The Consequences (11 page)

Book 2

The Husband's Story

I
was glad Kathy knew, glad that the lies could now end, glad that we could both move on.

But then . . .

I'm not exactly sure what happened. The woman I was sure didn't love me claimed that she did, and the woman who claimed to love me pushed me away . . . as if she didn't want me anymore.

I realized I'd been given a second chance with my wife, a chance to make a new start, a chance to begin again.

But. . .

My relationship with Stephanie had given me a glimpse of how my life could be different.

So different.

CHAPTER 20

Tuesday, 24th December
Christmas Eve

 

 

H
is affair had been discovered.

When he'd stepped into that room and found Kathy standing there, it had taken him a couple of seconds to process exactly what he was seeing. There was no possible way that Kathy should be standing in Stephanie's living room. It was just
wrong
. And yet there they were: his wife and his mistress, standing together with identical expressions on their faces.

The pieces fell together quickly—especially when Kathy stepped forward and hit him across the face. He ran his tongue over the raw, chipped edge of his tooth. In the eighteen years they'd been married, she'd never raised her hand to him. He rubbed the palm of his hand against his jaw; she packed a fairly good punch too!

Kathy knew
.

Initially, he had thought that Stephanie had contacted Kathy. She'd been putting him under increasing pressure of late to make a decision. She wanted him to choose—his wife or his lover. He knew that Christmas was a particularly hard time for her . . . but what Stephanie seemed to forget was that it was an equally difficult time for him. Stephanie wanted him to spend time with her, while he wanted to take the time to be with his children. They grew up so quickly—Brendan was seventeen already, and Theresa was fifteen—who knew how many more Christmases they would want to spend at home? Robert's own parents had separated when he was fourteen, and he remembered that first Christmas after the breakup of their marriage, sitting at home with his mother, a ragged artificial tree in the corner and the fire leaking smoke into the room, a hissing radio playing back-to-back Christmas carols. When his father and three brothers had left a few weeks earlier, his father had taken away the television set, and his mother had been too proud to admit any of this to either her sister or her neighbors. It had been a miserable Christmas—the first of several. But the one feeling that remained with him, the single abiding memory he had of that entire week, was the sense of loss. He missed his father. He was determined that his own children would never experience the same emotion. He was not going to leave his wife at Christmastime. But Stephanie was childless and couldn't understand that.

Robert got into his Audi, pulled out of the driveway, and eased onto the Jamaicaway. His hands were still shaking. He was grateful that the heavy traffic would slightly delay him. He needed time to think, to process what had just happened.

When he'd stepped into that room and discovered Kathy and Stephanie together, he had thought he was going to have a heart attack or throw up. Or both.

But Stephanie hadn't revealed the affair to Kathy; his wife had discovered it for herself. He didn't know how; maybe someone had spotted him out with Stephanie. But he'd always been careful, so careful. When he'd gone out to dinner with Stephanie, they always dined in restaurants in the steadily gentrifying south side of the city, where there was less chance of meeting any of his Brookline neighbors. Or they went to some of the hip new restaurants in the Financial District, where Kathy and her friends would never go. When they stayed away overnight together, it was always in an anonymous little hotel somewhere a few hours away on the coast, Portland, Maine, or the Cape, and Stephanie made and paid for the reservation in her name, so there would be no record on his credit card.

When he'd begun his affair with Stephanie, he'd justified these precautions as a way not only of protecting both of their reputations, but as a way of protecting Kathy. The last thing he wanted to do was to hurt her.

That must be it, he decided: Someone had seen them together and told Kathy. He remembered now the traces of suspicion he'd picked up in her voice recently. He was supposed to have had dinner with his old friend and colleague Jimmy Moran last week, but somehow the reservation at Top of the Hub had never been made. Kathy had quizzed him about it none too subtly. He remembered now that she'd even come into town that night and promised to drop by the restaurant.

She'd been checking up on him!

For how long had she suspected? And what exactly had she found out? Had she seen him with Stephanie? He knew that he acted differently when he was in Stephanie's company; he was more relaxed, more cheerful; he even felt younger. He tried to remember the last time he'd been out with Stephanie. It hadn't been recently. December was such a crazy month, and they'd both been extremely busy. He'd visited her at her condo, but no one really knew him there. Maybe someone in the business had spoken to Kathy? Only last week Jimmy Moran had told him that one of his rivals, Simon Farmer—sniveling little bastard that he was—had been spreading rumors that the only reason R&K Productions had received three major contracts from Flintoff's agency was because Robert was involved with their senior accounts manager, who awarded the contracts. The problem was, the rumor was true. Plus the business Stephanie brought his company had kept it afloat through a very difficult period. Was there any chance that Farmer had contacted Kathy out of spite?

All she would have needed would have been the barest hint to excite her suspicions. Kathy had suspected him of having an affair with Stephanie Burroughs years ago when he had first employed her. He'd never been so shocked, so startled in his life than when Kathy had accused him. The irony, of course, was that it hadn't been true then.

If Kathy's old suspicions had been reignited, then this time she would have found they were fully justified. Once her suspicions had been roused, then she would have been watching him like a hawk, no doubt checking up on his excuses like any suspicious spouse. Also, he had to admit that lately he'd been just a little bit too casual with his lies. In the early days of his affair, he'd concocted elaborate, intricate fictions, based around potential contracts, meetings with possible clients, business seminars—anything that would take him away from home and allow him to spend time with Stephanie. More recently, however, he'd fallen back on those old reliable half-truths: overtime and pressure of work.

Not that it mattered too much anymore. With the affair out in the open, he felt an extraordinary sense of relief. No doubt he would discover how she'd found out when they finally got some time to themselves to talk. He grimaced with the thought; he was not relishing that conversation. He still didn't know how much Kathy knew and was unsure how much to reveal. But he knew he had hurt her enough, and he owed her the courtesy of the truth. If they were to start over, then he had to come clean. He'd tell her everything. Well, almost everything.

Robert crept along as Jamaicaway turned into Riverway, and he turned onto Huntington Avenue heading toward his home.

He'd told Kathy he wanted to come back; he'd told her he wanted to start again. He'd told her that he loved her. And he meant it, all of it. He'd never stopped loving her.

The only problem was that he also loved Stephanie Burroughs.

He made a quick U-turn. There was someone he needed to see before he would be able to talk to Kathy.

CHAPTER 21

M
aureen Ryan was in her mid-sixties, but could easily have passed for fifty. She was a tall, masculine-looking woman, and her sharp features were dominated by almost translucent eyes and a shock of white hair that she wore in a single tight braid that hung to the small of her back. She had manned the front desk of R&K Productions right from the very beginning, and in that time she had come to regard Robert as the son she would never have and Kathy as the daughter she wished she'd had. The moment she opened the door and found Robert standing on the doorstep, Maureen knew that something was amiss.

“This is a surprise,” she said carefully, standing back to allow him to step into the hall.

“I've been promising to come out and see you forever,” he said, “but it's just been so manic.” He gave her a polite hug. “Merry Christmas.”

“I know what December's like; there's no need to apologize.” Maureen had been on sick leave for the past month, and although Robert called at first and subsequently e-mailed her on several occasions—usually to ask questions about contracts and appointments—he'd never gotten around to visiting her.

“I'm sorry for dropping in unannounced.”

“I'm delighted to see you.” Maureen's tone suggested she was anything but delighted. If she'd known he was coming, she would have changed out of the off-white tracksuit that was too misshapen to do her figure any favors and slippers that had seen their best days at least five years ago. “You want some sherry?” she asked, leading him out into the circular conservatory that had been built onto the back of the house.

“I'd love a coffee, please. There are a lot of police cars on the roads, and I don't want to risk getting a DUI.” He looked around the conservatory. “I like what you've done with this.” R&K Productions had been commissioned to shoot a pilot for a reality makeover show a couple of years ago, and they had used Maureen's house for it, adding a conservatory to the rear of the property. Although the show had never sold, the conservatory turned out to be a huge success. “You've put in a new floor,” he said.

“It got so hot in here that the original wood warped and buckled, so I replaced the floor and added the blinds,” she said as she went into the kitchen.

Robert sat down in one of the enormous fan-backed white wicker chairs and breathed in soothing smoke curling from a slender purple candle. He thought it might be lavender. There was a book opened on the circular glass table, and he absently spun it around to read the title; it was a Stephen King book called
On Writing.
Robert thought that was an odd title for a horror novel.

Maureen appeared, carrying a wicker tray that held two bright green, Celtics-themed mugs featuring a cartoon leprechaun spinning a basketball, a tiny milk jug, and a small bowl filled with sugar cubes. Robert stood to take the tray, and Maureen set out the mugs, milk, and sugar on the table. She sat down in the wicker chair opposite Robert.

“So, why are you really here?”

Robert sat, facing her, and fixed a smile on his face. He was conscious that it had been only last week he'd talked with Stephanie about the possibility of letting the older woman go. But with Kathy back in the picture now, he knew that would never happen. “I really am sorry I haven't been around. . . .” he began.

Maureen held up her right hand, palm out. “Don't be. How's the temp—the Russian girl—working out?”

Robert shrugged. “I ask her to do something, then I end up doing it myself. It'll be good to have you back. You are coming back?”

“If you'll have me.” Maureen smiled humorlessly.

“Of course—of course, there's no question about that. There would be no R&K Productions without you; you know that.”

Maureen had spent twenty-five years in the city of Boston film bureau as a production assistant, before she went freelance. Her connections in the business were second to none, and everyone expected her to end up with one of the big independents; instead she had opted for the unknown start-up company. Her presence with R&K Productions lent it credibility in those early days when Robert and Kathy had been fighting to establish themselves.

“Do you have any idea when you might be back?” Robert asked.

“Early in the New Year, I'd imagine. Why?”

“No reason. I'll just need to give Illona notice.”

“I'll be back when the doctor gives me the all-clear.” Maureen sipped her coffee, carefully watching Robert. Waiting for him to broach the subject she knew he had really come to talk about.

Robert reached into his inside jacket pocket and produced a slim white envelope, which he laid on the table and pushed toward her. “A little Christmas bonus,” he said, feeling vaguely embarrassed.

Maureen blinked in surprise. “I wasn't expecting anything,” she said truthfully. “And especially not having been out sick for so long.”

“I'm just happy I'm in a position to do it. There were a couple of months there in the summer when I really thought we were in trouble.”

Maureen nodded. Out of force of habit, she added milk and two sugars to Robert's coffee and pushed it back toward him. She knew that this had been a particularly difficult year for R&K; at one stage, she'd even considered sending out her résumé. However she knew, if she did that, then word would get around the business, and R&K would be finished.

“If Stephanie hadn't managed to get us those jobs . . .” he added.

Something in his voice alerted Maureen, and she looked up quickly. “Is there a problem?”

“No,” he began, then nodded. “Yes,” he admitted.

“The DaBoyz contract?” she guessed.

“No, that's okay.” DaBoyz was a boy band indistinguishable from any other boy band, but hoping to stand out with a cutting-edge music video. Stephanie had managed to steer DaBoyz' manager toward R&K Productions on the basis of a couple of sharp advertisements they had shot for her agency. “That contract is fine. I met with the band and their manager last week. They really like the new ideas, and it looks like we'll shoot in Hawaii early in the New Year.”

“Great. Once that's in the can and aired, we're bound to get other music videos. And that's where the real money is nowadays.”

“I know. Plus, I think we might get the new Zipcar ad, and I've just pitched for the new Sam Adams campaign. I think we have a very good chance.”

“So what's the problem?” Maureen wondered.

“I . . . spoke to Stephanie recently. Apparently she won't be able to put any more work our way. Some people have begun to question why our company is getting so many contracts. . . . She had a difficult conversation with Flintoff, her boss. I think he told her: No more work for R&K.”

Maureen sat back into the wicker chair. She stared at Robert over the rim of the brightly painted mug. “I know Charles Flintoff,” she offered. “I know him well. I could speak to him.”

“Thanks, but I don't think so. Not right now at least.”

“What are you not telling me, Robert?”

Robert tasted his coffee, grimaced, and added another sugar cube. “I've been . . . involved with Stephanie Burroughs for a little while now. Romantically involved. It's one of the reasons we've gotten so much work. Some people in the business have started to gossip about it, and Charles Flintoff knows about the affair.” He could feel some of the knot of tension ease as he confessed to Maureen. Maybe that old saying was true: Confession was good for the soul. He looked across the table toward her, unsure how she would take the news. Maureen was no stranger to the gossip pages of the Sunday newspapers and magazines; she had been romantically linked to several minor politicians and a B-list movie star. When the silence stretched unbearably, he said, “Well, say something.”

“Say what? You're not telling me something I didn't know.”

“You knew!”

“I've known for about a year.”

Robert stared at the woman, mouth opening and closing. He thought he'd been so careful. “And you didn't say anything?”

“What exactly did you expect me to say, Robert?” Maureen smiled icily. “You're a big boy. I presume you're telling me this now because Kathy knows.”

Robert nodded miserably.

“Do you know she came to see me last Saturday?”

“She mentioned it.”

“She told me straight out that she suspected that you and Stephanie Burroughs were having an affair.”

“And you told her!” Robert said, unable to keep the snap of anger out of his voice.

“She told me,” Maureen said firmly. “She came to me straight from the office, where she'd just gone through the phone records.”

Robert stared at Maureen in horror. “She was checking the phone bills. . . . Why?” he whispered.

“I imagine she was looking for proof. And she found it. She saw that your first call of the day and your last call at night were always to the same number. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what was going on. I don't know how she connected the number to Stephanie—maybe she called it. The phone bills were the final confirmation she needed.” Maureen put her coffee down. “You made the mistake of underestimating Kathy. And you got a little greedy.”

“Greedy?” He tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry. How long had Kathy been checking up on him? It made him feel almost physically queasy, to think that someone was spying on him, checking up on his every move.

“Greedy,” Maureen said. “Why didn't you get a pay-as-you-go phone and use that? No bills, no records. No, you wanted to be able to claim the calls as a business expense.”

“I never thought . . . ,” he muttered.

“So now Kathy knows. I take it she's spoken to you about this.”

“I've just seen her . . . and Stephanie,” he added glumly.

Maureen straightened in the chair. “The two of them? Together?”

“Kathy went to Stephanie's place to confront her face-to-face.”

“Takes guts to do something like that,” she murmured.

“I walked in on them. I was bringing Stephanie her Christmas presents,” Robert said miserably. “It was . . . awkward. Then—and I'm still not entirely sure what happened—Stephanie sort of pushed me back to Kathy.”

“Why would she do that?”

“Kathy said that she loved me.”

“Was that ever in question?” Maureen asked.

Robert found he couldn't look her in the face. “I was sure she didn't. I think that's the only reason I allowed the affair to happen. Kathy had withdrawn from me. She was looking after the kids; she had no interest in me or the work. I was . . . I was lonely,” he admitted. “That's the real reason I got involved with Stephanie.”

In her life Maureen Ryan had indulged in three long-term affairs. In every case she'd known, right from the very beginning, that the man was not going to leave his wife for her. Nor did she want him to. And in every case it was not just sexual chemistry that had drawn the men to her—it was the fact that she was prepared to listen, to be interested in them, in their work, in their lives. Although they were married, the men had been lonely.

“I never set out to hurt Kathy,” Robert continued.

“You have—you know that, don't you?”

“I do.”

“Tell me how the conversation between the three of you finished.”

“Stephanie rejected me; Kathy said she'd take me back,” Robert said quickly. “That's it. Then I left. It all happened so fast.”

“So you haven't had a chance to talk privately with Kathy yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

“I . . . I wanted to talk to you first. To see how much she knew. To . . . be prepared before I spoke to her.”

“When you do, you'll have to be honest with her, Robert. You know that. Totally honest.”

“I know.”

“Do you want to go back to Kathy?” Before he could respond, she held up a hand. “Think carefully before you answer.”

Robert stared at the table, and even before he raised his head to look at her, Maureen had an inkling of how he would answer. If he truly, wholeheartedly, wanted to go back to Kathy, he would not have taken so long to formulate his response.

“I would like to get back together with Kathy,” he said very carefully, “for the sake of the children. But I love Stephanie.”

“Love or lust?”

He shook his head. “Love. I love her.”

“You said you wanted to get back together with Kathy for the sake of the children. What about for Kathy's sake? For your sake? For the sake of an eighteen-year marriage?”