fully into Team Layana. She and I had talked, the night I found out the Secret. Mended fences in our new common goal to Keep The Secret. The stiffness was still there, but with an objective now shared between us, she had moved bleachers, her energy moving onto things other than ending our union. Her most recent efforts centered on pushing me into the spotlight. I knew what she was doing. She wanted the focus off him, his privacy left intact while the vultures feasted on my flesh instead. It’d been working. I’d done five interviews that month.