Page 38 of My One Week Husband
He sounds like he knows firsthand how damaging a farce can be. I want to dig deeper, to understand why he’s saying that. “What do you mean exactly?”
He waves a hand behind him, as if he’s referring to something in the past. “Just that. Lies are insidious. They can eat away at you.”
My curiosity drives me on. “Does this have anything to do with your family?” I push the conversation to a place I’ve rarely ventured, but I feel courageous today. I want to open that door, to know him a little better.
“You mean my parents being dead?” he asks bluntly.
No beating around the bush.
A lump forms in my throat, but I push past it, speak around it. “Yes. You were so passionate in what you just said about lies bringing down a house, and it made me wonder. You don’t have to answer. You might not ever want to answer. But I wanted to ask.” Still I hope he’ll tell me. The hope is so strong in my chest, it’s like a knot, and I want him to untangle it.
He takes a moment, his expression hard, his eyes intense but also sad, like he’s lost in time, working through a memory. He blinks, maybe blinking it away. “When I talk about lies, I do mean about my parents,” he says carefully, taking his time with each word. “There were people in my life when I was younger. People I knew who lied. People I trusted.” He clenches his jaw, then continues, biting out the words. “People I didn’t think would lie. But they did lie. They lied to me.” He inhales sharply. That one deep breath seems like the only thing standing between Daniel and red-hot anger. Then he lets that breath out, his voice going quieter. “And my parents aren’t here because of that.”
My blood goes cold, my body chilling. Daniel’s a man who keeps matters of his heart and his family close to the vest. This is so much more than he’s shared before. The hair on my arms stands on end, prickling with worry, telling me we’ve touched on a topic that will be a big hill to climb, one that may take days or months to ascend.
“I’m sorry, Daniel, that you went through that,” I say tenderly, wrapping a hand around his forearm, clasping him, my eyes drifting briefly to the scar on his hand. Is it connected to those people? Those lies? I doubt I’ll find the answers today. “I’m sorry you had that experience. I wish I could take the pain and hurt away.”
“Thank you.” He breathes roughly through his nostrils once more, his jaw working overtime. A heavy sigh falls from his lips, like he’s releasing pain with it.
“That’s why I hate lies,” he adds in a hiss, then all that hurt and anger seem to slink away, slip out the door. He moves closer to me, his expression softer, his eyes kind, his shoulders relaxed. “I’m not lying to you, about you, or how I feel about you.” His gaze locks with mine more tightly. “I want to be here with you. And the truth is, I love getting to know you more. I know sometimes I can be a closed book, but I want to open more of your book.”
My chest flips like it’s executing a handspring. He makes me want to open up further, even if he asks something hard. I want the hard questions now.
“What do you want to know?”
He takes a moment, then point-blank says, “I’m desperate to know what broke your marriage. Will you tell me?”
The question comes out like a prayer request, like he needs this.
I close my eyes as nerves flutter through me. But when I open them, the anxiety has vanished and I’m ready to tell him the story.
That awful day roars back in Technicolor, the vivid, perfect sunny day my husband died in London. I tell Daniel about that day, and about the shock that draped over me. Then, one month later, after his funeral, I learned the cold, hard truth.
I turn to the window, gazing out at the verdant greenery beyond, grateful for the clouds overhead, for the difference between the weather today and on that day. “I was devastated. Heartbroken. I missed him like a part of me was gone. Like a section of my heart had been scooped out with a serrated knife. I ached everywhere, Daniel.”
“Of course you did.” He rubs a hand over my back. Gentle. Soothing.
What I needed then.
What I need now.
Comfort.
“We loved so many of the same things, Jonathan and me. Travel and books and deals. He was a cybersecurity executive. Ironic, in a way,” I say, pushing out a laugh.
“Why was that ironic?”
“He always cautioned against putting everything online,” I say with a sigh, the memory sharp. “And then one day, when I was going through his things after he died, I opened a drawer in his desk, and there in the back of it were letters,” I say, my throat catching, swelling with shame and hurt. “I found some love letters.”
