Page 20 of Pretend I’m Yours
She was friendly enough, but certainly reserved. At first, I panicked, wondering if I wasn’t playing my part right. But, as I looked around the room, I could see she wasn’t acting any differently than the rest of the couples.
Perhaps that’s the way it was with the wealthy. They enjoyed being out with each other but didn’t make a show of being together. I wasn’t sure, and I wasn’t going to ask Hannah about it, either.
For as encouraging and patient as she was with my attitude about everything, I didn’t want her to continue to see how different from each other our situations had caused us to be.
She’d already told me several times that she didn’t care about wealth or where a person came from, but there was a part of me that couldn’t fully accept that. I’d like to believe the same about myself, but that didn’t change the fact that I felt intimidated when I was around her, and I dreaded the thought of going to one of the galas she described.
But then, I didn’t want what we had to end, either. I knew it was inevitable. I had agreed to play the part of the husband as long as she needed. She’d just told me straight, when she didn’t need me anymore, that was going to be the end. Divorce, annulment, a breakup, whatever we called it the end result was the same.
It was a business agreement, plain and simple. There was no denying it, and there was no changing it. All I could do was focus on the part of playing the husband and forget about the rest – especially about my growing feelings.
At last, I could see the server making her way over to us. I was determined to be polite despite the fact I was incredibly annoyed, but my voice caught in my throat when I saw her face.
Anna Marie, dressed in a waitress uniform and with almost no makeup, stared at me as though she had just seen a ghost. The moment couldn’t have lasted more than a second or two, but it was enough for us to see enough of each other.
There were dark circles under her eyes and no ring on her finger. Her makeup looked more like she’d slept in it than like she’d put it on fresh that day, and her thin lips looked like they were more comfortable giving a frown than they were a smile.
A million thoughts ran through my mind at once. I wanted to ask her if things had fallen apart with Charlie – tell her that he really wasn’t the lover that she thought he was. Charlie might have been my best friend, but any man who was willing to steal another man’s wife wasn’t the kind of man a woman would want to run off with.
I wanted to gloat that she still wasn’t modeling. That, in fact, she was now working long hours as a waitress. We both knew, even if this was one of the best rated restaurants in Chicago, that she wasn’t making nearly as much money to support the life she’d wanted to live.
But I was also surprised. There wasn’t anything in me that wanted to take her in my arms. I didn’t want to hug her, hold her, forgive her. I didn’t want to tell her I loved her. In fact, for the first time in my life, I looked at her and realized that I had no feelings for her at all.
There wasn’t even a hatred there. Instead, I felt my own heart fill with pain. Even more pain than what I had first found out about the affair, or the night that I’d come home and found the apartment empty. It was a pain that I’d never felt before, and it was quickly filled with the need to do something to retaliate.
I didn’t have to wait long. Her eyes darted from me to Hannah, then to our hands. Her face went from a sheet of white to beet red when she saw the rings on our fingers, and I quickly grabbed the wine sheet and skimmed the bottles that were listed, my eyes landing on the most expensive one.
Before anyone had the chance to speak, I ordered.
There was another moment of sheer shock and silence between the three of us. I could see in my ex’s face she wasn’t sure what to say. She clearly couldn’t believe that I was in the restaurant, or that I had remarried. It was likely an even bigger shock to her that I’d just ordered the most expensive bottle that they had.
My mind was brought back to the present as I felt Hannah’s hand close over the top of mine. “You have excellent taste, sweetheart.”
Anna Marie’s face changed to a whole new shade of red, and she gave a curt nod, turning and walking swiftly toward the kitchen. I expected Hannah to pull away as soon as we were alone, but to my surprise, when I tried to move my hand back to my lap, she held it in place. She even started lightly rubbing her thumb back and forth, chatting about how she was doing in school. Though I didn’t know what she was talking about, I tried to pay attention.
