Page 61 of Indulgence
She practically choked on her spit. “You haven’t done anything with that man, have you?”
“Eww, no.” I shook my head. “But he has watched us have sex a few times. It’s open to whomever wants to watch.”
“Okay, I think we should get out of here,” she said. “I don’t like the way he’s looking at you.”
The interaction with Gerard left a cloud of unease that followed me back to Penelope’s. The urge to call Matteo niggled at me. He would make me feel better. Tell me things were fine and there wasn’t anything to worry about.
Penelope was right when she had said that Matt had always been there whenever I needed him for whatever I needed.
Was I really making things worse? I knew that silence and distance weren’t going to help, but I was stuck in this . . . I didn’t know perpetual nightmare of what-ifs and regrets. I wasn’t ready to tackle going back home yet, but maybe talking to Matt was a smaller step to start with. Maybe smaller goals were what would help.
Pulling out my phone, I brought up the text message about his arrival in Miami. It was late there. Too late to call. Or at least that was what I told myself
Natalie:I’m sorry that I haven’t been there for you. I am in my own hell, and this is the only way I can deal. I don’t know how to handle all of this.
My thumb hovered over the send arrow. I hesitated. Matteo said so much this morning, and then with the girls piling it on, my apology felt pathetic, but it was all I had.
Still, I wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t respond. When the three dancing dots appeared, I let out a slow breath.
As his text appeared on my screen, I’d wondered if perhaps no reply would have been better.
Matteo:I know. But it still doesn’t change anything.
He used my own words on me. Damn, I didn’t like it. I knew what they meant. The damage was already done and it was hard to erase it.
Chapter Thirty
Matteo
When I turned and walkedaway from Natalie the other morning, it was a thousand times harder than it seemed. I had to, though, because, while I would do anything to fix my marriage, I needed to remember to also take care of myself. I needed a time out even if Natalie looked as if she needed a hug and a thousand questions answered.
Rather than focusing on learning all I could about the client we were meeting with and the things his company was looking for from us, I was absorbed in thinking about all the ways I’d been naïve about this whole situation. I’d thought as soon as I was able to tell Natalie that we didn’t have any permanent ramifications or reminders from that night to deal with, the switch inside her would flip, we could heal, and things would start to return to normal.
Instead, her accusation of my being upset that Brooke wasn’t pregnant lit a fire inside me. I didn’t know whether she said it just to be a brat or she truly thought that, but either way I couldn’t stand there a second longer, telling her all the ways I needed her without her being able to understand.
While her text may have been the spark of a match in a dark cave, it still didn’t begin to make anything better.
I began to understand what she meant when she said that our regret didn’t change the past. She was sorry for her actions, and I was grateful for that, but it didn’t do much to help me justify or understand how she reacted.
Knowing that someone was remorseful for their actions didn’t make it all better. It didn’t change the event that transpired. Natalie could be sorry that she shut me out, but it didn’t change the fact she cut me off. It didn’t sooth anything.
This entire two weeks had been exhausting. My head ached. My heart hurt. I felt so empty. My emotions were shifting and not to a good place.
The last three days had actually been a much-needed reprieve from my life.
Our new client, Diego Rosa, wanted to form an insurance company that sold a unique insurance product—a legal services product, which is being considered insurance in the state of Florida. He wanted some help, some actuarial help and actuarial credibility, to figure out how much he would need to charge for this product in order to make a fair and reasonable profit, how to document those calculations, and justify it to the state of Florida, so he hired our firm to go through that process with him.
A lot of work went into something like that. Financial statements had to be developed along with balance sheets and income statements. These were our best estimate of the future financial condition of the company based on the anticipated revenues and expenses of the company. These are necessary to submit to insurance regulators as part of the licensing process for a new insurer.
Diego asked for my help in preparing an insurance rate filing for all this, plus communicating with the insurance department in an effort to get the department to approve the licensing of the new insurer and their proposed rates.
The beauty was all in the detail of numbers. They didn’t lie. They were what they were and you either accepted that or didn’t. A new project was exactly what I needed to get lost in to distract myself from the hell of my home life.
Our flight back from Florida landed just before ten, but with the time change, it might as well have been three in the morning. Barry and I spent the flight reviewing what was still left to be done to complete Diego’s profile, noting deadlines for submitting the required statements to the state, and a few other things he wanted me to take on in my new role. We exited the plane and made our way to the luggage carousel.
“Thanks for all your hard work, Matteo,” Barry said as he grabbed his bag and we turned toward the exit. He was heading out front for a cab and I was making my way to the parking deck. “I just wanted to ask, is everything all right? While your work is as impeccable as always, after spending the last three days with you, you don’t seem as happy as someone whose career was just elevated to the next level should be.”
Barry was a nice guy. I’d been working under him for about four years, and while I wasn’t going to spill all my guts to the man, I also knew I needed to let him know that nothing was going to affect my work in my new role. “Thanks, Barry. I appreciate your concern. Everything is good.”
