Page 121 of A Lucky Shot

“You were with Stephen.” Cass shrugged weakly. “I didn’t want to take you from him. You have other priorities, and I need to get used to you not always being there for me.”

“I would have come to get you. Just because Stephen and I are together again doesn’t mean you aren’t important to me.”

But that’s what happened. Friends partnered off. Weekly brunches became monthly. Girls’ nights out became fewer and further between. Libby’s biological clock was ticking like a time bomb, and Stephen was more than ready to put a baby in her. Soon, there would be even less Libby to go around.

It didn’t matter anymore.

Libby tugged the bottle out of Cass’s arms and put it out of reach. She chewed her lip and said in a low voice. “As much as it pains me to say this, Stephen thinks you should talk to him.”

Cass whipped her head up and the room caught up a half second later. Her stomach roiled, and it wasn’t entirely from the wine. “Stephen knew. And he didn’t say anything. Why should I listen to him? Or Josh, for that matter? So he can tell me about his wedding day?” A fresh wave of pain washed over her, and she pressed her hand to her mouth to stifle a sob.

“I don’t think he did know. Stephen didn’t tell me much. Just that you should hear Josh out. Stephen wouldn’t do anything to purposefully hurt you, and not only because he knows I’d disembowel him if he did.”

“What can he possibly say that will make this better?”

“I don’t know if it will make anything better, but I know you love him, and you deserve answers, if not peace.”

The spot in her chest ached. She wanted nothing more to believe him. And Libby, who took a lot more convincing than she did, was saying she should listen.

She didn’t know if she was a sucker for punishment or a hopeless romantic. If her track record was anything to go by, this wasn’t going to go well. With a tired resignation, she pulled out her phone.

Okay, I’ll listen

“We’ve been separated for almost three years.”

Against her better judgement, she agreed to meet him. Somewhere public. Coffee. Before he had to meet with producers and Melanie, and who knew who else, to start on post-production. In one week, Cass wouldn’t need to be at those meetings anymore. Her job would be done. There’d be no reason to see him anymore.

One coffee. She could give him fifteen minutes today.

Thirty, tops.

Still can’t say no.

The midmorning sun diffused through the low overcast and gauzy curtains to cover the busy café with a grey tinge. The chair’s uneven wooden legs struck the floor like a tap dancer as she shifted from side to side. She swirled the contents of her oversized mug, unable to convince herself to take a sip.

Josh sat across from her, eyes bloodshot and smudged purple, his wet jacket slung over the back of his chair. He hadn’t touched his coffee, his posture mirroring hers, hunched over as if to position himself closer to her. A few stray drops of melted snow hung in his hair like jewels, and she wanted to run her fingers through the jet strands. Even now, he looked devastatingly handsome.

Operative word: devastating. She tore her eyes away and stared into her untouched mocha.

“I haven’t lived with her—hell, I’ve barely been in the same room with her—in all that time. Ask Stephen. I’m trying to get a divorce, but she keeps dragging it out. In every way, except on paper, that marriage has been over for a long time.”

Cass tipped her mug from side to side. “Do you know how many women have been told that same story by a married man?”

He gripped the back of his head and tilted back, the golden glow of his skin rendered wan in the flickering lights overhead. “What do you want to know? I’ll tell you anything.”

Cass’s gut squeezed up into her throat and she steeled herself.

Words. They are just words. Believe what he shows you, not what he tells you.

“Do you want to know about my family?” he asked. “My parents are deliriously in love after almost forty years together and my grandparents never forgave my dad for marrying someone they didn’t approve of. My sister barely talks to me anymore because my ex is her best friend, and she still hasn’t forgiven me for leaving her. We were only married thirteen months before I left.”

“You’re still married,” Cass whispered, lifting her head to meet his eyes, and his face twisted with guilt.

“I don’t want to be. We didn’t know anything about each other before we … before. We were too young. She had a crush on her best friend’s older brother and I knew she was the type of woman that would make my grandparents happy. I was right. They loved her.

“They were disappointed that I’d majored in film in university but were fine once I was in law. I tried to convince myself that I only did all that because it would make me a better orator if I’d specialized in litigation. Even then, I knew I was kidding myself.”

She couldn’t imagine him doing anything other than what he was doing. She could almost picture him, dead-eyed behind a computer screen, going through the motions of whatever lawyers did, instead of alive and vibrant on set. Full of life and radiating energy, whether he was swearing at himself or agonizing over camera placement. His eyes ablaze when they got the shot exactly right. Like yesterday, when they’d nailed the final scene. Then dragged her away to put his stamp all over her.

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