One Summer In Paris

He hadn’t even mentioned the fact that she’d resuscitated him. Not that she wanted thanks exactly, but a small amount of praise for keeping a cool head in an emergency and saving his life might have been nice.

Thanks, Grace. It was kind of you to bring me back to life after I said you were boring. Glad you didn’t exercise the option to leave me to die.

He watched her cautiously. “Did Stephen call?”

“Yes. He sends his best wishes and told you not to rush back to work. Lissa said she’d call around with a few things from your office. You left your bag there, and your laptop.”

“That’s kind of her.”

“Yes.” Grace was fond of Lissa. She’d been a few years ahead of Sophie in school and Grace had taught her French and Spanish. Lissa had struggled academically after her father walked out, and Grace had been delighted when she’d graduated high school and David had given her a job at the newspaper as a junior reporter. It was good to see her doing well.

She wondered if Stephen and Lissa knew about the affair.

“We need to talk to Sophie.”

There was alarm and panic on his face. “I’m dreading that part. Do you think it would be better coming from you?”

“You said you were tired of me doing everything, so no, this is one thing you can do yourself. And you’re the one who has given up on our marriage, so you’re in a better position than I am to explain it to our daughter. Do it tonight, when she comes to visit. She needs to know we love her and that your decision has nothing to do with her.”

“Tonight?” He lost more color. “I’m not feeling great, Grace.”

“I don’t care. I don’t want her finding out from someone else.”

“No one else knows.”

“You’re a journalist, David. You of all people should know how hard it is to hide information.”

He gave her a long, meaningful look and in the end she was the one to look away.

Damn him.

Grace curled and uncurled her fingers. Damn him for choosing this moment to remind her of the information he’d kept hidden. To remind her what she owed him.

“No one knows,” he said. “We’ve been careful.”

“Careful?” She imagined him creeping around. “Were you sneaking into motel rooms and paying cash? Did you use condoms?”

His cheeks turned dark red. “That’s a personal question.”

“I’m your wife!”

“Yes, I used condoms. I’m not stupid.”

Maybe not stupid, but thoughtless and careless with her feelings and their marriage? Definitely. She wanted to take a shower and scrub herself all over.

“Did you at any point think about me?”

He looked exhausted. “I thought about you all the time, Grace.”

“Even while you were having sex with another woman? That’s not a compliment.” She took a deep breath. “What’s her name?”

He closed his eyes briefly. “Grace—”

“Tell me! You owe me that much.”

He looked away. Licked his lips. “It’s Lissa.”

“Lissa?” She stared at him and then felt a rush of relief. She didn’t know a Lissa. It wasn’t someone she knew personally or was going to bump into. “Where does she live?”

David turned his head, and his eyes were tired and sad. “You know where Lissa lives.”

“I don’t. The only Lissa I know is—” She stopped. “Wait. You don’t mean—Lissa? Our Lissa?”

“Who else?”

“Oh God.” Grace’s legs suddenly refused to do their job and she sank onto the chair. “She’s like a daughter to us. To me,” she corrected herself. “Obviously to you she’s something different.”

Grace remembered the day Lissa had graduated from high school. After all the support Grace had given her, it felt like a double betrayal.

“She’s a child!”

“She’s twenty-three. Not a child.”

She couldn’t absorb it. She hadn’t thought things could get worse, but this was so much worse.

Sick, she stood up and almost stumbled over the chair. She had to get away. “You need to find somewhere to go when you’re discharged. I don’t want you home.”

“Where am I going to go?”

“I don’t know. Where were you thinking that you’d go? Or were you planning on putting Lissa in our spare bedroom? One big happy family, is that it?”

He looked ill. “I’ll find a hotel.”

“Why? She doesn’t want you in sickness? Only in health?” Grace snatched up her bag. “I’ll drop Sophie here later. You can tell her the good news.”

“It would be better to do this together. We need to keep this civilized.”

“I don’t feel civilized, David. And as for telling Sophie—you’re sleeping with someone she considers a friend. You’re on your own with that one.”

She walked out of the room, managed to smile at the nurses at the desk and then dipped into the stairwell. Everyone else seemed to have taken the elevator and the echo of her footsteps somehow emphasized her loneliness. She made it as far as the first floor before control left her. She sank onto the bottom stair, sobbing.

Lissa? Lissa?

Grace thought about Lissa’s beaming smile and the way her ponytail swung when she walked. She wore jeans that looked as if they’d been painted on her, and tops that showed off her lush, full breasts.

It was so sordid. What would Lissa’s parents say? Grace was on a charity committee with her mother. She’d never be able to look her in the eye again.

How could David do this to her? To them? They were a unit. A family. And he’d torn that apart.