Part-Time Lover (Part-Time Lover #1)(26)

Elise lifts her cup and takes a drink, a thoughtful look in her eyes. “Ambition is a strange bedfellow. I want it in a partner, I think.”

“Me too.” Sighing, I rub a hand over the back of my neck. “So, it ended. We didn’t crater so much as peter out. We were like embers in the fireplace, then we turned to ash.”

She inhales deeply, her eyes shining. “Sometimes it’s all so sad. We try and try to come together, but so much gets in the way.” She wipes at her cheek and seems to fix on a smile. “I still can’t believe you were married.”

“Bit of a shocker. But see? I’m not a total cad.”

“I don’t actually think you’re a cad,” she says softly, reaching for my hand under the table.

“Good, because I’m not. I’ve been straight with you from the start. I’m not one of those I’ll-never-get-involved guys. I think I’m more of a what-you-see-is-what-you-get guy.”

“Are you? Because I could use that.”

“Why? What cratered for you?”

She swallows hard and draws what seems to be a fortifying breath. “I was married too.”

I offer a sympathetic smile. “Welcome to the divorce club.” But when I see her stricken expression, I sigh heavily. “Shit, I’m sorry.”

“The widow club, actually. And I wasn’t the only widow he left behind.”

“Are you kidding me?” My jaw hangs open.

“I wish. It was a whirlwind courtship. Four months, and he hid it the whole time. He traveled a ton, and he romanced me to the ends of the earth, and I had absolutely no clue. We were married for only six months after a short and very intimate ceremony, and he was gone half the time. I thought, silly me, that he was away on business. He probably was, but that business involved his other wife.”

“Was she in Paris? Another country?” I ask, still shocked that her ex pulled off such an act. I’ve heard stories of double lives, known they existed, but haven’t met anyone who’s encountered them.

“She’s Spanish, like he was. She’d been married to him longer. About two years. They lived in Barcelona. I found out at the funeral when I met the other grieving widow. She’d had no idea either. We actually wound up having coffee a few months later when she was in Paris for business.”

“You did? What was that like?”

“It was . . .” She stares at the corner of the salon, as if she’s conjuring up that moment. “Weird, but it was also necessary. We were both trying to move on, and I think we were both ready to ask each other questions. ‘Where were you when he went to this conference?’ ‘Oh, when he said he was going to Madrid, he must have been heading to see you.’ ‘That time he said he was stuck in a storm, he must have had to go back to your home.’ And so on. We sort of filled in these puzzle pieces that we hadn’t realized at the time were missing. But they were.”

“Did you blame her? Did she blame you?”

She shakes her head. “Neither. We both were in the dark. I felt strangely bonded to her for that hour we spent at a café.”

I barely know what to say, but at the same time, a million questions zip around in my head. “So he lived in two places. Does that mean he was married in two countries?”

She nods. “And he used a different last name when he was in Spain. He had two passports for two countries, so I presume that’s how he pulled it off. His ‘brother,’” she says, stopping to draw air quotes, “called me after the funeral, trying to reassure me that Eduardo had married both of us because he truly loved both of us, and couldn’t choose. ‘Don’t doubt his love for you,’ he’d said, as if that was going to make any of it better.”

“Was he really the brother?”

She shakes her head. “The guy was simply his best friend. Eduardo had called him his brother so it’d seem like he had family at our wedding.”

“You must have felt like nothing he’d said was true.”

“Exactly. That’s exactly how I felt.”

“Jesus, Elise,” I say, my shoulders sagging as the enormity of that double-whammy sinks in. “I wish I knew what to say except that sounds bloody awful.”

“It was.” She squares her shoulders. “But you move on. You learn from your mistakes.” Her eyes are fierce now as she meets my gaze straight-on. “That’s why I like things the way they are between us. I like things prescribed and in control. I like that they’re not consuming.”

“I like it too,” I say, because I like my lifestyle. I don’t need to venture down a more serious road when the road I’m riding is smooth. “And I assure you, I’m not secretly married to anyone else.”

“Excellent. No secret identities either?”

I glance at the ceiling, as if hemming and hawing. “Well, I do moonlight as a cape-wearing superhero with super strength and a killer grin.” I flash her a smile that makes her laugh. “But other than that, I’m just me.” I strip the teasing away and look at her earnestly. “But that’s the truth. It’s just me.”

“Good. I like knowing where you stand. That’s honestly the only way I want to be with someone right now, and it’s probably for always. I won’t go through what I went through with Eduardo again.”