He’d meant to lighten the conversation with his self-criticism, but, to his horror, Maggie’s chin quivered again. And then a tear slid down her cheek...followed by another...and another.
“Damn, Mags. I’m sorry. I should’ve realized it would still be difficult for you to talk about Zeke. It’s only been...what? Three years? Let’s just drop it. How’s your gnocchi? Good?”
He was aware he was just talking to hear his head rattle at this point and not helping a damn thing. Maggie’s tears were coming harder and faster, though thankfully, silently. The tip of her nose brightened to hot pink.
“Can I pour you some more wine?” he offered, lamely, and then convinced himself to shut his damn mouth before he made things any worse.
Like things could be any worse.
Maggie’s body shook with the effort to bring her tears under control, and he sat and watched, helplessly shamed into silence.
When, at last, she could speak, she looked at him and shook her head. “Zeke wasn’t a great guy, Jeff. He wasn’t like everybody thought he was.” Pain flashed from the gorgeous green irises now rimmed in red. “Marrying him was the biggest mistake of my life.”
MIXING LIQUOR AND the emotional roller coaster she was on today had been a major mistake. Maggie regretted her words as soon as they left her mouth.
“Did the bastard abuse you?” Jeff’s grip on his wineglass visibly tightened.
“No.” She rubbed the area over her right eyebrow where a rhythmic throb pulsated. Why had she brought this up now? “Never mind. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“But you did.” His mouth and eyes narrowed with insistence. “Now you have to finish.”
“I’ve never told anyone. Not even Mom.”
“I don’t know what this deep, dark secret is.” Jeff reached across the table, and this time he didn’t just lay his hand on top of hers. He grasped it and held on firmly. “My son was in that environment. I have a right to know what went on.”
“It wasn’t anything that ever happened around Russ.” She tried for an assuring tone, but his touch caused the breath she’d almost gotten under control to quiver erratically again. “You surely can’t believe I would ever allow anyone to lay a hand on him.”
“For God’s sake, Mags, tell me what we’re discussing here.” His grip became a near-squeeze.
If she’d used her napkin as a gag, which she now wished she had, her mouth couldn’t have gone any drier. A sip of water helped lubricate the passage of the words she’d swallowed so many times. “The last week Zeke was alive...two days before he went into the coma...he told me he’d been having an affair for quite some time. Five of the six years we’d been married.”
Sympathy softened Jeff’s stern look, but his shoulders sagged in obvious relief that this didn’t involve Russ. “Wow, that must have been staggering for you.”
She nodded. “He told me he was deeply in love with her and had planned to ask me for a divorce. But then the brain tumor was diagnosed, and it seemed foolish to put everyone through that additional heartbreak.”
“So why tell you at all?”
Maggie sipped some more water, giving herself time to decide if she could get through this. “He wanted to see her.”
Jeff released his hold and leaned back as if he needed to view her from a wider angle. “You didn’t...”
“Yeah, I did.” The lead brick that had pressed on her heart for three years began to crumble as she finally shared the horrific details she’d kept bottled up. “I called and told her he was asking for her. She took more than a little convincing...seemed bent on the idea that I was luring her down there to make a spectacle of confronting her in front of people. But she finally came, and I gave them several hours alone to say their goodbyes. I put a no-visitors sign on the door so they wouldn’t be interrupted.”
Jeff closed his eyes, and when he opened them he pinned her with a look that was a mixture of incredulity and disbelief. “Why?”
“Why not?”
“He was unfaithful and you rewarded him?”
“He was dying. I would hardly call that a reward.”
“But for you to be civil to her... Kind, even.”
She shrugged. It was difficult to explain why she had handled things the way she did. “Something was never right between Zeke and me. We got along. Had a good time together. He was good to Russ. But I think I married him more out of loneliness than love.” She stopped short of admitting there had never been the rush of adrenaline for Zeke the way there had been for him—even her reaction at seeing him today. The surge of primal pleasure that time and emotional pain could not erase. She paused for breath and shook some propriety back into her logic center. “I shouldn’t be discussing this with you. It’s too personal. You and I are practically strangers now.”
“We’ll never be strangers, Mags.”
“Well, maybe not strangers,” she acquiesced. “But thirteen years without face-to-face contact is a long time.”
His mouth rose slightly on one end. “Too long.” His tone brought a flutter to her stomach that she attempted to stymie with a gulp of wine. “So why didn’t you tell anyone? I mean, the sorrow and grief must’ve been unbearable. It might’ve helped to talk to somebody.”
“I considered talking to Mom, but that felt like a knee-jerk reaction, and it would only upset her. I thought about counseling, but, with him gone, the affair seemed like more of a testimony against me than him. It was hard to admit to myself, much less somebody else, that I’d made such a huge mistake. Again.” Her voice broke on the last word.
Jeff glanced away, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed hard. She knew that mannerism. It was what he did when he was upset or displeased, and she felt the weight of that displeasure in her stomach.
Yeah, I failed at my second marriage, too. She didn’t have to say the words. She knew what he was thinking.
No longer hungry, she pushed her plate back and dabbed her mouth with her napkin.
“Do you want dessert?” Sure enough, Jeff’s normally rich tone was flat.
“No. I’m tired. I really just want to go back to the room and relax.” She tried not to show how disappointed she was with the turn things had taken. The pleasant night of catching up and easy banter had morphed into a queasy stomach and a brain that now felt like a tympani being pounded by dueling mallets.
The only relief came when Jeff paid the bill and she was able to escape into the open air. “Thanks for dinner. The food was delicious,” she said as they crossed the intersection by Oak Street Beach. The balmy breeze coming off Lake Michigan soothed her frayed nerves. Normally she would have wanted to linger but not tonight. Tonight she’d exposed too much, left herself vulnerable.
“You’re welcome,” he answered. “But what’s your hurry?”
She hadn’t realized how fast she’d been walking, not allowing her platform stilettos to hinder her determined gait. She slowed her pace, letting him keep up, not wanting to give the impression she was running from him. But when he drew close enough that their arms brushed, she sped up again—her body’s involuntary reaction to a dangerous stimulus.
The hotel doorman saw them coming and welcomed them again into the vast lobby.
“Do you want to have a nightcap?” Jeff indicated the lounge where a few dancers swayed to the beat of the slow, sultry tune crooned by a smoky-voiced singer.
Emphatically