All Said and Undone (7 page)

Grace gulped more wine, thankful he had stepped in to say something neutral. How could they have children if they didn’t have time for each other?

Moments later, the food arrived, saving Grace and Jack from any more uncomfortable topics, especially ones they hadn’t even discussed themselves.

To Grace’s—and no doubt Jack’s—relief, the rest of the conversation revolved around Claire’s life abroad and her recent stint as a judge for the art show at Otis College.

After dessert, Jack and Grace waited with Claire for her driver to bring the Town Car around.

“Hopefully I’ll be able to see you both before John and I leave for Houston?” Claire asked as the black sedan pulled up.

Jack gave his mother a kiss on the cheek. “We’ll see.”

Claire smiled as her ride pulled up. The driver opened her door, and she waved good-bye before the car pulled away.

Jack turned, giving Grace a sad sort of smile. “Thanks for doing that. I know it wasn’t easy. I’ll see you at home.” Then walked past her to the parking lot.

Grace’s heart burned in her throat.

As she drove home, a blend of emotions roiled through her and she didn’t know how to sort them out. Disappointment, anger, frustration, hopelessness….all tying her up inside like a hot ball of mess.

By the time she walked in the house, she was ready to explode. She found Jack standing in front of the patio doors.

“I think that went well,” he said with slight sarcasm, keeping his back to her.

“I can’t do this,” Grace announced, marching down the steps that led to the living room, feeling the rush of emotions, unable to stop them. “I can’t pretend everything is okay when it’s not. Pretending as if we’re happy when we’re not. Talking about our work and—” She closed her eyes. “Having children.”

“She always talks about kids when we’re together.”

“Sure, but this time she has no idea we’re closer to the moon than we are to a nursery. My God, Jack, we don’t even know about each other’s lives anymore.”

He turned around, eyes narrowed. “That’s your fault. I don’t remember you calling to know anything about my life since you kicked me out.”

She gaped at him. “What? You
walked
out!”

“I told you a long time ago I will never beg a woman to be with me, even my wife,” he said. “You told me you weren’t happy. Miserable. Thought our marriage was a failure. You told me to move out for a while. What did you expect me to do? I gave you what you wanted.”

“You know what I really
needed
, Jack? For you to show some kind of emotion. To give some sign that you cared about what was happening to us, but all you said to me was, ‘If that’s what you want, Grace’ and left. Then it was like you vanished from my life completely! Not once, not
once
, did you ever call, text, or even send me a damn e-mail asking how I was doing. And you didn’t bother to mention you received the promotion you’d been killing yourself for. You don’t care.
That’s
what shows.”

“Of course I care. In case you’ve missed it, Grace, I was killing myself for
us
.”

“But you never needed to! All I ever wanted was to spend time with my husband and build a life together.”

“I promised you a good life and that’s what I’d been working so hard for.” He lowered his voice. “To give you what you gave up to be with me.”

Grace shook her head in exasperation. “
Don’t
start that. I didn’t fall in love with your business acumen or because I thought you would give me a certain lifestyle, Jack. You put all that pressure on yourself and we’ve suffered because of it.”

“What about you?” he asked accusingly. “It was as if you took on three jobs after we got married. Admit it. You spent more of your free time with those sleazy Hollywood types than with me. Don’t put this all on my shoulders.”

“That’s not true,” she snapped back. “I was doing this long before I met you. It’s not my fault you don’t like the people I associate with because of my
job
.”

He threw back his head. “Ha! You should talk. You could barely stand to come to
my
social obligations for more than a few minutes. I’m the only executive whose wife couldn’t care less about meeting people who are important to him.”

“Only because you make her feel like she’s less important than they are,” she shouted with a wounded heart. It was true. She’d sometimes felt his colleagues knew him better than she did. While she stood next to him at parties, they’d all tell inside jokes and stories she didn’t understand, wondering why he didn’t share some of these things with her.

She pressed her lips together, then covered her mouth to stifle the sob that threatened to surface.

A long silence stretched between them like a river widening its breadth. A tear slipped down her cheek before she could stop it. In that moment, had Jack pulled her in his arms, she wouldn’t have pushed him away.

“If that’s what you really think,” he said, his voice low and calm, “then you don’t know me at all.”

He brushed by her as tears streamed heavy and hot down her face and she jerked at the slam of the guest room door.

She sniffled, swiping away the tears, and walked to her room.

***

Hours later, after tossing for the hundredth time, Grace flopped onto her back, unable to sleep. Jack’s words revolved around her head, making any sort of rest impossible. It infuriated her to know he had been trying to provide her with a lavish lifestyle when she had reminded him over and over she didn’t need all that. She just wanted Jack. Yet he pushed himself to the max anyway, pushing
her
away as a consequence.

Her parents were wealthy, but everything she owned, she’d earned. They turned their noses up at her dream to become a makeup artist until they found out about the slew of celebrities she met on a daily basis. Then, suddenly, they were impressed.

When she’d introduced Jack to them, he had just started with the company as a manager. Her parents basically snubbed his bachelor’s degree because it wasn’t from an elite university. They blew off his budding success, telling Grace he still had no name in high society. Grace had strayed from her parents then, not caring what they thought. She’d been in love with a wonderful man and she’d married him.

In actuality, Jack was the one who’d married a nobody. Just a makeup-obsessed Vassar grad with a talent for transforming girls-next-door into the seemingly flawless on TV.

Jack had been partially right. She hadn’t given enough effort to support him because she thought by doing so, as silly as it was to think now, it would make him work even harder. Place him even farther from her. And no matter how much she didn’t have in common with his associates, she could’ve hung on longer for Jack’s sake, instead of adding on to her own workload.

Grace climbed out of bed, opened her door, and crept down the hallway. She passed by the dining room, the living room, and finally to the hall that led to the guest room. Her heart was pounding and she didn’t know what she was really doing, or what for.

She stopped at his door and leaned in to listen, as if he’d be awake at this hour, too. There was no light beaming from the floor. Silence. He was definitely asleep. She closed her eyes, putting a hand to the door, yearning to go inside and crawl in bed with him.

With a soft sigh, she turned and walked back to her room.

***

Jack hadn’t slept a wink. And he wasn’t going to, at this rate. A sound caught his attention and he snapped his head up.

Grace?

He pushed out of bed and walked to the door. Hand on the knob, he waited and listened.

Nothing.

He rested his forehead on the frame. Why would she come to him after all he said? And he had said all the wrong things. Grace was right; she’d never asked him to work balls-to-the-wall so they could have the finer things in life. He assumed she would never ask, but that she silently expected it. Deep down, he knew she never had. That had been his mother’s expectation. And although Grace was constantly surrounded by some of the most pretentious idiots in Hollywood, she never, ever acted like one of them. Part of him had to admit he was jealous, so very jealous they got to spend more time with his beautiful wife than he did. All he got was those few-and-far-between stolen weekends with her.

Jack burst out of his room to the hall.

He marched toward their master bedroom—toward Grace—with purpose, but as he got closer, wondered what his intentions were. Was he going to bang the door down, wake her up, and make her talk things out in the middle of the night?

No.

He’d rather
kick
the door down, kiss her until she yielded, opened up her body and soul to him like she had so many times before.

He stopped.

He couldn’t do either of those things.

If she wanted to talk, they’d be talking.

If she wanted him to make love to her, they’d be making love right now.

He pressed a hand to the door and closed his eyes with a sigh.

Come back to me
.

He walked away and left her in peace.

Gazing out the window of his office, the voice of the public relations director in the background, Jack found it challenging to maintain focus. He couldn’t help but feel different since his argument with Grace. It wasn’t as if he didn’t appreciate his new position….he’d earned it, after all. But he was finally realizing what it had cost him to get there. He didn’t regret his hard work for a moment, but he did regret neglecting his marriage for it. If he’d slowed down just a little, taken fewer meetings, delegated more responsibilities, ate fewer meals with his superiors and more at home….damn. It all seemed so simple now.

He glanced at his watch. “Nora.” He swung his chair around, interrupting the PR exec.

She looked up from her notes, a little surprised at his disruption. “Yes?”

He pushed up from the chair. “Would you mind if we cut this meeting short? I was hoping to get home by seven today.”

The shock on her face amused him. “Uh, of course not. We can finish up in the morning.”

“Good.”

“With how often you’re here late, I’m sure your wife will be overjoyed to see you before the sun sets.”

He gave a dry laugh. “You don’t know how right you are.”

“We workaholics don’t have any sense of time,” she said, standing with a smile.

That’s the first thing that needs to change
. He opened the door for Nora, made a few phone calls, then left for home.

He wasn’t surprised to find the house empty when he crossed the threshold. Anticipating his wife’s arrival, he changed out of his suit and into jeans and a blue Henley shirt, shoving the sleeves up while he worked on a few things around the house he’d noticed needed attention.

He was in the middle of replacing a light bulb in their dining room when Grace walked through the door, talking on her cell phone. Her eyes registered surprise when she saw him. She ended the conversation and hit a button on her phone. “You’re home.”

He gave her a one-shoulder shrug before stepping off the chair. “It’s a miracle.”

She appeared nervous as she nodded with a small smile, tucking her cell into her giant bright yellow sack. It was still a little awkward, since the last time they’d spoken, feelings had been hurt and tears spilled.

“Grace, about last night—”

“Can we talk about it later?” She cut him off as she headed to the master bedroom. “I have to get ready.”

A little taken aback by her dismissal, he followed her, leaning a shoulder to the doorjamb of the room. “Ready for what?”

Disappearing inside the walk-in closet, she said, “There’s a party I promised to attend to promote the show. Nothing major.”

Jack crossed his arms. A rush of annoyance ran through him, but he attempted to hide it from his voice. “You’re going out tonight?”

She emerged from the closet with a dress in hand. “I promised the producer I would. It’s more of an obligation than anything.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”

“What’s the big deal? Besides, I thought you would still be at work when I got home.”

Well, crap. This isn’t going well already
. “I think you should ditch it,” he told her. “We could grab some Thai and catch a late movie.”

She hesitated, then shook her head. “I can’t. I made a commitment to go.”

He’d come home early to show an effort, and she hadn’t even acknowledged it. “Grace, it’s a damn party. It’s not that important.”
Not more important than us
, he wanted to say.

“It is to me.”

“I don’t understand how you want things to be different, but you act the same. Choosing some party over us.”

“You’re overreacting, Jack. I won’t even start to count the times you chose your job over our marriage.”

“I came home early, didn’t I? I had hours of work to do, but I
chose
to be here. With you. You can stay home tonight.”

With narrowed eyes, she tossed the dress on the bed. “You think by coming home a few hours early
one
time is all you need to do to make things right?”

“No, but it’s a start. And it’s a hell of a lot more effort than you’re putting in right now.”

“Unbelievable.” She threw up her hands. “All I’m doing is making an appearance at a party and you’re giving me a lecture.”

“All
I’m
doing is pointing out your priorities,” he said, moving to turn around. “And it’s clear I’m not one of them.”

He turned around and disappeared into the guest room. He’d said enough.

***

Grace stood in the party crush, a glass of Coke Zero in her hand, while the who’s who of Hollywood fluttered, laughed, gossiped, and passed by her. She didn’t feel particularly social, nor did she feel like being alone. She was staring off into space, Jack’s words still stinging and angered frustration squeezed in her chest. Of course she would rather stay home, but she had her obligations, and she made a point not to flake on commitments. Jack knew that. Yet he treated her going out as if she were turning her back on him. He was so vexing she wanted to throw her glass across the room and scream.