I looked for the truth in her eyes, but all that gray hid the truth. After so much tragedy, I couldn’t see what was right in front of me. Grief and pain left me blind to everything I thought I knew. Ronin was right. Relationships could be perfect, or they could be forever, but they couldn’t be both.
“I would never share this with Graham. I never told my mom. And I’m only telling you because I trust you with my life.”
Lila nodded slowly. The unspoken reminder of her loose tongue at my fortieth birthday party passed between us. I saw it on her face, that flinch of regret, and I hoped she saw the sincere forgiveness in my eyes.
“The accident Ronin had when he was a child, the electrocution?”
She nodded. We’d spoken of it only briefly.
“He had a near-death experience …”
I proceeded to tell her everything—the trips to the hospital, the inability of doctors to figure it out, his visit with a parapsychologist, even the opioid addiction.
She gasped, flinched, reached for my hand, and cried. I reassured her nothing was her fault. Everything was an accident. A very misfortunate string of circumstances.
“You believe him?” she asked. Her blank stare fixed on the partially eaten plate of food in front of her.
I poked with a fork at the remnants on my own plate. “Yes. He just … he knew too much about your pain. But then …” I shook my head.
“Then what?”
Setting my fork aside, I dabbed my mouth with the white cloth napkin. “Over the weekend, he went for a hike and this feeling of being strangled stopped him in his tracks. He thought he was dying. I think he even started to black out. I’m not entirely sure. But then it stopped. He tried calling you. Did you know that?”
Lila pulled up her sleeve and glanced at her watch. “I’m so sorry.” Her voice shook a bit—or so I thought. Again, another shade of gray I couldn’t decipher. “I’m out of time. I have to leave in a few minutes to get to the meeting. Can I walk you out?”
I twisted my wrist to check the time. “Shit. I’m sorry.” We had talked for over two hours. “I need to head back home too. Sue has a class tonight. She teaches painting at one of those wine and art places groups of friends drink and paint.” I stood as Lila stood. “Thank you. I can’t even begin to tell you how badly I needed to share all of this with you. I just hope you know it’s not your fault in any way, and Ronin is fine.”
Well, he was sort of fine. I hadn’t totally wrapped my head around the strangling sensation he had over the weekend. Adrianne Craig distracted me from that. I didn’t tell Lila about Adrianne. Too much truth for one day.
“Thank you for opening up to me.” She hugged me. “I really wish you would have told me this a long time ago.”
“You know why I didn’t.” I stepped back, taking both of her hands and giving them a firm squeeze.
She returned a sad smile and several tiny nods.
“Let’s do a couples’ thing sometime. I’m anxious to put all of this behind us.” That was true. I was also anxious to see how Graham and Lila interacted. It had been a while since I’d seen them together. I also needed Lila to prove to me that she could keep everything I told her a secret.
“A couples’ thing.” Her lips pulled into a firm smile as she gave the tails to her scarf a little tug to tighten the knot. “I’ll mention it to Graham when he gets home.”
“Will he be gone long?” I asked, making my way to the foyer.
“No. Actually, he returns tonight. It was just a one-day trip.”
“Perfect. Let me know what he says.” I opened the door. “Love you, Lila.”
“I love you too.” She stepped just outside the door and watched me until I got into my Jeep. Then she lifted her hand in a tiny wave before I pulled out of the circle drive toward the gated entrance to the estate.
I felt like the world had been lifted from my shoulders … or at least five of the continents and an ocean or two.
Lila
Ten seconds after Evelyn headed back to Aspen, a car picked me up to take me to my afternoon meeting. Following the meeting, the car returned me to the Porter estate, where I shared one of three sprawling mansions on the million acres of land. It felt like a million acres. A million acres of freedom that turned into a million acres of prison.
What happened to my life? My marriage? My husband? As much as I loved Graham, I hated our new life and the duties it bestowed upon us. I hated Governor Porter, but I still loved the man who swept me off my feet. In spite of everything, I found myself searching for the tiniest of reasons to excuse his behavior—his cold demeanor that he blamed on the stress of the job mixed with the expectations of his family.
Some days I felt the pressure of the vise wrapped around his life. Those were the easy days, the days I bent over backward to please him … to make his life a little easier. Other days … well, I didn’t even know that man who wore the platinum band I slid onto his finger five years earlier. Life changed us. It weathered us. It tested our resilience and our humanity.
I was due for my annual physical, but I couldn’t go. Not yet. Instead, I settled into my oversized leather chair in the corner of the bedroom—my bedroom—and opened my laptop in search of explanations.
Conditions that cause bruising.
Unexplained bruising.
Blood disorders.
Clotting disorders.
I searched and searched until I found the only logical answer. Tears filled my eyes. I hoped I would never have to tell Evelyn, but I knew I might. So I had to be prepared, armed with knowledge and the ability to give her hope that I would be okay.
“I have leukemia,” I whispered to myself, wiping away my tears. Then I proceeded to learn all I could about this cancer, a cancer that was rarer in forty-somethings, but not impossible.
Easy bleeding.
Bruising.
Weight loss.
Persistent fatigue.
Fever and chills.
“You’re not ready for bed.”
I jumped, shutting my computer, and glanced up at Graham paused at the threshold to my room, loosening his red tie. He always looked handsome in a suit and that red tie I gave him for his birthday. I didn’t expect to see him. My assistant said he was at the Governor’s Mansion. I rarely stayed there, but he used it as an occasional “getaway.” Probably from me. So when she told me he was there, I made the assumption (actually hoped) he’d decided to stay the night and get some work done.
“It’s not even seven.” I tucked my bare feet beneath me, still wearing my navy skirt suit and silk scarf—my long hair in loose curls down my back and around my shoulders just like Graham liked it.
He took calculated steps toward me, completely untying his tie, letting it drop to the floor before working the buttons to his starchy white shirt. I tried to forget my internet search, not that it mattered because I couldn’t hide anything from my husband. He elicited a warring of emotions from me. An icy tingle slithered along my spine, making every muscle rigid, while the warmth in my heart fed on the way my pulse reacted to his proximity, the way it always had done. That never changed. It was how I knew we weren’t broken.
“Did you miss me?” He smirked, shrugging off his shirt, revealing his defined torso—abs for days beneath a thin smattering of dark hair on his chest.