Page 128 of Cruel Lies

33

CALI

Another week goes by. It's a good week, like all the ones before it.

The company is doing well. The Jersey firm is happy. Two more clients signed. The kids are deep in the swing of summer camps, and Hayden has moved on from deep-sea creatures to a new fixation on volcanoes. Isabella still has Doctor Fuzz, though I have a feeling that caterpillar isn't long for this world in its current form.

Every morning, before ten, my phone lights up with the same four words.

You're beautiful, Calista Meadows.

Tonight, the kids are with my mom again. She didn't even give me the fishing-for-details look this time. She just took them and told me to have fun. I think she's decided she likes whoever it is that's making me smile like this.

So here I am, in Ronan's penthouse, in Ronan's bed, in the tangle of Ronan's sheets. It's date number eight.

The eighth date.

I count them off in my head while I lie there listening to the shower run in the other room.Eight. My lucky number, the one that's been trailing me around this whole time like a dog that won't go home.

Eight pounds eight ounces.

Eight brains in an octopus.

Eight receipts on Todd.

And now, eight dates with a man I told myself I'd give one.

I roll onto my side. The bed is huge and soft and smells like him. Through the wall, I can hear the water going, and under it, faintly, Ronan humming. He's started singing when he thinks no one can hear him. It's unbelievably cute.

I reach over to the nightstand.

I keep the thing in my bag now, but I took it out earlier, before we—uh, got distracted. Now, I pull it out and set it down so I can look at it.

The cocktail napkin.

It's strange to see, sitting there on the wood, a little worn at the corners, a little soft from being handled.

You needed eight receipts to deem your husband a liar and a cheat. Give me eight chances to show you that I'm anything but that. And if at any time you decide I'm just as bad as him… hand me this and I'll walk away.

Well. Here we are.

I pick it up and hold it between two fingers. It's such a stupid little thing. Two cents' worth of paper. But it's come to mean somuch. It's the whole record of Ronan Akov, in a way. The proof that he was paying attention when nobody else was, that he built his entire pitch around the idea that I can't leave an incomplete dataset alone.

He was right about that. He's been right about a lot of things.

I get up, wrapping one of his shirts around me, and pad barefoot toward the bathroom. Steam is leaking out from under the door. I push it open and lean in the doorway. He can't see me through the glass, all fogged up as it is.

I look down at the napkin in my hand.

The toilet's right there.

I could do it. I could drop it in, hit the handle, and watch it swirl away. Eight dates have passed. The experiment's over. I've got my conclusion.

He's not Todd. He was never Todd. Every piece of data I gathered on him points the same direction.

That he's the best man I've ever known.

Flushing it would mean the trial is done. It would mean I've made up my mind. It would mean I'm keeping him.