Stone Cold Fox (59)

Vague, but not altogether unexpected. We hadn’t been the type of couple to really get in there, so to speak, emotionally. He seemed fine with that. Obviously, I was, too, but I wouldn’t stand for this palpable distance. Not when there was so much on the line. Collin always maintained the appearance of having it all together, including me, but this retreat from my touch made me less confident. I began acting like the type of girl I loathed.

“I just wish you would tell me what’s on your mind, baby. What are you thinking?” I asked him. Seriously, shoot me, but I was going to be with Collin for the long haul. I’d have to do plenty of things I didn’t feel like doing. It was what I signed up for. That was the plan. The rewards would be worth it. Mother would never really talk to a man about his feelings. So I would.

“Okay.” He took a deep breath. “Something has been on my mind.”

“Go on,” I prodded.

“Gale mentioned something about your bachelorette party getting a little weird,” he said, taking my literal breath away. I had to tread very carefully.

“Oh? What did she say?”

“She seemed concerned about your behavior.”

“Gale was concerned about my behavior?” It took everything I had not to scream. A pathetic power move from Gale. Our game was supposed to be between us. To flat-out tattle to Collin was beneath her.

She was playing dirty.

“Look, I know you don’t really like her and that this maid of honor thing was a goodwill effort for me. Which I appreciate. But she said you guys went somewhere and that you already seemed . . . familiar with it?”

This was a conundrum. Had she told him the truth about me, or whatever she thought the truth was? What did he know? What did she know? I didn’t want to offer any new information. I had to be very, very careful.

“Okay . . .” I trailed off, waiting for him to pick up the conversation. I needed to keep him on my side. Every moment mattered. Every word. Collin sighed loudly again. He was trying to find the right way to say whatever it was. Driving me crazy.

“She just said that you might have some stuff from your past that you don’t want to share with me,” he finally said. “And I thought we told each other everything.” God, could he really be that naive? Everything? If couples told each other everything, we would all most certainly be alone forever. Get real.

“Collin. Let me tell you what happened. Your best friend Gale practically accosted us with some weird sex club, with your sisters, mind you, and it was in really bad taste. Yes, I’d had a lot to drink that night and got sick, but who is really the sicko in this instance?”

“Bea, I’m not judging you. I wouldn’t judge you. If you did have anything to tell me, well, you should.” He didn’t know the truth. If he knew, I’d already be out the door. The whole wedding would have been called off. Right?

But there was doubt present in Collin where it hadn’t been before. She’d set it up so I’d have to lie to his face. Happy to do it, I had been already for some time, but something else was in his head now. A sinister seed she had planted about my moral character. It felt as if he was looking at me in a totally different way. No longer fully on a pedestal.

“Judging me? Honey, there’s nothing to tell. You’re making assumptions based on something Gale told you. Something that she instigated. She brought us to that place. I’d never seen it before.”

“Bea . . .”

“What did she tell you, Collin?” I was afraid to ask, but I had no choice. I needed to know what I was dealing with so I could perform whatever damage control was necessary.

“She thought that it was a fun bachelorette place. Like a burlesque show. She said Dave told her about it, that some of the Harvard guys go.”

The relief I felt was nearly orgasmic. Gale didn’t know the truth. Not really. She was just trying to ruffle my feathers, stir up drama and involve Collin. It made so much sense. Dave? Harvard guys? Their recommendation? Yep. Of course they knew the house on East Eighty-First Street.

But then the thought occurred to me . . .

What if that was exactly what Gale wanted me to think? She wanted me eating right out of her hand, ready to crush me with those frightful paws of hers when I wasn’t paying attention. I had to keep paying attention.

“Burlesque? Collin, please. I don’t think that’s what it was,” I said.

“Right. She agreed, but she said you seemed to already know that going in. Like you’d been there before.”

So she was planting little seeds, the gardener of my nightmares. Was that it?

“I just told you I haven’t.”

“Right, but—”

“You think I’m lying to you? We’re getting married in two days!” Collin didn’t say anything. The panic resurfaced. Truth or not, he was questioning his faith in me. Exactly what Gale wanted in the end. “Aren’t we?” I asked him. Pathetic.

“I just think we need to be honest with each other. If there’s something that went on in your past, when you were fresh to New York or whatever, you can tell me about it. Okay? I’m going to be your husband. It won’t make me stop loving you, but I don’t want there to be any secrets between us.”

I wanted to marry Collin, but that did not include telling him the truth about my mother or her husbands or the other men or anything else I had purposely concealed from him. That was the past and he was my future. They would not coexist. Why were modern-day couples so hung up on knowing every little thing about their beloved? It wasn’t the key to happiness. The opposite. We’re all a damn mess. Don’t we deserve a little privacy in that regard?