Читать книгу Valentine's Fantasy: When Valentines Collide / To Love Again - Adrianne Byrd, Pamela Yaye - Страница 17

Chapter 10

For three days, the Valentines’ household had transformed into a multimillion-dollar tomb. Even Buddy seemed to take on his owner’s melancholy and gave up barking.

At seeing the short, stout mongrel following her to the kitchen, Chanté couldn’t bring herself to get angry with him for having escaped his crate again. Especially not with him looking up at her the way he did. His wide-eyed stare seemed to urge her to tell him her problems.

More than once, she found herself doing just that—usually when she found herself filling his dog bowl with kibble.

“I just don’t know if I can handle four days pretending to be happy when I’m not,” she told Buddy. “And I don’t know what I’m going to say when the divorce becomes public.”

Buddy whined as he put his head down on the cold kitchen floor.

“I know,” she whispered, retrieving a box of cereal. “I still can’t believe it’s over.” She filled a glass with water, took her morning pills and then finished fixing her breakfast. She settled on a stool at the breakfast bar. In her head, she scrolled through a list of questions she usually asked her callers who were at the end of a relationship.

Have you exhausted all avenues for reconciliation?

Before she lied to herself, Edie’s voice floated around her head. Maybe you and Matt should seek counseling.

Like before, she scoffed at the idea, but then looking around her kitchen and imagining what it would truly be like when Matthew moved out, she reconsidered.

* * *

The moment her morning meeting with the marketing department was over, Edie raced back to her cluttered office ready to dive into a stack of unread manuscripts, but instead was surprised to see her handsome husband waiting for her.

“Baby, what are you doing here?” She eased into his arms and delivered a quick smooch against his smooth-shaved skin.

“Came to see if I could take my favorite girl to lunch...and to see if you have those fake itineraries printed up. I’m running by the studio this afternoon and I promised Matthew I’d bring them to him.”

“Got them right here on my desk.” She moved to her in-box and then handed him a glossy folder.

“The Marriage Quest conference,” he read aloud. “Catchy.”

“Why, thank you.” Edie’s smile beamed as she rocked on her heels. “I can’t take all the credit. Julia in Publicity helped.”

“The Tree of Life Spa and Resort,” he continued reading. “Sounds interesting.”

“Oh, it is. The tree of life is a part of the map of the seven chakras.”

“The what?”

“Chakras. They are energy centers that represent the dynamic flow of cosmic energy within the human body.”

“Uh-huh.” He snapped the folder closed. “Fascinating.”

“It is,” Edie went on. “You know, I was thinking—maybe we should go with Chanté and Matthew.”

“Why? There’s nothing wrong with our sex life.” Seth stepped back and folded his arms. “Is there?”

“No. No. Of course not.” She slyly opened his arms and eased back into his embrace. “But I thought it would be fun for us to try out new things. Plus, we’ll probably need to keep an eye out on Matthew and Chanté. We have to stop them from bolting when they discover they’ve been tricked.”

“What are we supposed to do—tackle them?”

“Love is a contact sport.” She laughed at her own joke.

Seth failed to see the humor.

“C’mon. We should really be there for them.”

Never being able to resist his wife’s pleading brown eyes, Seth gave in with a sigh. “All right. All right. I’ll clear my schedule.”

“Good. I already bought our tickets.”

“Of course you did.”

* * *

Matthew spent another day cruising on autopilot. He listened with great apathy to his guests’ problems, doled out his earnest opinions and advice, and then smiled and laughed with his staff once they wrapped taping.

In the coming week, the network would broadcast repeat programming while he attended his last conference with his wife. A part of him knew that he should at least give his producers a heads-up about the pending divorce, but the other part of him still hadn’t come to terms with it.

That was silly, considering their wild fights and inexcusable behavior. Deep down, he never thought she would go through with it. She was his yin to his yang. If she got crazy, he went crazy, too.

But leave?

“I should have followed Seth’s advice and just apologized,” he mumbled to the vanity mirror inside his dressing room.

“I’m sorry. Did you say something?” Cookie asked, handing him his coffee.

“No. No. I was just...talking to myself.” He smiled blandly and dropped his gaze to the steaming black liquid in his favorite Open Heart Forum coffee mug.

“Oh.” Cookie clasped her hands behind her back and thrust her surgically-enhanced bosom high into the air. “Well, is there anything else I can do for you?”

“No. I think that’s all. Thank you.” He sipped from his cup and prepared to dive back into his desolate thoughts.