Once And Forever: Virtually Impossible Part 3

"I'm...fine."

I went through the foyer of our apartment and down the hall toward my office to put down my briefcase. I'd do some more work as soon as I'd gotten something to eat.

Clare looked up from her e-reader when I came into the living room, blinking as if she were surprised to see me. As if I hadn't come into this room in exactly the same way, into exactly the same silence, every day for the last three years.

Some nights she was home, and others she was out with her friends, but the silence never changed.

For a second, I was tempted to tell her about the little boy, about my bizarre reaction to his touch and the way he looked at me. But we never talked about kids or our childhoods...or anything much at all.

"How was your day?" I asked, setting my jacket across the back of a chair and loosening my tie.

She stretched like a cat in the sun. "Fine. Yours?"

"The same." Our mandatory eight words spoken, I went to make myself dinner.

I opened up the fridge and pulled out eggs and some vegetables. Great, nothing but the Camembert Clare loved. I looked toward the living room but decided against it. Our housekeeper ordered the groceries to be delivered every Wednesday, I think. I could live without cheese for a few days.

I wrote a quick note to Helen to make sure she included it on the shopping list and then thought of the little boy again. My virtual a.s.sistant would get a good laugh from that story. Staring at my phone, I tapped my fingers on the granite. It could wait until tomorrow.

"Can you stop that? I have a headache."

I looked up and saw Clare leaning on the center island. That was unexpected. "Did you take something for it?"

"Yeah, but it hasn't kicked in yet." She nodded toward the ingredients I'd gathered. "If that's for omelets, would you make me one, too?"

"Of course. You're not going out tonight?"

Clare had lots of friends-some with as much money as she had and others she'd bought on the cheap. All of whom enjoyed filling up their very nice, very empty lives with shopping and dinners out.

"Not with this headache," she said. "Plus, I thought it might be nice to stay here with you." She sat down and watched me chop, whisk, and saute. I tried not to wonder why she was hovering.

"That'd be nice."

"We haven't talked in a while." She came around the island, standing right next to me, her shoulder brus.h.i.+ng mine. "Can I help?"

"Sure," I said, turning around to grab a knife and cutting board for the scallions. "Here."

She chopped slowly, in between each cut looking up at me with an expression I didn't understand. We lived under the same roof, attended the same events, she even held my arm occasionally, but there was nothing between us. A life of deceit does that to people.

A single lie kept us together...and kept us apart.

I'd accepted it a long time ago. Was it normal? No. But it was our normal, and I didn't have the time or energy for anything different.

There was nothing wrong with Clare. No reason to hate her, resent her, or even be annoyed by her. She was kind, intelligent, and she was certainly generous with her trust fund. When she was surrounded by people, she laughed and cracked jokes, making sure those around her were happy.

I just wasn't one of those people.

She was practically perfect in every way. A Mary Poppins who couldn't sing or do magic. Or cook. Or clean. And thousands of men would kill to have the chance to treat her like a queen. I'd tried. I'd tried right up until the moment I knew she didn't want me to try, because all it did was cause her disappointment to grow. Because my mere presence was a reminder of a life she didn't want. Because she could never have the life she did want...with the person she wanted.

She set the knife down and switched off the burner under the pan.

"The eggs are still runny, Clare."

When she turned to me, I finally recognized the expression. It had taken a while because it had been so long since I'd seen it, at least directed at me. l.u.s.t. Pure and simple, let's-get-it-on l.u.s.t. I stepped back, confused. She stepped forward.

"I want you," she said quietly. Such a direct statement seemed even more foreign than the expression.

"Do you?" I couldn't even bring myself to hope anymore.

She laughed. "Of course."

"Really?"

Her smile faded as she walked back around the counter and sat down. "You've been different lately." How could she tell? We barely spoke. Barely saw each other.

"In what way?" I looked at the pan that was already cooling. If I turned the burner back on, it would only char the bottom of the omelet. It was past salvaging.

"Is there someone else, Hayden?"

"No," I said, annoyed. Then I sighed. "No, there's no one else. Nothing has changed."

"Well, something has changed. You're different."

Was I? I hadn't noticed, other than a few times when I'd caught myself smiling. Yeah, I guess I was different. "I feel...I feel awake, that's all." Because I'd had more interesting conversations in the last few days with my new a.s.sistant than I'd had in the last few years with Clare. It had nothing to do with romance-if she'd been a man, I would feel the same. Mostly.

"Are you going to leave me?" my wife asked.

"What?" Where was this coming from? "No, of course not. I'm staying right here for as long as you want me." I laughed at the irony. "But you don't want me, do you?"

"Of cour-"

I raised my hand to stop her. "I didn't cheat. But I'm waking up now. And I'm thinking about some things I never did before. You. Me. This." I gestured to all of the trappings that trapped us. "I never questioned it. Or thought to want anything else."

Twenty-nine years, and I could probably count the number of times I'd been happy. All that practice had left me numb to everything-good or bad. That's how you deal with chronic pain-refuse to feel anything else until the grief becomes all you have, all you know.

Until the highs and lows of everyday life constrict into a flat line.

"Am I not enough for you?" she asked.

I sighed again. "How many lovers do you have now, Clare? Just the one, or are there more than that these days?"

She jolted back in her seat.

"You didn't think I knew?" That was a shock. I'd a.s.sumed it was just one more of the things we knew but didn't talk about. Just one more lie we didn't verbalize. Why would we? It would ruin our mutual boredom. "If nothing else, we haven't had s.e.x in...long enough for me to know your smiles aren't my doing."

"You've had some, too."

"No, I haven't." No lovers. No smiles.

Her brow furrowed. "You're telling me that you haven't had s.e.x with anyone but me since we got married?"

"Unless my hand counts, no."

"We haven't been intimate for years, Hayden. Are you telling me you haven't had s.e.x in two years?"

I shook my head-both answering her question and acknowledging to myself what an idiot I'd been. d.a.m.n, had it been that long? I'd stopped counting the days when it got pathetic, but two years? Yeah, that was far beyond pathetic.

"Why not?" The question was honest-she really didn't understand why I would've been faithful when she, and almost everyone else we knew, wasn't.

"I distinctly remember the words 'honor and obey' in our vows. Fidelity wasn't mentioned, but I kind of thought that was an unspoken promise."

"I made the same promise, but I didn't keep mine." She pulled her hair back as if to put it in a ponytail. It fell into place as soon as she let it go. "If you knew I was sleeping with someone else, why aren't you angry? Why don't you leave?"

The vulnerability of her expression only added to my shock that we were having this conversation. How could she not realize she was breaking the only rule we lived by? That to not talk about this, give the other an opportunity to hurt us, was an even larger promise than our marriage vows.

"Why are you still with me, Hayden?"

"Because..." Because I'd known what I was getting into with Clare, and I married her anyway. No one forced me. Even before we were married, there was no real pa.s.sion in our relations.h.i.+p. And certainly no love. We got married because it was expected of us, because it was the logical thing to do. Because I'd wanted to protect her the only way I knew how.

Because I'd failed to protect my mother and my little brother from my father. I'd failed them by leaving them behind. I couldn't make that mistake with another person, couldn't leave her to a different but equally horrible man. Her father was still alive, still part of her life and mine. All I could do was be a buffer, a s.h.i.+eld. To make sure I was present. Love wasn't a necessary component of that.

Initially, I'd been naive enough to think that things between Clare and I would change. No, that's not right. I knew she'd never love me. I guess I didn't see love as being all that important because I'd never felt it before, didn't think it was something I could ever have. Until I had a conversation with Carson. Until my little brother-the one without a single desire for stability or fidelity-had found something beautiful and was happier than I'd ever seen him. That was the moment I realized what I'd been missing, that being numb might not be the only way to be.

"I'm not sure I can express it," I said. "There are a lot of reasons, I guess. Respect, comfort, stability, companions.h.i.+p."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, Hayden, you do know how to sweet talk a lady."

"Do I need to sweet talk you? Would that change anything?"

"I wish it was different," she said after a moment.

Me, too.

She went to her chair and sat down, curling up her legs and picking up her e-reader. I dumped what was now congealing in the pan into the sink and started a new omelet large enough for both of us.

No other words were exchanged for the rest of the evening. Like normal. A normal I wasn't sure I could manage anymore.

5.

Andi

A chat window popped up on the bottom of my screen. Hayden had gotten the hang of the feature amazingly fast for an old guy, even when we'd had to switch from Gmail to an in-house chat system his company used because of privacy issues.

Not that surprising, considering he was probably one of those people who was good at everything. I hate those people. Although, in Hayden's case, I felt sorry for him-he seemed lonely. An unhappy, old, rich guy, who had no one to talk to other than his virtual a.s.sistant. His not-rich virtual a.s.sistant who had no one to talk to other than her boss. Yeah, that wasn't sad at all.

'Are you done yet?' He'd sent me about ten doc.u.ments to proofread-barely anything for him, and about ten times what most of my other clients gave me. No wonder he'd lost his old a.s.sistant. But he paid well, and it wasn't like I had anything resembling a social life to distract me.

I laughed and typed, 'I promise to let you know as soon as I am. But please note that every time you ask me if I'm done, I have to stop what I'm doing to answer.'

'Then stop answering.'

'Then stop asking.' I paused. 'I'm sending you something to keep you occupied until I'm done. Check your email.' Over the past week or so, I'd started researching birds. Not something I'd ever thought I'd do, but according to his bio, Hayden loved birds. That's weird, right? Scratch that-it shouldn't have been a question. Because, yeah, it's totally weird. I sent him a link to the file anyway.

About an hour later, I sent the finished doc.u.ments to him via email. Then I used the chat box to tell him to check his email again or he'd never do it. How people could live without modern tech, I had no idea. Although, he'd obviously gotten pretty far without knowing how to use it. If nothing else, I could pat myself on the back for teaching an old dog new tricks.

'Did you look at the file?'

His response popped up fast. 'Yes, more birds. I would never have pegged you for a bird lover.'

What? 'I don't like birds. You do.'

'Sure...when they're on my plate.'

Well, I guess everyone lies on their resumes. But, oh c.r.a.p. I'd been sending him pictures of birds for weeks. Did he think I was a total weirdo? Scratch that. Shouldn't have been a question, and it didn't take a MBA to figure out the answer. Although, having a bird fetish seemed a little too weird, even for me.

'Thanks for the doc. I'll take a look later.'

'I thought you needed it right away!' I'd pressed send before I should have because that one comment could cost me the job. Sarcasm didn't always translate via the written word, and no amount of smiley-faces could convince someone otherwise once they thought they'd been told off. I typed, 'Didn't mean that to sound so rude.'

After a nerve-wracking moment, his response popped up. 'Too bad. I thought it was the perfect amount of rude.'

My mouth dropped open. Oh s.h.i.+t. What did that mean? Was he joking back, or was he serious about the comment being rude, or was he offended but trying to be nice? I'd gotten too comfortable with him, too chatty. I'd never done that kind of thing before.

I leaned back from the computer, not trusting my hands anymore. "Wait. Just wait and see if he gives you more work, Andi. Don't say anything that might make it worse. In fact, don't say anything at all." I think I'd already given him enough proof I'm nuts. Anything more would just be redundant.

I relaxed as soon as I saw he'd made another comment.

'Having something sent to you. Do the same thing you did with the last one, but more politely.'

Was that sarcasm?

'Okay.' My day was normally a breeze because I was more comfortable on a computer than on carpet. But not today. And not with Hayden Bennett.

So what did I do? The one thing I'd never done before for a very good reason. You don't look up info on your clients because you might find something you shouldn't know. And then you might not want to work for them, or you might start reading between the lines of their doc.u.ments, looking for bodies or any information the FBI needed to know. All bad things for an a.s.sistant to do. Be professional, be polite, never pry. And above all, do not make it personal.