Last Summer(49)

“Let’s talk about your marriage. The early years. Were they ever good?”

“Aren’t all marriages good in the beginning?”

“I’m sure most can be. I want to hear about yours.”

“We were one of the good ones,” Nathan confirms. “For a few years.” His gaze drifts to the fire. Flames dance, reflecting in his eyes as he slips back in time. “For a while, it was me and Steph.”

“You loved her.”

“Ridiculously so. We were inseparable before we moved to Colorado. I couldn’t do anything wrong in her eyes. But like all good things, we came to an end. I’d be filming an episode and couldn’t wait to get home. Then I’d be home with her and couldn’t wait to get back out there.” His eyes skip to the recorder.

“Forget it’s there,” she encourages.

“That’s not what worries me.”

“I don’t share my recordings. With anyone.”

“But you lose them,” he accuses.

Ella takes a sharp inhale through her nose. “No. I deleted them.” She wouldn’t have lost them. She isn’t that careless. “I guess I got rid of them because we killed the article.” But even deleting them isn’t something she’d do. “Do you want to tell me why you changed your mind? Why give us the exclusive only to pull it?” Maybe his reasons will help her understand why she doesn’t have any files left from the first interview. She holds his gaze. He slowly shakes his head.

“Later.” He apathetically points at the recorder. “Let’s get back to Steph.” He launches into the story about their media-frenzied wedding in New York. She was gorgeous, a gem wrapped in ivory silk amid a sea of flashing lights. Reporters crowded the sidewalk outside Le Parker Meridien, where they held their wedding reception in the Estrela Penthouse. Three-sixty-degree views of New York, with Central Park as the backdrop to the wedding party table. You can’t beat that.

“I read about your wedding. The grand scale of it, the location, everything, surprised me. I pegged you as more of an intimate affair at a remote lodge type of groom.”

“Steph wanted it. She was in publicity and thought the exposure would be good for my career. I was shooting the final season of Survival of the Unfittest and was in the preliminary concept phases of Off the Grid! I needed to keep the networks interested in me.”

Survival of the Unfittest was Nathan’s first adventure reality series where participants were put in unsuspected survivalist scenarios, such as a plane crash in the desert or a broken-down car high in the Rockies in the middle of a snowstorm. The first thirty minutes of the episode set up the situation, and under the watchful eye of the crew and on-location experts to ensure no one seriously injured themselves, they followed the participants as they tried to survive the scenario using their limited knowledge and skills. About thirty minutes in the hour-long episode, when it became obvious to viewers that the chances of surviving were minimal, Nathan would step in. He’d guide the participants from the scenario setup to safety, showing where they’d made poor decisions and what to do instead. Ella read the series premise. She didn’t have time to catch any episodes before this interview.

Nathan continues his story, sharing that he and Steph lived in New York for several years, and once the house he was having built for them in Colorado was finished, they moved. Nathan was between series and, for the most part, was home more than he was away. The best day of his life was the birth of his son, Carson.

“When did your marriage sour?” she asks.

“There wasn’t any one specific moment. You start to pick up on things. She didn’t look at me the same way anymore. She found fault with the most mundane things I did. She resented me when I went away and didn’t want to be around me when I was home.”

Ella thinks of her marriage. She and Damien rarely argue. Their heated discussion on the phone was unusual for them, but then, their relationship has been tense since November. From what she can remember of the six months prior to her accident, they seemed fine. She can’t recall anything abnormal. She still felt an excited rush when he came home from work, and they could barely keep their hands off one another when they’d spent time away. But where do they stand now that she has this secret about her and Nathan? Is it even a secret? Ella would bet Damien knows or he wouldn’t have asked her to ditch the interview.

“I’m sure she hated everything about me,” Nathan says, still talking. “When I tried to be the person she wanted, it wasn’t enough. I was the idiot who didn’t see what was really happening with her. She was afraid of being alone.”

“Alone in the remote wilderness where you lived, or alone without you and your support?”

“Both.”

“What happened?”

“I came home from shooting an episode to find she’d moved out with Carson.”

Nathan looks so devastated. She can’t resist touching him and reaches a hand over to his back, offering comfort. She feels the heat of him through his shirt and it sends a ripple up her arm, warming inside her chest. She aches for his loss.

“When was this?” she asks gently.

“Two months before Carson died.”

“How old was he?”

“Nine.”

Nathan swallows roughly. He hangs his head and grips the back of his neck.