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“You’ll go home,” Terri said. “If I’d had a dad as cool as Hank, I would have gone home in an instant. ”
Home. It struck her for the first time that the word was as fragile as bone china. “Home is with Blake. ”
“Ah, Annie. ” Terri sighed, squeezing her hand. “Not anymore. ”
Two days later, he called.
His voice was the sweetest sound she’d ever heard. “Blake . . . ”
“I need to see you. ”
She swallowed hard, felt the sudden sting of tears. Thank you, God. I knew he’d come back. “Now?”
“No. My schedule’s kind of tight this morning. As soon as I can break free. ”
For the first time in days, Annie could breathe.
When Blake stared at the soaring white angles of the house, he felt an unexpected pang of loss. It was so beautiful, this home of theirs, so stunningly contemporary. A real showpiece on a street where teardowns routinely cost five million dollars and nothing was too expensive.
Annie had conceived, created, and designed this place. She’d taken the view—sea and sand and sky—and translated it into a home that seemed to have grown out of the hillside. She’d chosen every tile, every fixture; all through the house were incongruous little items of whimsy—an angel here, a gargoyle there, a ratty old macrame plant hanger in the corner of a room with thousand-dollar-a-square-foot wooden paneling, a family photo in a homemade shell frame. There was no place inside that didn’t reflect her bubbling, slightly off-center personality.
He tried to remember what it had felt like to love her, but he couldn’t anymore.
He’d been sleeping with other women for ten years, seducing them and bedding them and forgetting them. He’d traveled with them, spent the night with them, and through it all, Annie had been at home, baking recipes from Gourmet magazine and picking out paint chips and tile samples and driving Natalie to and from school. He’d thought sooner or later she’d notice that he’d fallen out of love with her, but she was so damn trusting. She always believed the best of everyone, and when she loved, it was body and soul, forever.
He sighed, suddenly feeling tired. It was turning forty that had changed his outlook, made him realize that he didn’t want to be locked in a loveless marriage anymore.
Before the gray had moved its ugly fingers into his hair and lines had settled beneath his blue eyes, he thought he had it all—a glamorous career, a beautiful wife, a loving daughter, and all the freedom he needed.
He traveled with his college buddies twice a year, went on fishing trips to remote islands with pretty beaches and prettier women; he played basketball two nights a week and closed the local bar down on Friday nights. Unlike most of his friends, he’d always had a wife who understood, who stayed at home. The perfect wife and mother— everything that he thought he wanted.
Then he met Suzannah. What had begun as just another sexual conquest rolled into the most unexpected thing of all: love.
For the first time in years, he felt young and alive. They made love everywhere, all times of the day and night. Suzannah never cared what the neighbors thought or worried about a sleeping child in the next room. She was wild and unpredictable, and she was smart—unlike Annie, who thought the PTA was as vital to world order as the EEC.
He walked slowly down to the front door. Before he could even reach for the bell, the hand-carved rosewood door opened.
She stood in the doorway, her hands clasped nervously at her waist. A creamy silk dress clung to her body, and he couldn’t help noticing that she’d lost weight in the past few days—and God knew she couldn’t afford it.
Her small, heart-shaped face was pale, alarmingly so, and her eyes, usually as bright and green as shamrocks, were dull and bloodshot. She’d pulled her long hair into a tight ponytail that accentuated the sharp lines of her cheekbones and made her lips look swollen. Her earrings didn’t match; she was wearing one diamond and one pearl, and somehow that little incongruity brought home the stinging pain of his betrayal.
“Blake . . . ” He heard the thin lilt of hope in her voice, and realized suddenly what she must have thought when he called this morning.
Shit. How could he have been so stupid?
She backed away from the door, smoothing a nonexistent wrinkle from her dress. “Come in, come in. You . . . ” She looked away quickly, but not before he saw her bite down on her lower lip—the nervous habit she’d had since she was young. He thought she was going to say something, but at the last minute she turned and led the way down the hallway and out onto the huge, multitiered deck that overlooked the Colony’s quiet patch of Malibu beach.
Christ, he wished he hadn’t come. He didn’t need to see her pain in sharp relief, in the way she kept smoothing her dress and jabbing at her hair.
She crossed to the table, where a pitcher of lemonade— his favorite—and two crystal glasses sat on an elegant silver tray. “Natalie’s settling in well. I’ve only talked to her once—and I was going to call again, but . . . well . . . it’s been hard. I thought she might hear something in my voice. And, of course, she’ll ask for you. Maybe later . . . while you’re here . . . we could call again. ”
“I shouldn’t have come. ” He said it more sharply than he intended, but he couldn’t stand to hear the tremor in her voice anymore.
Her hand jerked. Lemonade splashed over the rim of the glass and puddled on the gray stone table. She didn’t turn to him, and he was glad. He didn’t want to see her face.
“Why did you?”
Something in her voice—resignation, maybe, or pain— caught him off guard. Tears burned behind his eyes; he couldn’t believe this was hurting. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the interim settlement papers he’d drafted. Wordlessly, he leaned over her shoulder and dropped them on the table. An edge of the envelope landed in the spilled lemonade. A dark, bubbling splotch began to form.
