Page 97 of The Naughty Ex

Gregory had both hands over his mouth.

"That isn't a plan," I said. "That's a production. And you didn't do it because it was the only way in. You did it because saying I love you and I want you back would have meant feeling it in front of me, and you have never once in your life been able to do that."

"That's not—"

"It's exactly what you did to our marriage."

He flinched as though I'd hit him.

"Every single time," I said. "Whenever it got hard between us, something enormous arrived instead. A new film on another continent. A new house. You produced me an anniversary in Portofino the same month you stopped coming home, and every person I know told me how lucky I was."

"Blaine, I know. I know what I did to us—"

"You don't, though." I stood up. "Because you did it again. You had an entire week to say one true thing, and instead you cast an actor to play a holy man. You knew that would get you through the door, didn't you? And when it started coming apart you staged something bigger. And when the poor man tried to tell the truth, you frightened him out of it."

"I'm not asking you to—"

"And the worst part," I said — and this is the sentence I have thought about most — "is Saturday night."

He went completely still.

"You made love to me in that tent, and I decided. I decided, Gregory, that you had finally learned to stand still." My throat was closing. "And it was the best night of my life. And I am never going to know whether it was real or whether it was simply the one you produced best."

"Blaine—"

"I believe you," I said. "That's the horrible part. I actually do believe you didn't stage it. And it doesn't help, because I will be sixty years old and still not certain, and that is what you have done."

He sat on that wall with his hands hanging between his knees.

"So here's what happens," I said. "I'm not going to scream at you, and I'm not throwing you off this property, because my mother would never forgive me. Also you'd have a scheme ready by lunch."

Gregory didn't argue. That was the only mercy either of us got.

"You're going to tell my mother yourself," I said. "You're going to sit down in front of both my parents and tell them the truth — because they love you, and because they are the only two people alive who never once asked you to be anything other than what you are. You owe them that."

"And then what?"

"And then you'll want to fix it," I said. "You won't be able to help yourself. I want you to consciously notice the urge, and I want you not to act on it."