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In the space of seconds, I was devastated.
Tears blur my vision, and I squeeze my eyes closed to clear them.
“Regan?” Remi’s concerned voice next to me helps me settle down faster. The prospect of another person seeing me cry makes my tears dry up faster than anything else.
“I just needed a minute.” I turn to look at him, with a reassuring smile on my face. He’s watching me with the same worry that’s been in his eyes since this all started.
“Are you sure? I mean, it’s only been a week, maybe you need more time.”
“It feels like yesterday,” I say, wistfully, regretting the toll this has taken on him, too.
My brother scoffs and slides his unamused gaze back to the iPad.“Really? Feels like the longest month of my entire life, Reggie. Watching this, knowing what I know, I want to kick Marcel’s ass. I can’t believe he made us all feel sorry for him.”
I brush a hand over the lines furrowing his forehead, and my sigh is heavy with equal parts regret and dismay.
“He didn’t make up the part where I was kissing another man. The pictures aren’t doctored,” I remind him pointedly.
He scoffs, his lips pursing, as if he can taste something bitter. “I wish you’d made a fucking video, so he could have heard it, too. That’s what he deserves. I can’t believe he had the nerve to treat you like this when he was doing all the shit we found at the same damn time.” He shakes the tablet in his hand for emphasis.
I put a hand on his arm. “I need you to be the one who doesn’t make a scene, okay? You have to keep your cool. We can't let our emotions get the best of us in there.”
“Emotion isn’t a bad thing,” he says, eyebrows raised in challenge.
“I know that,” I snap, and cross my arms over my chest.
He smiles, a knowing smile, at my defensive gesture. “Well then, why are you acting like nothing is wrong?”
“I’m not acting like nothing is wrong.”
“It’s okay to not be okay, Reggie.” He pats my arm, reassuringly.
I groan in irritation. “I don’t know why you think I need reminding of that. I know myself. There’s a storm the likes of which I’ve never known brewing inside me. I used it to get myself here today. Just because my outward reactions are not what you expect, doesn’t mean it’s an act.”
We hold each other’s gazes. We may have shared a womb, but we’re as different as sea and sand. And just as vital to each other. Right now, the ever-present sparkle in his eyes is dulled by disappointment. I’m not the only one nursing a heartbreak.
If charisma and empathy were divided and distributed between us, then the lion’s share went to Remi. He’s got the most tender of hearts and is swift to injure and slow to forgive. Because he knows that about himself, he’s careful about letting people close.
His good opinion and friendship are hard to come by.
Marcel won both of those, in spades.
We even have a running joke that he liked Marcel more than he liked me. It was said in good humor, but, like every joke, it was peppered by the truth.
He and my husband have much more in common than we ever had. What started off as a distant relationship between in-laws, has blossomed into a real friendship. One that I have never interfered with, even when I wanted to. I wasn’t in any sort of danger, and there was nothing about the image we portrayed to the world about our family that I wanted to change. So, I’ve kept my own counsel about the things that were going on behind closed doors.
When I only had my suspicions about Marcel being the one to have stolen that picture, he dismissed it outright.
Marcel had sent that email to everyone in my family and in our close circle of friends. He’s played the cuckolded, devastated husband perfectly.
Remi was only humoring me when he sent
his firm’s new private investigator, Dina, to follow my lead. He didn’t expect to find anything behind that mirror in my room that Marcel kept glancing at.
Who would want to believe their friends capable of the kind of subterfuge and deception I was accusing Marcel of? It even took me a while to put it together.
Last week, when Marcel offered me this meeting, things were very different. According to the terms of our prenup, he was awarded temporary, full custody of our children, pending our divorce and a formal custody agreement.
I didn’t fight him because I wanted to spare my children any more drama and publicity. I was desperate, heartsick, and humiliated.
