The Husband Hour(95)
As she trod through the sand, the idea of turning back crossed her mind half a dozen times. She didn’t.
I have to know.
Ethan’s delighted squeal caught her attention, and when she looked at the ocean, she saw him with her father, bobbing in the rolling waves.
“Be careful!” her mother called out to them, hidden from Lauren’s view by the umbrella.
Lauren stood behind the wall of chairs, unnoticed.
“It’s fine, Mom,” Stephanie said from the chair next to her mother.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Beth put her paperback down on the beach towel, stood up, and marched to the water, calling out, “Not so deep, Howard!”
Lauren slipped into her mother’s chair, and Stephanie nearly jumped out of hers.
“Jesus! You scared me,” Stephanie said.
“Let’s walk. I need to talk to you.”
Stephanie didn’t say a word, but she left her chair with a quick glance at their parents and Ethan before following her.
They walked north along the water, just past the first lifeguard stand. It was so miserably uncomfortable to be near Stephanie, Lauren gave up on finding a quiet spot just so she could get the conversation over with more quickly.
“You have to tell me: Did Rory know about Ethan?” Lauren blurted out.
Stephanie looked at her in surprise. “No! Absolutely not. I thought you understood that.”
“Understood that? Clearly, I didn’t understand anything, thanks to you!”
“I tried to warn you not to marry him.”
Lauren felt stricken. She’d thought about so much in the past twenty-four hours, yet she hadn’t considered their argument in the car that day in the airport. She had been certain Stephanie was just jealous of her engagement. How could she have imagined the truth?
“Why didn’t you tell me what happened?”
“If I told you that I…that we slept together, would that have stopped you from marrying him? Or would you have forgiven him and hated me?”
“If you’d told me about Ethan, I can guarantee I wouldn’t have married him.”
Stephanie shook her head. “You say that now.”
They stood in silence. Stephanie broke it first.
“I never intended for this to come out. And I still hope that Ethan never knows the truth. How could I explain this to him?”
Lauren looked at her, incredulous. “You don’t plan on telling Ethan? Ever?”
“What good would it do? Rory is gone. It’s not like telling him the truth gets him a father. And the poor kid—his very existence isn’t just a mistake; it’s the biggest shame of this family.”
Oh God. What had she done? By accusing Matt of knowing about Ethan and keeping it from her, she’d inadvertently given him the information. And now he had it, and he would use it.
“Stephanie, you’re not going to like this, but…you have to tell Ethan about Rory.”
“Lauren, please spare me a morality lecture here, okay? No matter how much I deserve it.”
Lauren nervously toyed with the end of her ponytail. “It’s not that. I…told Matt Brio. I thought I could convince him not to go ahead with the film. But he didn’t listen to me.”
Stephanie reached for her arm.
“You didn’t.”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“He’s going to put this in the film?”
“I don’t know.”
“What about Ethan? He’s innocent in all of this, and he’s going to be the one who suffers!” Stephanie’s eyes filled with tears. Before Lauren could think of a response, Stephanie ran back to the house.
Chapter Fifty-One
Brooklyn felt smaller and darker than Matt remembered it. And the editing suite was hot as hell.
“Do you mind if I turn these fans up higher?” he asked the one person left in the office. The guy, plugged into his computer and surrounded by empty coffee cups, gave a faint go-ahead wave.
Matt didn’t need coffee. The return to the city had energized him, made the Sundance application deadline feel real, made the creative pressure of finalizing the cut he would send to the sales agent crushing. No matter how many times he went through this process, it would never be easy. And there was an added level of stress to this project.
He’d hoped that once he was back in New York, he would get some emotional distance from Lauren. If he could just stop worrying about her feelings, he would be free to make the best creative decisions for the project. But as it was, his thinking was muddled; instead of exposing the truth about Rory, cutting ruthlessly to bring his decline into sharp, dramatic view, he was pulling punches and trying to see what he could get away with not showing.
Matt paused the footage on an image of Lauren from the Fourth of July. She was wearing a sundress; her long hair was loose and her eyes especially dark against her sun-kissed cheeks. From an artistic standpoint, her loveliness made the story all the more poignant. From a personal standpoint, it made his job nearly unbearable.
He hit the Play button.
“He told me it was boring—frustrating sometimes,” she said. “One day he spent eight hours mowing a lawn.”
“Was this discouraging to him?” Matt asked off camera.