When Valentines Collide (12 page)

T
he Love Doctor to write a prescription for a divorce?

Matthew groaned at the Page Six article in the
New York Post
and then tossed it on the floor of his dressing room. In the past two months, the small room had become his primary residence, so it was only natural that the staff and crew would begin to talk. Rumors swirled fast and heavy. He'd even overheard the lighting tech and the sound engineer spinning a wild tale of how he'd walked in on his wife having an affair. Later that same day, the makeup artist and head caterer had flipped it around to be that Chanté had in fact walked in on him having an affair.

He fired the gabbing four, but that only added fuel to the rumors. So he gave up and now pretended not to hear them. In truth, he only meant to stay at the studio for a short while, just long enough for him to clear his head or rather cool down. But one day turned into two and then three. Before he knew it a week had passed and then a month and now two. And his head was just as cloudy as the night he stormed out of The Tree of Life Resort.

If he'd learned anything in his life and career: forgiving was a process. Saying “I forgive you” wasn't like a magic spell. You didn't wave a wand and abracadabra, a heart was healed. Betrayal was like being injected with poison. It could kill or traces of it could remain in your bloodstream forever.

No matter how many different ways he tried to look at it, Chanté's actions were an act of betrayal, but her words still challenged him. His gaze shifted to his reflection in the vanity mirror. He'd spent another day counseling married couples on the brink of divorce while all the while he felt like jumping out on the ledge with them.

Maybe this was why psychologists had one of the highest suicide rates.

Or was it dentists?

At the light knock against his door, he fought the temptation to shout “go away” and instead invited the person into the room.

“Dr. Valentine. Great show today,” Cookie praised, sliding through the door and closing it firmly behind her.

“Oh, thanks.” He leaned forward in his chair and retrieved the outline for the next day's show from his dresser. “You're here kind of late,” he pointed out.

“Yeah…I, uh, left earlier and then realized that I'd left my PDA somewhere around here so I swung back by.” She held up the BlackBerry in question as proof of the tale.

“Glad you found it.” He returned his attention back to the outline as a way of dismissing her.

However, she didn't take the hint.

“Uhm. You're here late, too,” she commented, inching from the door.

“I have a lot of work to do,” he answered, not bothering to look up.

“It kind of looks like you're living here,” she continued. “Are you…?”

Matthew's gaze snapped up to meet her gaze through the mirror.

“About you and your wife…” she ventured, ignoring his glare of warning. She reached the back of his chair and lightly ran her fingers across his shoulders.

“Cookie—”

“Because I was thinking that a woman would have to be crazy to let a man like you go,” she purred, changing the direction of her hand to glide it through his low-cut hair. “If I was your girl, I'd make sure that you were well satisfied.” She leaned forward and brushed her breasts against his back. “Do you know what I mean?”

Matthew watched her performance with a warped fascination and when he realized that she was waiting for him to say something, he did the only thing he could do.

Laugh.

The young intern froze.

He laughed harder.

Slowly, she removed her hands and stepped back. “What's so funny?”

“That you think I need a girl in my life.” He swiveled around in his chair to face her. “I am forty-two years old. The last thing I need is a little girl. How old are you?”

“I'm legal,” she said, jutting up her chin.

He nodded and told himself to proceed with caution. “Why would a beautiful girl like you throw yourself at a married man?”

Cookie's lips trembled like she was going through an internal earthquake. Next thing Matthew knew, the young intern was spilling every detail of her short, tragic life—an abusive, alcoholic mother, an M.I.A. father, and her one talent of always falling for the wrong guy.

As he suspected, Cookie's shortsighted flirtation with him was more about a lost little girl looking for a father figure than any real feelings of attraction. She cried, smiled and even laughed a little bit, and when it was all said and done, Matthew felt good to put Cookie, real name Cassandra, onto a path of healing.

Now, if he could just do that for his own life, he'd be in business.

“Thank you, Dr. Valentine,” Cookie said, rising from the small cot in the corner of the room. “I always knew that you were one of the good guys.”

Matthew rose from his chair and gave the girl a much-needed hug.

“Hey, Matt.” The dressing room door swung open. “I brought you something to eat.” Seth glanced up and froze at the sight of Matthew and Cookie with their arms wrapped around each other.

“Seth.” Matthew dropped his arms. “What are you doing here?”

 

“Hello, Shawanda. Welcome back to
The Open Heart Forum.
What's on your heart tonight?”

“I'm just calling to say that you got some nerve, Dr. Valentine,” the caller said with some major attitude.

Chanté had no trouble imagining a woman with her hands on her hips and her neck swiveling like a cobra.

“How you gonna be giving me advice about how to keep my man when you can't even keep hold of your own?”

Chanté took a deep breath and tried her best not to allow herself to be bated. “I take it you're referring to Page Six of the
New York Post?
”

“Damn right, I am.” Shawanda's voice rose as she hit her stride. “Here it is in black and white that your husband is gettin' ready to cut you loose. All you highfalutin pop psychologists are a bunch of hypocrites. Up here trying to tell everybody else how to live while your own lives are a raggedy mess.”

Chanté and Thad shared a commiserating look through the Plexiglas. “Shawanda, first let me start off by saying that I don't know where the
Post
is getting their information. My marriage is doing just fine,” she lied.

“Uh-huh. Then why is my cousin, Cookie, telling me that your man spends every night at his studio? Hell, he's down there right now.”

Chanté's heart picked up its beats and threatened to crack through her chest. It didn't bode well that this caller knew more about her husband's whereabouts than she did. “I'm sure most of you know that my husband works long hours to make
The Love Doctor
show a success—not just for the networks but to reach and inspire his audience to have healthy and productive relationships. It's the same thing I strive to do with this show.”

“Uh-huh. Did I mention that my cousin is down there with your husband right now—alone—as we speak?”

 

Seth blinked, stared, blinked and stared some more.

“I, uh, better get going,” Cookie said. Her gaze ping-ponged between the two men as she slowly made her way toward the door. “Uhm, thanks again, Dr. Valentine. I really appreciate you being there for me.”

Matthew nodded and finally met her gaze again. “It was my pleasure. You just remember what I said.”

She smiled, but it died when she glanced at Seth again. “Good night, Mr. Hathaway.” Finally, she slipped out of the door.

Seth waited, hoping his friend and client would launch into an explanation as to what he'd just witnessed. Instead, Matthew walked up to him and reached for the container Seth held in his hands.

“Oh, good. Chinese.”

“Yeah, I figured you would be hungry and that you might want to…I don't know—talk.”

“Thanks,” he said carrying the food over to the cot. “You're right. I'm starved.”

“You're going to make me come right out and ask you, aren't you?” Seth moved toward the makeup chair.

Matthew opened the box to his sesame chicken and proceeded to unwrap his plastic utensils.

Determined to navigate through the room's thickening tension, Seth sat down and calmly braided his fingers together. “Is there something going on between you and your intern?”

A muscle twitched along Matthew's jaw and when he finally lifted his black gaze, Seth faltered a bit. “I mean, I know things between you and Chanté are still on shaky ground. But…you don't want to travel down the wrong road. You don't want to break…do something you might regret.”

“No. I would never want to do something like that,” Matthew said evenly.

“Then nothing…?”

“No. Nothing happened.” He set his food aside. “And I'm offended you're even asking me such a question.”

“First, let me ask you, are we talking as friends right now?”

Matthew looked as if he was weighing the word “friend” very carefully. “Sure. Why not.”

“All right,” Seth said, adjusting in his chair. “As your friend, don't give me that offended crap. We both know what the scene looked like when I walked in here. And given what you're going through…”

“Given what I'm going through?”

“Yes. What you're going through,” he reaffirmed. “Look, your marriage is a wreck. There, I said it so you can stop pretending otherwise, but it's not going to fix itself. You love Chanté. I know it and you know it. So stop trying to pick a fight with me.”

The twitch made another appearance, but this time, Matt hung his head. “Yes. I love my wife…but I don't trust her.” After a long silence, he finally lifted his head again. “You don't have to be a psychologist to know that a marriage without trust isn't much of a marriage at all.”

A
fter
The Open Heart Forum's
broadcast, Chanté finally made good on a rain check with Thad. After a full night of dealing with callers trying to give her marriage advice, Chanté wished she could drink something stronger than herbal tea.

“So you didn't tell him that you were on the pill?” Thad asked after she finished giving him the Cliffs Notes version to the destruction of her marriage.

“That's pretty much the gist of it.”

“And now that he's gone, you're pregnant?”

“Never let it be said that God doesn't have a sense of humor.”

Thad flipped his Yankees ball cap to the back and leaned over their table. “Okay. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this good news?”

Chanté drifted a hand down over her still-flat belly and blinked away the instant sting of tears. “I'm eight weeks along, ten has been my average.” She couldn't say it, didn't want to think it, but…

“Hey, hey.” Thad pulled all the napkins out of the table's silver holder and shoved them in her direction. “No crying. I don't do well when women start crying.”

“I'm not crying,” Chanté sniffled, snatching up a few of the napkins and blotting her eyes. “I just have…something in my eye.”

Thad nodded but he looked at her like she was sprouting a second head. When she finally managed to gain more control of her leaking eyes and running nose, he relaxed a bit and asked, “You are going to tell him, right?”

“And never know whether he's coming for me or the baby?” She shook her head. “I wouldn't want to pull him away from Cookie the Intern.”

“C'mon. You didn't believe that caller, did you?” Thad asked. “Didn't that Shawanda call months ago about stealing her sister's husband and trying to keep someone else from stealing him from her? Hell, it was probably another sister.”

Chanté laughed. “I just have this one image of some brother out there that's just being passed down from one family member to the next.”

“Maybe it's not a good thing to teach your children how to share.”

“Yeah, probably.” Her laugh downgraded to a smile, and then finally a frown again.

“Look, if you're really concerned, why don't we just drive over to the studio and see what's going on for ourselves?”

Because I'm afraid it might be true.
Instead of saying the words, Chanté shook her head. “I'm not going to chase him down and beg him to come back home.” She sighed pitifully. “He's got to want to do that on his own.”

“So you're not going to tell him about this pregnancy?”

Chanté moaned over how many times she'd asked herself this very question. “Yeah. I'll tell him, when and if he comes home.”

 

Edie and Seth curled into a tight spoon after another night of sweaty sex. For a long while, Edie was content to just listen to the sound of her husband's deep, even breathing, but serene thoughts soon turned troubled when they drifted to Chanté.

When they'd first returned from New Mexico, a few tabloids had picked up the story about Chanté and Matthew's stay at The Tree of Life Resort. The
National Enquirer
even had a mini-picture of Wilfred and Mable cheesing for the camera as their reliable source. As promised, Edie had the publicity department send out a press release stating that the loving Valentines' stay at the resort was for research on the West's growing fascination with tantric sex.

A half-truth.

However, Wilfred and Mable weren't the only ones who'd reported the major fight between the doctors that had Matthew storming out of the resort before the workshops was completed. Edie had those reports blasted as fabrications.

A downright lie.

In truth, Edie was surprised the Valentines' split remained quiet for as long as it did. Now that it was out, she not only worried about a publicity nightmare or a possible dip in book sales, but she worried for her friend's well-being.

In the past two months, Chanté avoided Edie like the plague. She didn't return calls, messages or even answer her e-mail. If things continued this way, Edie was sure she'd be reduced to sending smoke signals or turn to stalking her friend. The bottom line was clear. Chanté blamed Edie for what happened.

Maybe she was to blame.

“Stop it,” Seth said, squeezing her tight and planting a kiss at the back of her head. “I can hear you thinking from back here.”

Edie flittered a sad smile in the darkness. “I should have listened to you and not gotten involved.”

“Chanté and Matt again?”

She nodded. “I thought he would've gone back home by now. I mean—yeah, they get a little crazy sometimes when they're fighting, but this stalemate…”

“I know. When I went by to see him tonight—”

“You saw him?” Edie rolled out from the spoon and flipped over to face her husband. “How did he look? What did he say?”

“I've seen him look better,” he confessed. “He said he still loved Chanté.”

“Well, that's great,” she said, clutching his arm.

“He also said that he didn't trust her.”

“Oh.” She fell silent and tried to imagine her friends breaking up for good, but couldn't manage it. “She just made a mistake.”

“A pretty big one.”

“What? That she decided to take a break from the physical and emotional pain of losing one baby after another?” Edie said, sitting up.

Seth lazily rolled onto his back and stared through the room's sparse moonlight to meet his wife's gaze. “This wasn't another shoe shopping decision. It was a decision they both should have made.”

“And we all know he would have been dead set against it. He's practically rabid for a child.”

“So you knew he'd say ‘no' and that makes it okay to lie about it?”

“She didn't lie,” Edie reasoned.

“She didn't tell him the truth either,” Seth shot back testily. “Is that how things work around here, too? Anything you know I'm against you just maneuver around me?”

Edie didn't answer.

Seth sat up. “You women.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“What in the hell do you think it means?” He snatched up his pillow. “If a man lies or manipulates a situation to get what he wants, he's a dog, a jerk or an asshole. When a woman does it, there's a perfectly good reason or rationale behind it like, ‘her husband would have said no.' Who gave you the right to veto anything?”

“All right. Calm down. This isn't even our fight.”

“Isn't it? You're so quick to stick up for Chanté every time you think I may agree with Matthew. Well, let me tell you so that we're perfectly clear on this. I do agree with him. He has every right to be angry and hurt.”

“It's been two months!”

“So lick his wounds and get over it? Why? Because when it comes to childbearing all the decisions are left to the woman? My oldest brother, David, and his wife both decided to wait to start a family after he got his computer business off the ground. A year later, his wife grew impatient, came off the pill, without telling him, became pregnant with twins and now there is no computer company. He has to punch someone else's clock in order to provide for his unplanned family.”

“This is hardly the same thing.”

“Manipulation is manipulation. Dishonesty is dishonesty. Can I understand why Chanté went on the pill? Yes. Can I understand why she didn't talk to her husband, her partner, her supposedly best friend? No.”

Edie and Seth came to a stalemate. Both drew in deep breaths in order to calm down.

“Maybe I better just go sleep on the couch,” he said, turning for the door.

“Honey, you don't have to do that,” she said and reached a hand out from the bed. “We agreed to never go to bed angry, remember?”

After a long stall at the door, Seth finally turned around. “Look, I know this isn't really our argument,” he agreed. “But it would tear me up if I thought that there was something in this world you couldn't come to me about, that there is something you would purposely not consult me on. Especially something this important.”

Edie climbed out of the bed and joined her husband at the door. “You're absolutely right. And other than a couple…few…some questionable shopping sprees…” She smiled to lighten the mood. “Look, you're right. All major decisions should be discussed as a single unit. I get that. I just want my best friend to be happy.”

Seth finally smiled and leaned down to plant a kiss on her full lips, but when he lifted his head, his brows rose suspiciously. “Just how many shopping sprees are we talking about?”

“Oh, honey,” she sighed dramatically and then batted her eyes up at him. “You would have just said ‘no.'”

His laugh finally deflated the room's tension and he pulled her over to the bed. “That, my dear, just earned you a spanking.”

“Ooh. That sounds like fun.”

 

As usual, Chanté arrived home late. After two months, she expected it to get easier to come home to an empty house. Thank God she had Buddy. He actually turned out be a real companion. He was always excited when she came home. Thinking of Buddy made her think of Matthew. She thought about the times Matthew would wait up for her in the living room pretending to work.

Crazy as it sounded, she even missed the elaborate fights they had. What she wouldn't give to find him waiting for her again.

“I was beginning to think you weren't coming.”

Chanté gasped and whipped around toward the voice drifting from the living room.

A light clicked on and there sitting in the center of the white couch was her miracle. “Matthew.”

“Chanté,” he said gravely.

Her thoughts and emotions crashed head-on and Chanté literally felt her knees weaken beneath her husband's pensive stare. Every fiber of her being was happy to see him, her heart pleaded for her to rush into his arms and beg for forgiveness.

However, there was nothing in Matthew's mannerism that suggested he was in a forgiving mood. “I take it you're not here to stay?” The question stretched between them for so long, she didn't think he'd answer.

“No.”

The tears rushed down her face before she had a chance to stop them. “Matthew,” her voice trembled. “I know what I did was wrong.”

He broke eye contact and drew in a deep breath.

“And I'm sorry,” she added, easing into the room. “I made a mistake.”

“Maybe this marriage was a mistake,” he said, finding her gaze again. “Lord knows we don't behave like a married couple and we fight like schoolchildren.” Matthew stood up and walked toward a glass vase that was still superglued to the tabletop. He chuckled at the absurdity. “Let's be honest, if I was a caller on your radio show and I described half of the things that we've done to each other, what would you tell me?”

It was Chanté's turn to drop her gaze. “I'm not saying that we're perfect.”

“Damn right, we're not.”

“And I have never recommended divorce to any caller. I would urge them to get counseling.”

“Ha!” He clapped his hands together and it sounded more like a thunderbolt. “We are counselors. So let's just counsel ourselves, shall we?” he shouted. “Well, Dr. Valentine, my wife and I have been trying to have children for the past five years.”

“Matthew—”

“C'mon, doctor. We can do this. We're both qualified professionals from good schools.”

Chanté stiffened at the slight barb. “Why do you have to be such an asshole?”

“The same reason you have to be such a bitch,” he snapped back.

Her hand whipped across his face in reflex and Matthew's head hardly moved from the blow. The sting in her hand raced clear up to her shoulders and the tears continued to flow down her face. “If you're leaving, then leave.”

Matthew's jaw twitched, but then he finally turned back toward the sofa and retrieved his jacket. “I'm going to give you your wish.”

Chanté lifted her chin. “What's that?”

He stopped and locked gazes with her. “I'm filing for divorce.”