“I have to ask another question,” Eric said, “and you can tell me it’s none of my business if you want to.”
“Duly noted. Go ahead and ask.”
He met her gaze. “Have you been sleeping with him?”
Gwen laughed softly. “You were right when you said it was none of your business. Not after your big love affair with Keri.”
He held both hands up in surrender. “I swear I’m not judging. I have no right to expect a double standard. I just need to know what’s been going on in your life. I can’t guarantee I won’t feel jealous, because I will, but I don’t want to be in the dark, because we always used to tell each other everything. Remember?”
Gwen stood and paced around the room. “Yes, but that was before you walked out on our marriage.”
“Fair point.”
She stopped and faced him. “We kissed. That’s all. But there was an attraction. A connection. There still is.”
Eric sat motionless for several seconds. Gwen started to wonder if he’d even heard what she’d said. The room was growing dark with the setting sun, so she turned to the desk and switched on the lamp.
Still, Eric kept his head bowed, his hands clasped together.
“Are you going to say something?” she finally asked. “You look gobsmacked.”
Finally, he looked up, and his eyes were bloodshot and glistening, his forehead drawn with tension.
“This is my fault,” he said. “It kills me to imagine you with someone else, but I failed you as a husband, so you had every right to forget about me and move on. But I hate it, Gwen. I hate all of it. I hate how I couldn’t face the death of our child or your pain, so I took off like a coward. I’m so sorry for that. I can’t believe that’s what I did. I swear it’s not who I am. You’re the love of my life, and I abandoned you when you needed me most. When we needed each other.”
He buried his face in his hands and wept.
Gwen moved forward. She sat down beside him and pulled him into her arms. “It was hard for both of us. I know that.”
He held her tight, and his voice shook when he tried to speak. “I didn’t even want to see her grave. I didn’t want to get a headstone or deal with any of that. But only because I couldn’t face it. I wanted to pretend it never happened and start over. Try again.”
Gwen rubbed his back. “I understand. It was awful. When I think of those days, it feels like a bad dream, but it wasn’t. It was real.”
She was coming to realize that everyone dealt with grief in different ways. Some took longer than others to accept a loss. Some could never overcome their anger.
When at last Eric collected himself, he apologized and stood up. “I need a glass of water.”
Gwen stood and walked with him to the kitchen. She fetched a glass from the cupboard, filled it at the cooler, and handed it to him.
“Thank you.” He guzzled it, then set it down on the island. “I was supposed to take you to dinner and remind you of how good it used to be with us. But I just spent the past ten minutes crying like a baby.”
Gwen pushed a lock of his hair away from his forehead. “Better that than a bunch of Casanova stuff.”
Eric laughed woefully and sat on one of the stools while Gwen put his empty water glass in the dishwasher.
“Did you make a reservation?” she eventually asked.
“Yes. For our regular table.”
Feeling a need to lighten the mood, she faced him. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry. We might as well go if you’re up to it.”
He was slouching. “I can’t very well stay here and mope around your kitchen all night. I need to at leasttryto be debonair.”
The beginning of a smile tipped the corners of Gwen’s mouth. “Okay. But let’s take it one day at a time, all right? No assumptions. No seductions.”
“None,” he replied, raising a hand. “All I want is to get to know you again and do better this time. Can we try that?”
She stared at him for a moment across the kitchen island. His face hadn’t changed much since they’d first fallen in love. Everything about him was so very familiar.
