Chapter 12
The flight to New York from Paris seemed to take forever, longer than usual. Olivia wanted to get there now, and see Paul. They had much to talk about and she had a lot to say. They had texted frequently while she was in Paris, but she had been with Jean-Pierre most of the time. And Paul was drowning in kids.
He knew she was arriving that afternoon, and had arranged for Tina to stay with the children that night. Olivia had promised to let him know once she got to her apartment. She wasn’t sure she wanted to meet him there now.
When they finally landed, she got her luggage and had nothing to declare as she went through customs. She had arranged for a car and driver to pick her up. She went straight home and called Paul. He picked it up immediately, and had been waiting to hear from her. He sounded excited, and her heart sank a little. She wondered if she would feel differently when she saw him. She hoped not. She had been sure ever since she’d seen Eileen and talked to her. It probably never would have happened if she’d known her since the beginning. She was no longer a faceless entity. She was a person, a woman, a mother, his wife. Olivia knew that she couldn’t have gone on with it now. Her mother was right. It was a huge responsibility destroying someone’s marriage. And maybe it wasn’t too late for them after all.
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” Paul said and hung up. She washed her face and combed her hair and he arrived minutes later. He was beaming when he saw her for the first time in two weeks. She looked stern, and a chill ran down his spine.
“Do you want a drink?” she asked him.
“Will I need one?” She looked as though she did.
“I have a lot to tell you.” He hadn’t kissed her yet. He wanted to. But he sensed that she was keeping her distance, and he wasn’t sure why. She couldn’t have fallen in love with someone else in two weeks, so he knew it wasn’t that.
She sat down in the living room, and he sat in a chair facing her.
“A lot has happened since I left, mostly with my business. I’ve formed an alliance with an art dealer in Paris. The man I met with here before I left. We’re going to open a Paris branch, and maybe one in London next year. I need to spend a lot of time in Paris for the next few months, probably through June, so I’m not going to be here much.” He looked disappointed as soon as she said it. “But I want to make my business grow, and this is the right way to do it.” He nodded. She left no room for argument or discussion. She had obviously made the decision, and was telling him. “I’ll probably be gone most of the next few months.
“I made a decision when I was in Paris, or maybe before that, Paul. I don’t want a life with someone else’s children. I don’t even want my own right now. It’s too much for me. I feel too young to take that on. I hate saying this to you. But your children don’t want me, and the truth is I don’t want them either. I can’t do it. I’m not grown up enough. It terrifies me, and you don’t seem to have much room for me in your life, only them, and maybe their mother. I don’t want to be their mother.” He felt what she said like a physical blow and she could see it. This time he argued with her. He couldn’t about her business, but he could about this, or thought he could.
“You can’t give up now, Olivia. Their mother will be back next week. Once she’s back, I’m off the hook again, and we can go back to what we had between October and December.”
“Until a problem comes up, or one of them gets sick, or Pennie gets pregnant again. All we had were stolen moments last summer too, when you were out of your head about her, understandably. I would have been too, if she were my daughter. But she isn’t. I just don’t want the responsibility for someone else’s children, and the time they take out of your life, our life. They’re a full-time job, but it’s not a job I want. I didn’t have them, and I don’t want to bring them up or worry about them, or share you with them.” It was as honest as she could be. “I compete with them for your time, and your love. That’s not what I want, or who I am at this point in my life. Maybe I’m too selfish to have children. But I know I don’t want to deal with someone else’s. I’m not ready for that in my life.” He couldn’t really argue with that either. She was very sure.
“I left my wife for you, Olivia, and my family, my children,” he said. “I walked out on them for you. You can’t leave me now. It’s not fair or right. I threw it all away for you, and now you’re telling me that you don’t want my kids in your life.”
“I don’t want anyone’s kids in my life, except my own. And I’m not ready for them yet either, as I just told you. If I got pregnant, I’d have an abortion. That’s why I take the pill. And what you’re saying isn’t entirely true. You told me that your marriage was dead and had been for years, that it was over, finished, you both knew it, and you were a free man. You lied to me and yourself about it. Your marriage wasn’t over. It still isn’t. It’s not over for you or your kids. Your children want their mother back, and maybe you do too. You’ve been sleeping with me for ten months, you left your wife five months ago, and you haven’t even called a lawyer yet to file a divorce. You’re not sure, and I know it. And so do you. You risked your marriage with me, but you didn’t throw it away. You were bored and maybe you weren’t in love with her, but you haven’t thrown anything away for me.
“Now you’re up to your neck in Greenwich again. You’ve moved back in, and who knows what you’re going to do. I think you killed it for me when you moved back in three months ago. I’ve hardly seen you since. And what if you have to move back in again? You still have one foot firmly planted in your marriage. You walked out the door, but then you walked back in. I think you lost me then.”
“I had no other choice. I’ll be out again in a week or two. Can’t you wait till then before you drop-kick me out the door and give up on me?” He was pleading with her since guilt hadn’t worked. And most of what she said was true. He couldn’t argue with how she felt about it.
“I don’t even know if you’ll ever get divorced. You haven’t started it yet.”
“I will. I promise.”
“But you didn’t, and still haven’t. You could be divorced by now and you haven’t even started or seen a lawyer.”
“I went back to the house to help Eileen out, so she could go to school in Paris. I felt like I owed it to her, we both did, because I cheated on her and then I left her.”
“That’s between the two of you,” Olivia said coldly. She didn’t think it handsome of him to try and blame her.
“You were part of it,” he accused her with a mean look in his eyes.
“Yes, I was, and I shouldn’t have been. We did something wrong, and we both know it. I would never do it again. I met her in Paris,” Olivia said quietly.