CHAPTER FOURTEEN
MARISSA
MARISSA ENVISIONED A DIFFERENT SORT of evening after the conclusion of their third session with Avery. She thought she and Matthew would enjoy a late meal at home, perhaps dining by candlelight. She’d purchased fresh salmon fillets and sweet potatoes, something she could assemble quickly while they sipped a glass of wine.
But Matthew had said he needed to return to the office for a couple of hours. So after paying Hallie and putting Bennett to bed, Marissa ate leftover spaghetti at the kitchen island.
She finishes wiping down the counters and turning on the dishwasher as rain begins to patter down softly in the night. Marissa cracks open the window above the sink; her skin feels dry, and she welcomes in the natural humidity.
She pours another two inches of red wine into her glass, then dims the lights and walks into the living room. Matthew won’t be home for another hour or so. He’d called to say good night to Bennett and had told Marissa that he wanted to have breakfast as a family in the morning. I love you, Marissa had told him.
Sending you a hundred kisses, Matthew had replied just before he’d hung up.
She’d cringed, grateful he couldn’t see her face.
Those words were the precise ones her husband had uttered on the phone on that other night, when he’d been in New York on business—just a few hours before she acted so recklessly, so thoughtlessly, so hurtfully, that she imperiled her marriage.
Marissa steps into the family room and places one hand on the back of the light gray sectional sofa.
She lifts up her wineglass, then tips it, splattering the dark liquid onto the middle cushion. She watches as the last drops slide out of her glass and join the widening puddle.
It looks like a bloodstain.
She walks unhurriedly back to the kitchen, grabbing a wad of paper towels, and after giving the stain a moment to set, she dabs at it.
The replacement couch—the one she ordered the morning after Avery conducted a session in this room—won’t arrive for another week.
Tomorrow she’ll show the ruined cushion to Matthew, lamenting that they won’t even be able to donate it to Goodwill.
There are downsides to this plan. Matthew might be annoyed by her carelessness. He’s the one who insists they only serve white wine and champagne for their indoor parties. Plus, she feels guilty about ruining a practically new piece of furniture, but Matthew would certainly question her if she said she simply wanted to redecorate.
It will be an enormous relief to have this sofa gone. She imagines the heavy-trash-receptacle collectors hoisting it up and feeding it into the crushing jaws on the back of the machine; the wood and metal frame splintering and the cushions collapsing.
Erasing the physical link to that night, but not her traitorous memories of the illicit hours she’d spent on it with the man she’d invited into their home.
You are even more beautiful now than you were as a teenager, he’d said, holding her eyes above the rim of his wineglass as he’d taken a sip.
Those words had sent a charge through Marissa; they’d filled a space inside her that she hadn’t even recognized as being empty.
Stop! Marissa had laughed, leaning her head back on the sofa. She was in faded jeans and an old, oversize sweater, clothes she’d worn to Bennett’s Cub Scout meeting that night. Her hair was up in a twist, and the light makeup she’d applied that morning had probably worn off. She hadn’t planned to have anyone over that evening. Bennett was asleep upstairs. Matthew was in New York, and she’d had a long day.
It’s true, he’d said, flushing slightly as he fiddled with the slim woven white rope Bennett had been given by the scoutmaster to practice his square knots.
More wine? She’d leaned over for the bottle on the coffee table and topped off his glass.
They’d been talking for nearly an hour, and the bottle he’d brought was nearly empty.
He reached out with his strong fingers and ran one over the faint scar on the back of her hand, creating an electric path on her skin.
She’d suppressed a shiver.
I remember when you got this, he said.
She hadn’t been touched that tenderly in so long.
He spoke her name softly, like a gentle invitation. His expression was filled with longing.
An invisible force seemed to pull them toward each other.
Just before their lips met, she closed her eyes.
* * *
It was breathtakingly intimate and passionate, Marissa thinks now as she stares down on the scar on her hand. And she’d never regretted anything so much in her life.
Marissa walks away from the ruined couch, toward the built-in bookshelves. She stands in the precise spot Avery had and also extends her hand to grasp a photo. Not the one of her and Matthew as teenagers on the dock, though.
Marissa chooses the one next to it. Her wedding photo.
She pulls the silver-framed image close as her eyes skim over the faces of her mom and dad; her brother, Luke; and Matthew’s parents and sister, Kiki. Her two bridesmaids and Matthew’s matching groomsmen flank the family members.
Marissa’s eyes fix on one man in the photograph, the guy with the broad shoulders and hazel eyes. He was always around, casting fishing lines off the long wooden pier, tossing a beer to Matthew at bonfires, game for any water activity, and pulling a first-aid kit out of his Jeep to bandage up the back of Marissa’s hand when she sliced it on an oyster shell by the water’s edge.
There was never a man from the gym.
This is the secret she still keeps: the man in the wedding photograph is the person with whom Marissa betrayed her husband.
PART
TWO
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
AVERY
JUST A MAN I MET at the gym, Marissa had said during our first session.
It’s 9:45 A.M. right now, the time of day Marissa usually departs Pinnacle Studio and heads to Coco to open the store. I arrived early for Pilates and have been lingering on a mat, stretching, since the class let out. Pinnacle is quiet; the prework rush is over. A few guys lift barbells in the weight room, and another is tearing up the treadmill. The friendly manager, who came over to introduce himself yesterday when I was bending over the water fountain to get a drink, is in his office chatting on the phone.
They all seemed like possibilities at first. But nothing is clicking.
The manager told me his husband taught a HIIT class that I had to try. The weight room guys—who barely look thirty—seem hyperfocused on their routines. And the runner doesn’t even shift his gaze when an attractive woman in a crop top and leggings saunters by in front of his treadmill.
It’s more than that, though. I’ve gotten to know Marissa, and my gut tells me she isn’t the kind of woman to have a one-night stand with a mere acquaintance.
I’ll bet anything she’s still holding a big secret or two.
I hurry into the locker room and shrug on my light jacket—the first hint of spring is in the air, which I was especially grateful for on my early-morning walk with Romeo—then wave goodbye to the front-desk clerk (a college-age guy with a tattooed neck; Marissa would never go there) and push through the door, scanning my surroundings as I head back to my car.
As I pull into a parking spot across the street from Coco, I imagine I am Marissa Bishop: I’ve risen with the sun to make breakfast for my family in our luxurious kitchen. I’ve exercised and showered, and now I’m dressed for the day—let’s say in a casually chic pair of dark-rinse jeans, suede ankle boots, and a fitted blazer. I’m about to enter my charming boutique—my favorite creation, after my son—where I’ll chat with customers and select new inventory from vendors around the world. I’ll likely run out to pick up a salad for lunch, and during slow moments I’ll catch up on paperwork.