Chapter 17
“You look well,” he said.
“Thank you.”
He glanced at my clothes.
I was wearing dark trousers, a simple blouse, and a cardigan.
No diamonds.
No expensive evening dress.
No carefully styled hair.
“You look different.”
“I feel different.”
We sat down.
The waitress brought water.
Vincent thanked her.
Then he looked around.
“Have you been here before?”
“A few times.”
“It’s nice.”
I almost smiled.
Vincent’s idea of a casual dinner usually included a wine list longer than the menu.
For several seconds, he studied me.
Then he said, “I heard you got into a training program.”
I looked up sharply.
“From whom?”
“Evelyn Shaw called me.”
My stomach tightened.
“She did?”
“She asked whether I intended to interfere.”
I stared at him.
Vincent looked almost embarrassed.
“She was very direct.”
Despite myself, I laughed.
“That sounds like Evelyn.”
“She said you earned the opportunity.”
“I did.”
“I know.”
He folded his hands on the table.
“She made sure I understood that.”
A silence settled between us.
I took a sip of water.
“You said you wanted to explain something.”
Vincent nodded.
Then he looked down.
For a man who could speak confidently before thousands of shareholders, he seemed strangely unable to find the beginning of a sentence.
“Lena and I have been talking,” he said finally.
I kept my expression still.
“Since she returned?”
“Yes.”
“Six months before the divorce?”
He nodded.
“Was she the reason you asked me to leave?”
He looked at me.
“I didn’t ask you to leave.”
I felt a familiar flash of anger.
“Vincent.”
He stopped.
Then he lowered his eyes.
“Yes.”
The word was quiet.
“She was part of the reason.”
I nodded slowly.
It still hurt.
Even after everything.
Even knowing what he had done.
There was something devastating about hearing your husband confirm that another woman had occupied the space you believed belonged to your marriage.
“We reconnected through old friends,” he continued.
“At first, it was occasional conversations.”
I waited.
“Then we started meeting for coffee.”
“How often?”
“More often than I should have.”
“Did you tell her you were unhappy?”
He hesitated.
“Yes.”
I stared at him.
“You told her before you told me?”
Vincent closed his eyes briefly.
The answer was written across his face.
I looked away.
That was the part that wounded me most.
Not the attraction.
Not the history.
Not even the possibility that he still loved her.