She seemed to live for those moments. Every time news came through email or a brief text message, her face lost some of the sallow, haughtiness that had overrun it. It was the only time I could see a glimmer of life spark in her dull gaze.
Sutton was improving. The progress was slow, agonizingly so, as there had been complications during the surgery to remove the fragmented bullet. Cy didn’t elaborate, but the gist was that his middle brother was having some mobility issues and was far from being released from the hospital. There was no telling how permanent any of the damage was at this stage, so everyone was trying to keep Sutton’s attitude on the positive side of things. It wasn’t surprising the grumpy cowboy was fighting them every step of the way. Cy’s messages were never long, always to the point and lacking any kind of personal touch. As happy as they made Em, they had the opposite effect on me.
I knew there was no point in making promises we couldn’t keep, to draw out the moments that weren’t meant to last. That didn’t mean it didn’t feel like a knife in the heart every time I clicked a message open. I knew he wouldn’t say he missed me, and knew all I could do was reply back just as formally. It was painful to not tell him that I had no idea how he had survived after losing half his heart when his ex left him, because I felt like I was dying without him. I may have been living an incomplete life before my eyes were forced open, but that paled in comparison to living as half of a person. I swore the majority of my soul, and everything that it was made up of, was left high in the backcountry of Wyoming. I left it in the hands of a man who was still undefined, and yet had my heart identifying him as belonging to us. There was no logic to it all, which made me think it had to be love or something scarily close to it.
If dealing with Emrys’s emotional state wasn’t enough of a full-time job, I had to go back to my actual job a few days after I got back home. I was out of vacation time and had to use the last couple of sick days I had to get Em settled into my place and to bully her into going to see the doctor. I wanted her to talk to a specialist about the scar on her face and the ones that were left on her chest, but she flatly refused. I would catch her staring at herself in the mirror in the bathroom, tears running over her now less than perfect face. She never said anything about it, and I didn’t push. I was afraid she was fragile enough to break and I wasn’t sure I had the skills needed to put her back together. I knew she was going to need a professional so between work, dodging worried calls from Em’s parents, and the emotional vortex at home, I spent my time researching victims’ advocates in both the Bay Area and in Wyoming. I didn’t delve too deeply into why I felt compelled to look in both places, but in either case I was armed with the names of the top qualified professionals when she was ready to take that step.
I wasn’t sure what it was going to be like having to face my ex’s wife again. Before I had been so worried about how the truth would affect my career and my reputation. Now carrying it around was affecting my conscience and my integrity. I still had a few months left on the contract with her company, and things were going so well I knew she was going to make an offer to extend the work my team did for her. Every time I walked into her office and sat across from her, that picture of her happy family smiling stared right at me, taunting me. The ball of regret, and remorse grew in my gut. I knew, without a doubt, that getting fired was far from the worst thing that could happen to me in this life. One only had to the look at the shattered woman using my home as a refuge to know that. I also knew whatever the outcome of me coming clean with Chris’s wife was, it couldn’t hurt as bad or leave me as aching and raw as walking away from my not quite a cowboy had.
I waited for a day we were both working late. I knew the conversation was going to be unpleasant and that it could very well end with me getting handed my walking papers, so I didn’t want witnesses or a scene. I practiced what I was going to say all day long. I went over it a thousand times in my head and even prepared myself for things to get violent and ugly. I would let her get a swing in if she needed it. That was only fair, but she was only going to get one. The rest she would have to take home to her philandering husband.
When I asked her if she had a minute, she smiled at me and it made me feel like slime. She was smart. She was successful. She was pretty and she was nice. The cosmetic contract had been one of my favorites to date and it made everything inside me clench and squeeze to know that I had had a part, no matter how unwittingly, in deceiving her.
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you, Leora.” My full name made me jolt. I was so used to being Leo, the little lion, I forgot that another me even existed.
I didn’t want to sit down, this felt like a conversation we should be having while standing up, but I took a seat and crossed my legs. I folded my hands together so tightly that my nails pricked my skin hard enough to hurt.
“About the contract?” I didn’t want her to offer up an amazing opportunity right before I brought her entire world crashing down around her. That didn’t seem fair or right.
She nodded at me and put her hands together so that her manicured fingers were steepled and hovered over her meticulously painted lips. “Yes, I want to speak about the contract and I want to make sure you know that if we do extend it, I want you to head up the team. You’ve done a marvelous job here and I want to keep you on board.” I opened my mouth to interject that I had something important to say when she held up a hand and lifted a perfectly sculpted eyebrow at me. “I need to know that when I bring the new contract forward to your bosses, that your personal relationship with my husband won’t be an issue. I need you to work closely with me as we expand the brand and look at the global market. I can’t have your personal life interfering with your professional one. I let your hesitancy slide these last few months because it’s clear you’re brilliant at your job, but moving forward I need you to sweep that under the rug and put your game face on.”