Revenge Read online

  I’d said I was no longer her sir, and I wasn’t, but I also was and always would be.

  Which meant I could have denied her the private conversation, and we would go on with our lives, the words that needed to be said between us remaining unspoken. It was my call. She’d made as big of an effort as she would, stopping by Accelecom like she did. Everything that happened next was up to me.

  It was tempting to let it go and move on. For Celia more than anyone else.

  But to move on, I needed there not to be anything between us anymore.

  And so I suggested a walk through the garden.

  “This reminds me of the hedge garden at Brayhill,” she said as we entered through the arch. The garden here wasn’t very big, a little more than fifty square meters enclosed with hedges that reached eight meters high. More hedges divided the space into rows, but it wasn’t a maze. There were a couple of resting spots with benches, a fountain along the back stretch, and an array of florals, most of which I couldn’t identify if I wanted to.

  The garden she referred to at Brayhill, the country home I’d owned when we’d been married, had been much larger, a thousand square meters in size or more, and it had very much been a labyrinth. The kind that made old English country houses charming but also a lot of work to maintain.

  I supposed this garden was similar since both were enclosed by hedges, but their functions were completely different. “You can’t get lost here.”

  “That’s a plus, if you ask me. Do you know how much time I spent chasing after Hagan there?”

  Her statement felt pointed. I didn’t know how much she’d chased Hagan there, mainly because I’d rarely gone on family weekends to Brayhill, and, when I had, I’d spent most of the time in my office. I missed out on a lot, too busy with my work.

  But Marion wasn’t the kind to make passive-aggressive remarks. Or aggressive remarks, for that matter. If she judged me for that, she’d keep it to herself.

  “I’m pretty sure he would have made you chase him with or without the garden. But I see how it would be harder to find him in the maze. I liked it for that very reason. It was a good spot to wander.” Particularly in the early morning, when the house was still asleep and the fog settled on the land. More than a handful of problems were sorted on those walks.

  She looked up from the plant she’d been admiring, one she could likely name. “Why did you sell?”

  “After Frank…” I trailed off, not sure what I’d meant to say. It wasn’t necessary, anyway. She knew where that sentence went, that his death would have been etched into the environment of that house as firmly as the initials the kids had drawn into the cement at the end of the driveway. “Camilla would never have visited again. Honestly, I’m not sure I could have either.”

  She moved on along the path. “It seems fitting that it’s gone.”

  “Yes. Selling it marked the end of…” Again I found myself at a loss for words. I let out a breath. “A lot of things.” It had been the end of Marion and me, too, in many ways. Except for the island, which had always been more my place than ours, the sale of Brayhill had removed the last property that we’d made memories in together from my life. There was a melancholiness about that.

  But it had also been the end of Camilla and Frank. And the feeling surrounding that was much different.

  Marion pursed her lips and nodded, understanding more than almost anyone else could.

  We came to an opening in the hedges, a sort of window where the plants had been trimmed back. There was one on each side of the garden. This one had a view of the back of the house.

  She paused there to look out over the party. I followed her gaze and landed on Genevieve who was still in the spot we’d left her in.

  “We did well with that one,” Marion said. “Somehow. Despite everything. You did well with her.”

  I appreciated that she recognized her absence from our children’s lives. But she was wrong to give me any credit. Marion hadn’t left until Genevieve was twelve. I’d been aloof long before that. Neither of us had been there as we should have been. “She did it all on her own, I think.”

  Marion made a sound of disagreement, a two-syllable rumble in the back of her throat. “She’s you, Edward. You should be proud.”

  “Oh, I am. Whether I deserve to be or not.” My stare glided from my daughter to Celia, who had joined the circle along with Camilla sometime after we’d left. It was odd to think that my wife was as close to Genny’s age as she was to mine, and I wondered if that was why she’d leaned into a more friendly role with my children than parental. Or maybe that was simply because they’d already been grown and out of the house by the time she’d moved in.

  What kind of mother would she be? Attentive and regimented like Marion had been before she’d disappeared, or something else altogether?

  It startled me to realize that I wanted to know.

  “Is it real?” Marion asked, seeing who I was focused on.

  “Yes. It wasn’t at first, but that changed.” It had to be confusing for her to see me with a Werner when Warren had been my enemy the entire time I’d known her. It didn’t make me feel the need to disclose any more than that, though. It wasn’t her business, and Celia was mine. I didn’t want to share her with anyone, especially with Marion.

  “It seemed as much.” Marion turned away from the window to continue along the path. “The way you look at her. The way she defers to you.”

  I laughed. “She’s not really very submissive.”

  “She is. I see it. But she makes you work for it.”

  “She does.” There was something quite satisfying about my ex realizing that I loved someone other than her. That another woman fit my preferences in a way she never could. I supposed it was like that for most people who had once been part of a couple, but it was particularly delicious in my case, after the way that Marion had left. It was karma. Or, at least, things had come full circle.

  And if things had come full circle...did that mean we were finally done with each other?

  It was almost too much to believe. The chains binding me to her had been there so long, I’d become used to their weight. What would it feel like to have them gone?

  I spun toward her, suddenly needing answers. “Why did you come to the office yesterday?”

  Her cheeks flushed, her eyes cast down. “I don’t know.”

  “Were you hoping something would happen?”

  Her shoulders rose and fell with her breath.

  “Look at me, Marion.” I used the tone she’d never been able to ignore, and, as I predicted, she looked up. “What were you hoping would happen between us?”

  “I didn’t think that far ahead, uh, Edward. I was anxious about how it would be with you, and I wanted it dealt with before all this.” She swallowed. “I love Renato. You know that.”

  I took a step back, needing distance. The fact that she needed to clarify her feelings meant she’d considered the possibilities.

  It made me unreasonably angry. I wouldn’t have touched her, I wouldn’t have wanted to, but she had to stop this. She had to stop being available for me. She had to take responsibility for her actions instead of always leaving them to someone else’s whim.

  She loves Renato.

  Bullshit if she thought that meant anything. “Your feelings didn’t stop you last time.”

  “That’s not fair. You needed me, and I don’t know how not to respond to that.”

  “I took advantage.”

  “I don’t blame you.”

  “You should.” I fisted a hand at my hip and walked in a circle, memories of the night four years ago unwittingly filling my mind. I’d been a wreck, holding it together as best as I could for my sister’s sake. Then Marion had called to check on Camilla, but I’d been the one to answer, and instead of passing on the phone, I’d latched onto the familiar source of comfort.

  “I need you,” I’d said.

  And she’d come.

  She shouldn’t have. She had a hu
sband and a family, and she shouldn’t have come running, but that was what Marion did, and I knew better. I was the one who should never have asked.

  That had always been our problem, though, hadn’t it? I never knew the limits, and she never made me find them.

  “The circumstances around Frank’s death were difficult,” she said, stupidly defending me. “You needed someone to take that out on. Who else could you have turned to?”

  No one. There had been no one who knew the truth about Frank except for Camilla, and she certainly wasn’t someone I could have leaned on.

  It didn’t change the fact that I’d made a mistake. My weakness didn’t excuse anything.

  “I told Renato after the fact,” she added after a beat.

  That shouldn’t have been surprising. “And he was okay with it?”

  “He wasn’t exactly. But we sorted it out.”

  I could imagine just how they sorted it out. She likely hadn’t been able to sit comfortably for a week.

  That wouldn’t have been enough for me. If my wife had cheated…

  I was such an idiot. “I was about to say I wouldn’t have been so understanding, but I suppose we both know that’s not true.”

  She and I and Renato...it was a fucked-up situation all around.

  And it wasn’t my problem anymore. She wasn’t my problem anymore. She was his. And that was exactly how it should be.

  With that realization, my anger dissipated. “Anyway. I was grateful. But it won’t happen again.”

  “I know. You have her now, and you’ve always been faithful, at least as far as women go.”

  Then it was settled. We were over, and she understood.

  I shoved my hands in my pockets and started leading us back toward the exit, thinking about her last words as we walked. She was right that I would always be faithful to my wife. But, even if I didn’t have Celia, I wanted to say that I wouldn’t let Marion and me happen again. The truth was, I didn’t know that for sure. Because I couldn’t imagine myself without Celia anymore. Whoever I’d be without her would be too unrecognizable for me to attach certainties to.

  Celia. My little bird.

  There were things I should tell her, things about Marion and Frank, things I wanted her to know. But how could I let her know those parts of me and still expect her to stay?

  Marion hadn’t stayed.

  That was a piss-ant excuse, and I knew it. The reason Marion had left had nothing to do with who I was and very much to do with who I wasn’t.

  It was time I faced that once and for all.

  I stopped abruptly and faced my ex. “When you left, I never asked why.”

  “Are you asking me now?” She straightened her spine, girding herself for an uncomfortable exchange.

  “I’m not. I know why. I didn’t want to admit it for a very long time, but I know.”

  “Thank you for telling me,” she said, and even if there was some chance I was wrong and my reason differed from hers, it didn’t matter. The point was that I’d accepted it, and that she knew.

  I thought that would be the end of it, but just as I started to walk on, she asked, “Will things change with that understanding?”

  “Between us?”

  “Between you and her.”

  That was a question I didn’t have an answer for. On the one hand, Celia wasn’t Marion. Our problems would never look like the problems that had broken up my first marriage. On the other hand, I understood the things that might come up between us, I understood the traits of my personality that were divisive, and I understood that understanding did not necessarily equate change.

  “Do you care?” I asked, finding deflection easier.

  “I want you to be happy,” she said, and the rawness of her voice as she said it made me believe it was true.

  It occurred to me that I wanted that for her too. I’d wished misery on her for a long time after she left. I didn’t know when that had changed.

  “Are you happy?” I asked now.

  “I am. There are things I regret losing—Hagan and Genevieve, to be specific.”

  “You could still win them back if you decided to try.”

  “Maybe.” She focused somewhere in the distance and sighed. “Or maybe things are best as they are. Because I am happy.”

  I was surprised to realize I envied that.

  Not that I wasn’t happy—I was, for the most part. But I was well aware that the rage that drove my desires for vengeance were toxic. They were iron, according to Camilla. It tainted every other emotion I had. It shaped all my relationships. It prevented the ruby from forming.

  I understood that.

  Understanding didn’t mean I could change.

  It was better with Celia, though. The fury inside me was reshaping, and, for the first time in my life, here with Marion, I felt closure without having to first destroy her.

  And so when Celia’s incensed gaze pinned me coming out of the garden with Marion, I smiled. She was jealous, and I’d have to do some explaining, but she loved me, and it was the closest to pure happiness I’d ever felt.

  Nineteen

  Celia

  After the party had ended and everyone, including the caterers and the clean-up crew, had finally left, I filled two glasses with cognac and took them with me to the solarium.

  Edward had offered to help Iba to her car, her arms full of leftover food that would go to waste at the house since we were leaving the next day. I hadn’t told him where I would be waiting when he got back, but I was confident he’d find me.

  Inside the windowed room, I set one of the glasses on a table next to the loveseat then dimmed the overhead before taking the other glass to the armchair across from it. The string of lights that had been put up outside for the party were still lit, creating a romantic mood. Not exactly what I was going for, but it would do. In my experience, the darker setting made confessions easier.

  I stretched my neck, easing the knots there as I looked out over the yard. The day had been busy and full, and the party had been, by all accounts, successful, but I’d spent the entire time preoccupied with Edward. Even when entertaining strangers or running around trying to find Iba to tell her we were out of toilet paper, I’d been aware of my husband. He was a magnetic force, always pulling my thoughts and my body in his direction. Like gravity holding me in his orbit.

  I’d never felt that way about anyone before. Not just that in love but also that attached. I was still reeling from the newness of it, eighteen months after we’d wed.

  I was also still adjusting to the way he affected me. How he’d brought me peace yet could stir up levels of jealousy within me that I’d never thought possible. His trip to the garden with Marion was innocent—it had to be considering the way he grinned at me when he’d returned. The devil himself wouldn’t flaunt his discretions so openly.

  Would he?

  No. I couldn’t believe he would. But innocent as his visit with her may have been, there was still a divide between us where his ex-wife was concerned. As near as he drew me, as forceful as his pull was, I could never close that final gap, and I was sure it was because of her. They were over, their relationship was done, but whatever had happened between them still mattered. She’d left him feeling so defenseless that he seemed to think he had to protect himself, had to shut part of himself off. Had she broken him so severely that he couldn’t bear to love that hard again?

  Or had he withheld those parts of his heart because they couldn’t belong to me when they still belonged to her?

  “I’d expected you’d already have gone up to bed.”

  My head jerked up to find him standing in the doorway. “I thought we’d sit a while first.” I nodded toward the loveseat. “I got you a drink.”

  His smile was bright but suspicious as he sat down where I’d indicated. “How attentive, and after everything you’ve already done today.” He took a swallow of his brandy and stared at me, his gaze hot and inviting. “Might be nicer if you weren’t so far away.”<
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  It would have been a lie to say I wasn’t tempted. We’d only spent one evening apart, but it felt like weeks since I’d been in his arms. Been underneath him.

  But it was past time for this to be addressed. “I had something else in mind, actually.”

  “Oh? Do tell.”

  I cleared my throat. “This is how this will work,” I said, trying my best to mimic the words he’d once told me. “We will sit here, and, when you’re ready, you will tell me about Marion, why she left you. It won’t be pleasant, as I’m sure it affected you deeply. You will tell me everything relevant surrounding your breakup. I may ask questions. I’ll expect answers. And all of it, every single word, will be true.”

  “Are you trying to lead a session?” He tried to glower at me, but I could tell he was fighting off a laugh.

  “I am leading a session.”

  This time he did laugh. “You’re cute when you think you can play my part.”

  “You’re charming when you’re patronizing. It won’t work. I’m committed.”

  He narrowed his eyes and sat back against the cushion, considering. Calculating. “What if I’m not interested in participating?”

  “I wasn’t interested either when these began, and look at us now.”

  “I didn’t leave you much choice. You had to comply.”

  “Believe me when I say I’m not leaving you much choice either.” I wasn’t exactly sure what my threat was, because there had to be a threat if the statement was to hold any weight. If he asked I’d have to be ready to say the worst. Ready to do the worst. And, as important as this was to me, I wasn’t sure that I was ready to go that far.

  Thankfully, just the hint was enough.

  “Ballsy,” he said, swirling the contents of his glass.

  “I learned from the best.”

  He brought the glass up to his lips and took a decent sized swallow. “I suppose it is time we discuss this. For the record, after the last couple of days, I have realized we should. I just hadn’t expected to dive into it tonight.”