Chapter 14: Ava - Reckless Love

The sex dreams—yes, plural—make it really hard to be around Stephen for the rest of the time Raul is gone. I stop our nightly games by taking an extra-long time putting Landon to bed, and I force distance where I don’t want distance to be. My subconscious, not for the first time in my life, has decided that when I dream, I only get to dream of Stephen. At least this time, the dreams are new material that overflow with sexual frustration, not snippets of past conversations, half-remembered moments that made my whole body ache with loneliness, with a missing that I couldn’t cure no matter what I did.

Before Stephen left, if anyone had asked me if I was lonely, I’d have laughed in their face. No question. Me, lonely? I had lots of family, a huge group of friends, and endless parties. Yet somehow, Stephen was the one person who truly mattered. The balancing factor that tipped those scales.

Or he used to be.

Now I have Landon, and becoming his mom filled the void Stephen left. Before Landon was born, nothing could soothe the fourth-degree burn of Stephen’s loss.

And until Stephen walked back into my life, I had myself convinced that I’d imagined the intensity of my feelings, that the life I’d once had with him was the false reality, the one not meant to exist. This life in this house with this husband was my true fate, where I was supposed to end up. Even if I wasn’t exactly happy, what I had between these walls was enough.

I wish I still believed that.

It’s not until the last night before Raul comes home that my willpower dries up, runs out. Rather than lying in Landon’s bed long after he’s fallen asleep, I creep out as soon as his breathing evens.

As I descend the stairs, Stephen is at the security portal, scrolling through the various cameras around the estate. Broad shoulders. Tapered waist. My stomach flutters with recognition.

When he turns around, my breath hitches, a familiar sensation that I’ve felt more and more often the last few days. Old feelings resurfacing, poking through the careful façade I’ve crafted.

It’s painful to realize that there will always be something about Stephen Foster that makes me want. An illicit emotion that causes every other aspect of my life to become dimmer in comparison. At one point, he was the focal point around which I navigated my life, my North Star. I thought—I hoped—I’d outgrown this unexplainable pull: the need, the want.

“One last game?” I ask.

“Your husband told you?” Stephen’s voice is tight.

“Told me what?”

“When you said one last game, I thought…”

“What should he have told me?” I can’t help the edge in my tone. This is my life. Everyone else knows what’s going on before me.

“The Nile voted to unionize. My job here finishes tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow’s our last day together?” I grip the banister of the stairs, and dread pools in my stomach.

He searches my face, and I don’t know what he sees, but he used to be an expert at navigating my moods. “This was always temporary,” he says.

Emotion clogs my throat, and I feel silly for staying upstairs the last few nights, for letting this time with him trickle through my fingers. Hours wasted. Why do I always make the wrong choice?

“One game,” he says. “Winner takes all.” He unsnaps the security unit off the wall and heads into the living room.

Reluctantly, I follow, and when I get there, Stephen is already setting up the chessboard.

“I noticed you haven’t taught Landon this yet,” he says.

“I barely know how to play.” The words are sticky in my throat, hard to get out.

“You were pretty good a few nights ago.”

“With a lot of help.” I slide into the seat across from him at the table.

We play in silence for minutes that stretch out, and I’m not sure what to say. Don’t go is all I can think. Don’t go. Don’t go. Don’t go again.

“Raul will be mad the vote went through,” I say, putting a pawn in jeopardy. Raul is the last subject I want to touch, but it’s a vital reminder.

Stephen takes the pawn, and he doesn’t look at me when he says, “What does that mean for you?”

“Nothing, really. He’ll work a lot, which isn’t new. And he’ll try to figure out a way to make the workers pay for saying yes. He’s vindictive. Doesn’t let things go. Never wants to be wrong.”

Stephen doesn’t coax me to say more, and instead, he focuses on the board, trying a couple of moves before settling on one that doesn’t seem to do much.

“Does this mean you get some time off?” I ask.

“No. High-profile clients fly in the night your husband gets home. I’ll be with them.”

“Because you’re short-staffed?”

“Yes, and they requested me.”

A frisson of jealousy travels down my spine, and I want to ask who it is, why they’d request him, if he’ll be sleeping at their house the way he slept at mine.

“You don’t think I’m in danger anymore?” I toy with my queen on the board.

“You? No.”

“If I was still in danger, it wouldn’t matter anyway, right? You’re not being paid.”

He stares at the board for a long time without touching anything, and when he meets my gaze, his scotch-brown eyes are soft but determined. “If I thought you were still in danger, I’d fight to stay.”

A warm sensation floods my chest. “Stephen, I—”

“Mommy?” Landon calls from the bottom of the stairs. “Mommy, where are you?”

“In here,” I say, and Stephen draws back, no longer crowding the board and table.

Landon comes running into the living room full tilt. “I had a bad dream.”

“Oh, no,” I say, holding out my arms, and he scrambles into my lap. “Do you need some mommy cuddles?”

“Can you come lie with me?” he asks.

“Now?” I glance at the board and then try to catch Stephen’s gaze.

“I need to do my perimeter checks.” Stephen reaches over and ruffles Landon’s hair. “You sleep tight, buddy.”

“See you in the morning light,” Landon says.

I rise from my seat a little wobbly with Landon perched on my hip.

“Do you need help with him?” Stephen’s hand lands on my elbow.

“No,” I say. “I’m used to his weight. I’ll be fine.”

We stare at each other, and I wonder if he’s realizing what I am—that this is likely to be our last discussion without other people around. The intimacy that’s returned so easily between us since Raul went on his trip leaves when my husband walks back in the door. Even thinking the word “husband” in relation to Raul feels wrong—like I’m living someone else’s life.

God, what have I done?

“I’ll see you in the morning,” he says to me before grabbing the security system and heading toward the front entrance.

Part of me wants to call him back, to remind him the checks are unnecessary, that he just told me the danger had passed, but the truth is, it’s probably better that he walked away because another danger was looming, one of my own making.

* * *

Raul returns in a cloud of anger and impatience, and as I watch Stephen’s broad back slip through our front door for the last time, my stomach churns with all the words I didn’t say, couldn’t say when I had the chance. Honestly, they’re words I should never say, since I pledged my allegiance to someone else.

“What’s going on?” I ask, even though I know because Stephen told me.

“The Nile unionized,” he says with a huff while he pours himself a drink. “Security details are all canceled. They got what they wanted. For now, at least.”

Landon does a somersault across our huge couch, and Raul glares at him before gulping down his drink. When Landon does a second one, Raul says, “Our furniture isn’t a playground. You want to do that, you go outside.”

“He’s not hurting anything,” I say.

“Are you paying for that couch to be replaced?”

I bristle. I hate when he acts like I don’t have money. Don’t have access to just as much as him, at least for personal expenses. To start the company, I needed his help, but that’s it.

“I can,” I say. “I could buy us a hundred couches for this house if I wanted to.”

“And then sell them for half price to raise funds for your company? I know how your girl math works. Not exactly a successful strategy for you in the past, was it?”

“I don’t understand why you always have to try to tear me down to make yourself feel better.”

“You’re right,” he says without actually apologizing. “Go put on something nice.” He rakes his gaze down the simple but expensive skirt, heels, and blouse I still have on from being at the office. “Nicer.”

He means sexier. Raul appreciates me best when my external assets are on display. Unlike some men, he doesn’t subscribe to the notion that I need to be buttoned up, since we’re married. He wants other men to want me. The more they want me the better it makes him feel that he has me.

“Why am I getting dressed up?” I ask, eyeing the bottle of scotch and contemplating a drink. While Raul was gone, I didn’t touch a drop.

“I made us a dinner reservation at Café Plutus,” he says, draining another drink. “Darling, don’t tell me you forgot our anniversary?”

I flush at the reminder. Since Stephen showed up at the house weeks ago, I’ve been spiraling in big ways and small. I’m not even sure I know what day of the week it is—Nancy keeps having to remind me of simple things at work. It’s like my brain is short-circuiting, no longer capable of holding logic and emotion in separate compartments.

“I have some things to take care of first, so you can drop Landon off with Gage and Ember. I’ll meet you there. My secretary arranged it all.”

“Right,” I say, my voice tight. Ember hates it when Raul’s secretary calls her to arrange anything. My husband’s arrogance and entitlement bleed into everyone he works with. Both Gage and I have told Raul he can’t have his secretary call Ember—who has her own handbag design company and is actually quite busy—and decree what’s happening, and yet here we are. We could pay for someone to look after Landon, but I balk at an evening nanny when this should be our time with our son, whereas Raul thinks family should take care of each other, even though he never offers to watch anyone else’s kids. “What time is the reservation?”

“Whenever we get there,” he says. “I booked the best table from open to close.”

Already, I’m picturing sitting at the table, alone, until whenever Raul decides to arrive. Maybe if I down a few scotches while staring at the gorgeous cliffside ocean view, my marriage will miraculously become palatable again. It’s been a long time since I’ve dipped into this well of depressive thoughts, and it surprises me a little how heavy they are. I’ve never been the type to sit in misery when I can be doing something to change my circumstances, but the changes I’d have to make this time…

“Come on, Landon,” I say, scooping him into my arms. “Let’s pack a bag for Auntie Ember and Uncle Gage’s house.”

“Noooo,” Landon moans. “I’ll have to play with the girls.”

“Come on,” I say, whispering close to his ear. “You remember what Stephen said?”

He draws back to look at me solemnly while I carry him toward the stairs. “I’ll be kind,” he says. “I’m going to be a kind man.”

“Let’s start that right now,” I say, “with your best attitude with your cousins.”

He cuddles into the crook of my neck and clings on. When we’ve almost reached his room, he murmurs, “I miss Stephen already.”

Me too. Me too.

* * *

Instead of dropping off Landon and rushing to the restaurant, I’m sitting on the back patio with Ember, both of us with drinks in our hands, while Gage is in the pool with all the kids as both teacher and police officer. Normally, his attempts to wrangle the kids in the pool amuse me, but I can’t find a trace of that emotion in me today.

“What’s going on?” Ember asks, peering at me over the rim of her wine glass. “You’re not yourself tonight.”

“Just questioning all my life choices.”

“Except normally, that sounds like a joke.”

“Definitely not a joke this time.”

“Raul?”

I let out a huff. “You and the rest of Bellerive will hang banners that say, ‘I told you so’ if I admit I’m not happy.”

“I’ve heard lots of other people say that marriage is hard. Maybe you’re just going through a hard phase.”

I notice she doesn’t say she’s found her marriage hard. I’m pretty sure none of my siblings have uncovered any difficult parts to marriage, and the obvious reason is because they married the right person. Me, on the other hand, with a bit of guidance, I made the best out of a bad situation.

“Hard I could maybe live with.” And I almost think that’s true. When anyone wants something enough, hard isn’t so terrible. That was how I went into my marriage. I wanted my company and a present father figure for my son. Being married to Raul was the realistic price to pay to have those two things. Our relationship might put me in emotional debt, but the payoffs would be worth it.

But the emotional interest has accumulated. Being in a loveless marriage, where even sex is a transaction or a power play, is not making me happy. Not even the success of my company can pay back the emotional and physical deficit left by the house I live in, the man that I theoretically share my life with.

He gave me everything I thought I wanted and nothing I actually needed.

I got it all so wrong.

“Our finances are knotted together,” I say. “Raul, as absent as he is, would never let me take Landon and leave.”

“You’re serious?” Ember asks, sitting up in her lounge chair to face me, her long black hair cascading around her like a partial curtain. “You’re really serious?”

“He’d take my company, and he’d take my son,” I say, and my voice goes thick. “Wouldn’t he? He would, wouldn’t he?”

“In a heartbeat,” Ember agrees. “But if there’s one thing I’ve learned, as a Tucker, you’re not exactly powerless.”

“I know,” I say. “But he’d make leaving as painful and expensive as he possibly could. He’d drag every skeleton in my closet out for all of Bellerive to see. In another…” I do the math in my head. “I was going to say twenty years, but I just need Landon to be eighteen. Thirteen years, and he doesn’t hold as much power.”

“No,” Ember says, shaking her head. “That cannot be your plan. Live in misery for thirteen years?”

“I don’t have a plan,” I say, and I gulp back the last of my wine. “Forget I said anything.”

“Ava,” Ember says, standing up with me. “Is this because of The Nile unionizing? Is he being kind of terrible about that? Obviously, you two don’t talk much… Live pretty separate lives. You kept saying you were fine. Happy enough—whatever that meant.”

“I am fine,” I say. “I was just thinking out loud.” I can’t tell her about Stephen, that all these intrusive thoughts have come to a head because my old crush played house with me for a week, and it was the best week I’ve had since he left me six years ago.

How unhinged does that sound?

It’s just… I never realized what was missing in my life, in my marriage, until I felt it again, and now I can’t un-feel, unsee, unknow any of it. For years, I’ve forced myself to be content, to only look at the pieces of my life that were good or at least fine enough, and I ignored anything that didn’t fit that narrative.

I’ve stayed focused on the trees because if I stepped out to examine the whole forest, I’d realize what’s here is dead or dying or never even sprouted. I’d clearcut the woods, grind down the stumps until I was left with nothing but tiny fragments of this false life.

But I can’t do that. The consequences are too dire. So I just need to keep focused on the few trees that aren’t wilted and half dead. What other choice do I have?