While George took his afternoon nap Teddie tidied the apartment, moving automatically to pick up the tiny toy cars and miniature dinosaurs that were scattered everywhere. Eventually she stopped beside her bed and, kneeling down, pulled out a cardboard box.
Feeling a lump start to build in her throat, she hesitated, and then sat on the floor. Lifting off the lid, she gazed down at the contents.
Was that it? Had her marriage really amounted to nothing more than a shoebox shoved under a bed?
Pushing aside the letters and documents, she reached to the bottom of the box and pulled out a small blue box.
Her hand twitched and then slowly, heart thumping erratically, she opened it and stared down at the plain gold band. For a moment she couldn’t move, but as her breathing steadied she picked up her wedding ring and slid it onto her finger.
She still wasn’t sure why she had kept it. But the answer to that was not as simple as the question implied.
At first, in the weeks after she’d moved out of Aristo’s apartment—and it had always felt like his apartment—she’d kept wearing it because even though it had become clear to her by then that her husband was a different person from the impulsive lover she’d promised to love and honour and cherish, she hadn’t been ready to give up on her marriage.
And then later it had been the one thing he’d given to her that he hadn’t and could never take away—of course that had been before she found out about George.
Her throat tightened. She could still picture the exact moment that she’d finally decided to stop wearing it.
It had been on the taxi ride home from that night she’d spent in Aristo’s arms, hoping and believing that they’d been given a second chance.
He’d followed her out of their meeting with the lawyers earlier and they’d argued, both of them simmering with fury, and then they’d looked into each other’s eyes and desire had been stronger than their anger combined. Unreasonable, but undeniable.
But then what did desire ever have to do with reason?
They’d rented a hotel room like newlyweds, kissing and pulling at each other’s clothes in the lift, hardly noticing the other guests’ shocked or amused expressions as they’d run to their room.
But even before the sheets tangled around their warm, damp bodies had grown cold she’d realised her mistake.
That night hadn’t been some eleventh-hour reprieve for their marriage. Aristo hadn’t acknowledged his part in their marital problems, or been willing to listen to her point of view. Instead he’d just wanted to get his own way and, having failed to convince her with words he’d switched tactics. Like the hopeless, lovestruck fool she had been then, she’d let herself be persuaded by the softness of his mouth and the hard length of his body.
But, waking in the strange bed, she’d realised her mistake instantly.
She breathed out unsteadily, remembering how his face had grown hard and expressionless, the post-coital tenderness in his eyes fading as he’d told that he’d pay for the room, but that would be the last dollar she’d see of his money.
It hadn’t been. Three weeks later she’d emptied one of the bank accounts they’d shared—the one with the least amount of money in it—partly to prove him wrong, but mostly so his unborn child would have something from its father.
Sliding the ring off her finger, she put it back in the box and got slowly to her feet. Elliot was right. She needed to face reality, and it would be easier to do so if she was in control of what was happening rather than sitting and stewing, waiting for Aristo to call.
Walking back into the living room, she picked up the card he’d given her the night before and punched out his number on her mobile before she had the chance to change her mind.
‘Hello, Teddie.’
She hadn’t expected him to pick up quite so quickly, or to know it was her, but that wasn’t why she slid down onto the sofa. It was just that hearing his voice down the phone again felt strangely intimate, and for a split second she was reminded of how they’d used to talk when they’d first met. Conversations in the early hours of the morning after she’d finished performing and she was lying in bed in some hotel on the other side of the country.
It hadn’t mattered what time she’d called—he’d always answered and they’d talked sometimes for hours. She felt her skin prickle. And not just talk... Sometimes he’d made up stories to help her fall asleep.
Curling her fingers around the phone, she gripped it more tightly. Remembering Aristo doing that for her was like waking to find a handcuff around her wrist, linking her to him in a way she hadn’t imagined.
Steadying her breathing, she pushed the memory to the back of her mind. ‘We need to talk,’ she said bluntly. ‘About George.’
‘So talk.’
‘No, not on the phone. We need to meet.’
There was a short pause, and her chest tightened as she imagined him leaning back in his chair, a small triumphant smile curving his mouth.
‘I can come to your apartment.’
‘No.’ Hearing the panic in her voice, she frowned. But there was no way he was coming to the apartment again, not after what nearly happened last time. ‘I’ll come to your office.’