He chuckled again. “Okay.” He stood and started picking up the dishes. I recognized he was trying to keep his hands busy to have this difficult conversation. I did the same thing when I was nervous. I stood and started clearing the table with him, but not before kicking off my heels.
“I know my mother might have mentioned Andrea when she was here.”
I tried not to show any anger on my face. Did he not know Andrea had written to me? “Your wife? What does she have to do with anything?”
“Everything,” Hector said. “When I joined Heartland Metro, we had been separated for several years already. That entire time, I had refused to give her a divorce. I knew it was over, and that we’d never get what we had back, but I was stubborn.”
“I believe it,” I said, fully recognizing his stubbornness. So far, everything Andrea had written was matching up with Hector’s account of events.
“What you need to understand is that I came to Heartland only for you. At first, it was for your work. I was excited about medicine for the first in a long time when I heard about this young doctor who was inspired by my work, pushing the envelope of what was possible.”
I smiled at the sight of his excitement, but I wasn’t connecting the dots yet. He continued.
“Then I met you, and Carolina,everythingchanged. You have to believe that. I was suddenly less concerned about the perfect life and the perfect marriage I had drawn up for myself. Suddenly, giving Andrea a divorce didn’t seem like the worst defeat of my life.”
“But you didn’t go through with it,” I said.
“Actually, I did,” he said, wincing a little at the words.
“What?” I asked through gritted teeth.
“I signed that first year I was at Heartland Metro. Within a year, it was finalized.”
“What?” I hissed again. I couldn’t form full sentences at that moment.
“I was divorced soon after I met you, Carolina. I was hoping we could have—”
“But you never said anything,” I interrupted him. “You always wore the wedding ring.”
“The divorce was finalized in that two-year period when you wouldn’t talk with me.”
“And after that, when things were better between us?”
“I couldn’t bear to do it. The rumors had taken their toll and had just started to dissipate. I would have been damned before I let them affect your career any further than they already had. So I kept it to myself and kept wearing the ring, letting everyone believe I was still married.”
“Hector, you should have told me,” I said forlornly. “Back then, I wanted . . .more,” I said.
“I know, baby. You weren’t very good at hiding your feelings. Neither was I. Why do you think the rumors caught fire like that?”
“I always blamed Keach.”
“Sure. He ignited the rumors, but the blaze was all us. Even when it was clear we weren’t on speaking terms, some still wondered if we’d actually had an affair that had ended badly.”
“Don’t remind me,” I said.
“I wouldn’t have believed us either.”
“You give yourself a lot of credit.”
“Come on. We’ve wanted each other for almost a decade. Since that first day in the conference room, I needed to know who you were. I couldn’t imagine you were the doctor I had come here for. I can’t tell you what it felt like, knowing it was you.”
“Speak for yourself. I haven’t said I’ve wanted you for years.”
Hector chuckled. “Tell yourself what you want, baby. I know what I see in your eyes—what I’ve seen since the first day we met.”
“What’s that?”
Hector moved toward me, his chest puffed like a predator. I took a step back until I couldn’t move any further against the kitchen island behind me. He caged me in with both his hands on either side of me, pressed firmly to the countertop.