Page 81 of Tempting as Sin
“And you were his wife. He was making millions per picture by then, and he didn’t want his wife to buy her mother a house? That’s not normal, Lily. It’s not right.”
“I know,” she tried to explain. “Looking back now, it’s so obvious. But back then, that night, that whole time—I didn’t want to be the fragile one anymore. My life had changed, and it hadn’t changed at all. Antonio told me I hadn’t done anything wrong. Probably. I could try again, he said, and make sure I did everything right. So you see—I hadn’t done anything wrong, except that clearly, I had. The whole thing started us out all backwards. And then I couldn’t get pregnant again. I couldn’t understand it. I had the tests, and so did he. He said he did, at least. Obviously, that wasn’t true. He lies very well.”
“When actually,” Rafe said, “he had syphilis.”
“No,” she said. “Or yes. First, though, he had a vasectomy.”
Lily looked exhausted, which she surely was. Rafe should have made her something else for dinner. A smoothie, maybe. He wished he’d done that. He also wished he’d hit Antonio much harder.
“What?” he asked. “How would that even happen?”
“So weird, right? Turns out he decided, somewhere in there, that he didn’t want kids. ‘Not when you were so crazy the first time,’ he said. ‘And it made your breasts look disgusting.’ That was nice, huh? That wasn’t a good evening, and yet it was. It took me where I needed to go. Surgical strike.”
The top of his head was going to blow off. Again. She sounded brittle tonight, far from her usual gentle calm. “Why wouldn’t he tell you?” he asked. “That makes no sense. Why not have that conversation?”
She pulled her mass of hair back with one hand, her habitual gesture. “His family, for one thing. I realized that later. He’s Italian. How much easier to say I was infertile, and to have me believe it? I’m not a good actress. And weirdly—I think he wanted to stay married to me. It’s a strange dance, an abusive relationship. He got somebody to take it out on when life didn’t go his way. They say they can’t control themselves, that you push them past their limits, but you notice later that they don’t lash out like that at their boss. They save it for you. So, yeah, they can control themselves. They just don’t.”
He breathed. “So. Syphilis.”
“Yes. When the doctor told me about it? I waited for Antonio to come home, and then I asked him. I’d always been so scared to make waves—I mean,reallyscared—and finally, I wasn’t. I knew what he’d say, what he’d do, and it didn’t matter anymore. I said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me so I could have been treated? If I’d been pregnant, it could have killed the baby. It could have caused birth defects. It could have been so bad. If you were going to cheat on me, why wouldn’t you protect me at least that much? At least do that? It would be your baby, too.’ And he said, ‘Haven’t you figured it out by now? There was never going to be a baby.’ That’s when he told me about the vasectomy. And somehow…”
She stopped. He wanted to know this, and he absolutely didn’t. “That was it,” she said. “The turning point. It wasn’t just about me anymore. It was about that dream baby I’d hoped for, the one I’d mourned every month, because it never happened again. My little girl. My little boy. Mybaby.I could forgive him for everything else, maybe. I can’t forgive that. It was like everything shifted, and I saw things the other way around, just for a moment, like a flash. That maybe itwasn’tme. That he’d been willing to do something that extreme, and to hide it, to keep me that much more off-balance. I had to ask—what kind of person does that? And once I left, it started to shift some more, especially once I told Paige. It’s been a journey, though, to get here. It’s been a long, long road. I’ve had to own my part, too, and that’s been hard.”
“How did Paige not know?” He tried to keep it neutral, calm, but Lily stiffened anyway. “When she knew so much tonight?”
“She says I was jumbled,” Lily said. “Fuzzy. She was worried, but she couldn’t tell. I’d gone away, she says. It’s hard to explain. They call it ‘erosion,’ what happens to your self, and it’s true. Like parts of you are gradually sliding off, and you’re less and less. And this isn’t my favorite subject, by the way.”
He laughed out of sheer surprise. Time to move on. The rest of it, they’d get to. The doe had dropped her guard. He needed to keep her here with him, and to let her know she didn’t have to run anymore.
Was there part of him that said,Still got issues?Maybe there was. He ignored it. It was what she’d said. She called his name. “Got it,” he said. “But thanks for sharing. I hated him already. I just hate him more now.”
“He’s extraordinarily handsome,” Lily said. “Even more so now. Just looking at him would take my breath away. Which is shallow, but there you go, I wasn’t looking deep enough. That was me all the way. Looking for Prince Charming on his horse. He’s charming, and helookslike somebody who’s caring and sensitive. He acts like it, too, at first. He’s an actor, and he’s a good one. You look in those dark eyes and think you see it all there, like you’re looking through the window to his soul. But when you knock on the door, there’s nobody home. I know that, and that’s why he’s the past. I’ve stopped sliding away. I’m here now. I have a few bruises again, but I’m all here.” She finally took another bite of chicken, put her ice pack back on her face, and said, “And do you mind if we watch your movie? You can close your eyes when you come on screen, but that’s so much more than enough Antonio for one night. For onelife.Right now, all I want is to watch you beat up bad guys. Again.”
“I’m on screen all the time in this one,” he said. “It’s all me, for better or worse. But we can do that. We’ll relax. No worries.”
Bailey rode past the beach, past the park, and up the path along the creek. Nobody would think to look for her here. Social workers always came in cars, and so did cops, even if they were detectives and weren’t wearing uniforms.
She wished she had Chuck. Chuck was company, and he made her feel not-scared. She wished he hadn’t had his balls cut off, so he could run. If somebody was there when she went back to her grandma’s, maybe Chuck would have bitten them, if she had him. Probably not, but he could bark at them, and she could get away.
She didn’t have him, though, so she went to a spot she’d found last week, where there was a log that made a bench, dropped her bike, and pulled her book out of the backpack. It was very interesting, and she’d only read part of it so far.
It was quiet here, except for the water in the creek, which was a peaceful sound, and the buzz from the bushes. It wasn’t wasps, just bees, and bees were good and didn’t really want to sting you unless you bothered them, so that was a peaceful sound, too. A lady walked by with a dog, but nobody else did. She hunched her legs up onto the log, laid the book on her knees, and started to read.
“Hi.”
She almost dropped the book. It wasn’t a grownup, though. It was a girl. Bailey recognized her from school, even though she wasn’t in her class. Her shiny black hair only went to her shoulders, and she had bangs. She was kind of short, and as skinny as her.
“Hi,” Bailey said. The girl had a soccer ball, and now, she flipped it up with her foot so it landed in her hands.
“You’re Bailey, right?” the girl said. “You were in Ms. Swan’s class. I was in Ms. Peterson’s. But you’re new.”
“Yeah.” The girl looked nice, not like she’d come over to be mean. She didn’t have that sort of pinched-up face that some girls got when they talked to you. “Bailey Blue Johnson.”
“That’s a cool name.” The girl sat down on the bench with her soccer ball between her feet and said, “My name’s Hermione Wu. I’m new, too. At least, I came last year, at the beginning of third grade. Wu’s a Chinese name. Hermione is like in Harry Potter.”
“I know,” Bailey said. “I mean, I heard your name before. I used to see you playing soccer at recess. I didn’t know about the Chinese part, though. I’ve never read Harry Potter.”
“Really? You should read it.” Hermione stuck her legs out in front of her, but kept one heel on the soccer ball. “It’s great. My mom read me the first book when I was in second grade, but I’ve read two more now, and I’m on Book Four. It takes a long time, because they’re super long. Hermione’s my favorite character. She’s really smart. I like reading, but I like soccer the best. Do you do soccer?”
