The trouble was the one person she wanted to turn to for comfort was her best friend. The same person she had fallen for.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
New York, evening . . .
As Nate neared the art gallery in SoHo, he tried his best to keep his mind blank and his emotions in check. The steel bars around his heart were solid, and there was nothing Joanna could do to hurt him. She’d inflicted all the pain she could already, and the past was the past. As Casey had told him in London, he needed to stop letting that hurt define him. The simple act of handing this wedding gift over was a step in that direction.
As a throng of hipsters in slouchy shirts and tight pants clicked past him on Grand Street, the gallery came into view. A party appeared to be underway as the crowds spilled from the brightly lit art fete to the sidewalk.
With the box tucked under his arm, and the warm June air rushing by, he walked through the open doorway. He scanned the crew quickly in the overstuffed gallery—packs upon packs of skinny women in black with long, dangly earrings, and men with goatees and sideburns, nibbled on cheese and crackers and drank wine and champagne, probably discussing the fleet of paintings on the white walls—images of surreal still-lifes. Not his favorite style. He liked Casey’s taste in art so much better. Hers came from her heart. A heart he wanted to protect, to care for, and to cherish.
The momentary thought of her brought a flicker of a smile to his face, and he hoped that image would feed him as he sought out the too familiar figure of his ex-wife. She hadn’t mentioned a party was on the agenda tonight, but who cared? It was probably a send-off before her Chicago exhibition. No big deal. Nothing he couldn’t handle.
He felt a clap on his back out of nowhere. He startled, but turned quickly, and ice crystallized in his veins at the sight of Claude—the tall, lanky, bearded and mustached much older man she’d been fucking while she had his last name. Memories snapped cruelly in front of him, slamming him back in time to the day he’d discovered their affair. Her hands had been dirty with clay from the sculpture she’d been crafting in the small studio they’d fashioned for her in one corner of the apartment. He’d parked himself on the living room couch, clicked on the touchpad on her laptop to look up movie times, and was greeted with an email exchange from a few hours before, when he’d been at work on a Saturday. The note started with Claude reminiscing about their last time together: So glad you could stay late with me. But my bed is lonely without you spending the entire night in it, wrapped in my arms where you belong. When can you manage another night that lasts into the morning? She replied: Soon. He heads out of town again on Tuesday. Can’t wait to see you all day and night then. I will be counting down. I promise.
Nate had blinked, rubbed his eyes, and read it again, shock vibrating in his system. He walked into the studio, grasped the doorframe, and said in a dead voice, “So you’re looking forward to me leaving town?”
Her jaw dropped, and her cheeks flamed red. But that marked the end of any shame on her part. That night she moved out, and shortly after she married the guy.
Claude held out his hand, brandishing a huge smile. “Nate. Haven’t seen you in ages. You look good,” the man said, and Nate was sure his auditory processing had malfunctioned because the man couldn’t possibly be making casual chitchat with him.
He shrugged off the hand on his back, ignoring the one Claude had extended.
“Where’s Joanna?” he managed to ask as the ice inside him turned to fire. Red flames licked his veins. His fists clenched. It was an affront to the universe that he had to be in the same fifty-foot radius as this asshole. The very same asshole that he’d had dinner with many, many times during his marriage. Let’s have dinner with my professor and some of the others in the department, Joanna would say.
“She had to step out to talk to one of the organizers of her exhibit in Chicago. Isn’t it amazing that she’s going to have all her work shown at the museum?”
Nate grumbled something unintelligible.
“I’m so proud of her. What an honor,” Claude continued, and Nate was ready to deliver his clenched fist into Claude’s gut. The man brought his glass of champagne to his mouth and took a sip. A fucking sip. Drink like a man; knock it back.
“Yeah. Great honor,” Nate muttered and thrust the box at him, suppressing his desire to drop it on Claude’s foot. Or his face. Or down a sidewalk grate, for that matter. “Here.”
Claude’s eyes widened and a thin smile spread on his thin lips as he opened the box. “Ah, at last! It’s come home. She’s going to be so happy to see this back,” he said as he dipped a hand inside the cardboard and stroked the art lovingly. Nate’s stomach roiled. His gut twisted, and he curbed every impulse to slug this scum. His mind tried desperately to grip onto pictures of happier times, of being far on the other side of this deceit. He fought hard to cling to images of the good things in life—his nieces, Kat’s new dog, his work, and Casey. Most of all, Casey. Her heart, her laughter, her strength. But the images felt slippery, and slid through his fingers as Claude spoke once more, “Thank you for all you’ve done for Joanna. You are truly a prince among men.”
Nate bit his tongue, sucking down the invectives he wanted to spew. Instead, he fixated on one simple fact, letting it echo in his brain, and fuel him with bravado. I am better off without her. I am better off without her. I am better off without her.
Nate shook his head and raised his chin, glad to be taller than this man. “No, Claude. I’m the one who must thank you,” he began and Claude cocked his head and raised a curious eyebrow. “You did me a great service by taking Joanna off my hands. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you for fucking my wife and having her at your place all night long and into the morning. It was the best thing anyone ever did for me. Because you gave me my freedom from that woman. You, sir, are truly the prince.”
The color drained from Claude’s face. It was a priceless moment, and Nate flashed back on something Brent had said. Go out on a high note. Nate turned on his heels and walked out of the gallery and into the New York night. He wanted to pump his fist in victory. To savor the vindictive joy at having reeled off the right zinger at the right time.
Instead, the latent anger inside of him raged on, higher and faster. Gritting his teeth and breathing out hard through his nostrils, he desperately wished to feel nothing. Not a single thing. But every time he entered her orbit he was sucked under by his own anger and the residual shame. Those were nothing though compared to the utter self-loathing that welled up at having chosen the wrong fucking person to love. He was such a fool for having loved this woman. He was an idiot for marrying her. His radar had malfunctioned, and he hated that it was simply out of the question for him to ever trust again, to feel again, to love again.