Leaving at Noon (4 page)

“
Shut up, Theo.” Zoey’s
eyes were twin beacons of fiery rage. “Quit talking now, before you
say something you’ll regret.”

Oh? What? They hadn’t reached that point
yet? They hadn’t already said enough shit they both regretted?
“Think about it, Zo. Tonight, instead of running away from one man
you no longer like, you could have gone home with Levi and Spence.
Chatted to
two
guys you care about. You could have fucked
them both too.”

It wasn’t as if the idea of two men didn’t
turn his wife on. Things had gotten smoking hot between them when
he and Zoey had played out her threesome fantasies—with the aid of
a few toys.

But they were fantasies. That’s all. Zoey
had been absolutely clear that she was a one-man woman. His
woman.

Her face was mutinous. “Do not say another
word.”

“
Maybe you could have even
enjoyed yourself—for a change.”

Zoey jumped out of bed. “Maybe I’d enjoy
myself—for a change—if I had a husband who showed some interest in
me.”

“
Maybe your husband would
show some interest if you were just the littlest bit responsive to
him.”

“
Responsive to what? You
insulting me—and then trying to fuck me? Not for me, husband
dearest, but thanks for offering.”

Offering?
Motherfucker.
All he’d done
was try to breach the distance between them, make up after one
nasty fight or another. “How about being responsive to your husband
when he tries to make amends?”

“
Make amends?” Her laugh
was more of a disbelieving splutter. “You haven’t tried to make one
damn thing right between us in months.” Zoey’s eyes flashed. Her
hair was a wild mess and her cheeks were stained a dark red. Her
neck too. She stood on tiptoes, looking for all the world like she
was about to lay into him with her fists.

And looking at her, really seeing her for
the first time in weeks, Theo lost his breath. Her silky nightshirt
stretched tight across her breasts and rose high on her legs.

She looked…magnificent. Incensed and
impassioned—something she hadn’t been for a while. Anger radiated
off her, charging the air around them. Finally, their bedroom
filled with something other than cold indifference.

He reacted. His body heated, his groin
tightened and he found himself wanting his wife. Wanting her bad.
“Forget about the fighting, Zo.” The anger was gone. “Or the not
making up,” he added. “Just for now, put it aside, and come here.
Come to me.” He touched his chest.

Zoey blinked.

Theo reached out to her, itching to touch
his wife. Hold her, make love to her. “Come here, Zo,” he said in a
low murmur.

“
Excuse me?”

“
I need you, babe.” Not
just physically. He needed to remind her—remind them both—what a
couple did together. What they did together, so damn well. “I need
to know we can make it through all this bullshit.”

The color in her cheeks deepened. Her eyes
blazed. So damn passionate, his wife. “Y-you’re aroused?”

“
Yeah.” And getting more
so with every passing second.

“
You want to make love?
Now?”

“
I want to make love
to
you
, now.”

Zoey shook her head quickly, as though
clearing her mind. “Are you crazy?”

Probably. “I’m turned on.”

“
Have you been listening
to a word I’ve said? A word
you’ve
said?”

“
I’ve been watching you,
seeing the passion in your eyes, the color in your cheeks. You’re
stunning.” That had never been in question. Zoey was the most
beautiful woman he’d ever met. She grew lovelier with every year
that passed.

“
This …” she pointed to
her eyes, “…is not passion. It’s disgust. And the color in my
cheeks isn’t a sweet blush of arousal, it’s a flush of rage. I’m
pissed off. You pissed me off, and sex with you is the last thing
on my mind.”

Thwack.

Sucker-punched again.

As quickly as his interest had soared, it
plummeted. His erection died a fast, unpleasant death. “Sex with me
is always the last thing on your mind.”

“
No,” she spat out. “Sex
with two of our best friends was always the last thing on my
mind—until
you
suggested I fuck them both.”

“
Yeah.” He remembered
that. And he remembered why he’d made the suggestion. “Consider
that suggestion my little fuck-you in response to your
revelation.”

“
My
revelation?”

“
The one about not liking
me so much anymore.”

She rested a hand on her hip. “Are you
surprised by it?”

More gutted than surprised. “Mildly.”

“
You know what else I
realized tonight, while talking to Levi?”

“
No, but I bet you’re
going to tell me.” And he just bet he’d love it as much as he did
the previous revelation.

“
I realized you don’t like
me so much either.”

Instinctively, Theo opened his mouth to call
bullshit. Zoey was his world. She had been for over eight years.
She was it for him. The one. The only. He’d known it from the
beginning.

The idea that he didn’t like her was a bad
joke. It made a mockery of their marriage. Zoey had it wrong. Theo
loved her. Always had, always would, and that was a simple fact of
life.

But somehow, he couldn’t quite call her on
her realization or make himself object. This wasn’t another one of
her malicious barbs, designed to hurt. This comment had an ugly
ring of truth to it.

As he stared at her, seeking his wife
beneath the frigid, unfamiliar stranger she presented to him, the
truth hit him in the gut.

She was right.

Theo might love her with everything he had,
but right then, he didn’t like her very much.

Zoey raised an eyebrow. “What? No arguments
for once?”

Electricity zapped at his ribs, making his
heart pump jaggedly. His foot prickled with the need to kick
something again, but he’d already damaged the door.

Theo shoved his hand through his hair.
“Fuck.”

For a heartbeat, Zoey’s mask dropped. Her
eyes, which minutes ago had flashed emerald fire, filled with
unfathomable pain. Her shoulders drooped and her breath escaped in
a harsh hiss.

And then she straightened her spine, threw
her shoulders back and turned around. “I phoned Fiona while I was
in the taxi,” she said in a dispassionate voice. “Spoke to her for
a while.”

Fiona Wells, the absent member of the Dinner
Club. She’d moved to Queensland two years ago for work.

That would explain why most of Theo’s calls
had gone to voice mail. Zoey and Fiona never had quick
conversations. Once the two got started, they could speak for
hours.

Zoey climbed back into bed. “I’m going to
visit her tomorrow.”

Visit her? As in pop in for lunch? Fiona
lived in Noosa, a good twelve-hour car journey away.

The muscles in Theo’s neck spasmed.

“
I spoke to Katie and
Steve too.”

Katie Bonnard and Steve Sommers. They owned
the GP practice where Zoey worked.

“
I let them know I’d be
taking time off work.”

Evidently, his wife had been busy while he’d
searched the streets of Sydney for her. “How much time?”

“
Two weeks. Maybe more, if
necessary.”

“
You’re going to Noosa for
two weeks or more?” They’d never spent more than a weekend
apart—and Theo had hated every second of being separated from
her.

“
It depends.”

“
On what?”

She settled the doona over her body, leaving
her arms exposed. “On us.”

Theo stared at her, dumbfounded. “You’ve
lost me here, babe. I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.”
Only he did have an idea. He knew exactly what she was saying, and
it shook him down to his bones.

“
I’m going away, Theo.
Without you. You and I… This…” She waved her hand between them.
“We’ve become toxic. I need to get away before the venom between us
poisons our marriage completely.”

“
You’re going away?” he
repeated, his brain struggling to comprehend it all.

“
We need it. We need to be
apart.”

“
You’re leaving me?”
Jesus, fuck. This wasn’t happening.

“
I’m taking time out from
us.”

“
You’re leaving
me.”

“
No. If I were leaving
you, my bags would be packed and the house would be half empty. I’m
going away for a few weeks so I can gain an objective perspective
about what’s gone wrong.”

“
And you can’t do that
here?” With him?

“
With us continually at
each others’ throats?” She shook her head. “Things are bad enough.
I fear if I stay they’ll just get worse.”

Theo stared at her in disbelief. “You don’t
think gaining perspective means sorting things out together? You
and me?” What the fuck did she hope to achieve a thousand
kilometers away, without him?

“
We don’t like each other
anymore. Somewhere along the way, something went very wrong. If I
don’t get away, put some time and space between us, things will
just get worse.” Her face paled, and once again the pain was
visible in her eyes. “I’m scared, Theo. I’m…terrified.” Maybe she
was, if her trembling hands were anything to go by. “If we go on
the way we have been, fighting and arguing nonstop, we’ll never
find a way out of this.” She swallowed and whispered softly, “We’re
going to start hating each other.”

“
Motherfucker!” Theo
worried the scar on his wrist with his thumb. “You’re
serious?”

Zoey nodded.

“
There are options.” Like
not turning her back on their marriage and not running away when
the going got tough. “You could stay and fight for us.”

“
The only fighting we’re
doing is with each other. We need time out.”

“
I never took you for a
coward, Zoey.”

“
A coward would stay and
let everything fall apart. I’m going in the hopes of saving what
little we have left.”

“
You’re running
away.”

“
No, I’m escaping us. For
a while.”

“
Whatever, babe. Same
thing.”

“
You know what the
frightening thing is?”

Theo pursed his lips and glared at her.

“
This is the most we’ve
said to each other in weeks.”

That was the frightening thing? Her leaving
wasn’t scary as shit? “We could say a whole lot more if you stayed
and we worked it out.”

“
The things we say to each
other hurt too much. Honest to God, I can’t take any more
pain.”

“
So you’re going? Just
like that?”

She nodded once. “My flight departs at two.
I need to be at the airport an hour before.”

“
Are you asking me to take
you?” Was she out of her mind? No way was he helping his wife walk
away from him.

“
No. Liv offered to drive
me.”

Of course she did.

Theo stared at her. The woman was so
emotionally cut off from him, she might as well already be in
Noosa.

“
She’ll fetch me from
here,” Zoey said quietly as she rolled onto her side, presenting
him with her back—a side of his wife Theo had gotten to know all
too well these last few months. “I’m leaving at noon.”

Jesus fucking Christ. Zoey wasn’t kidding.
She wasn’t making this shit up.

What did she expect? That he’d stand up and
applaud her actions? Tell her she was doing the right thing? Making
the sensible decision?

No fucking way.

“
If you think I’m going to
stand here and watch you walk away from me, from us…” he gestured
wildly, waving his hand over his head, “…from everything we’ve
built together, because you’re too much of a coward to stay and
fight, you’re wrong. We’re in a pretty fucking shitty place right
now. But your leaving isn’t going to help. It’s not going to
resolve anything. I won’t sit here and watch you go.” His jaw was
rigid, making speech almost impossible. He grabbed a jacket from
the chair in the corner. “I’m outta here, babe. I’ll be back
tomorrow at twelve fifteen. I hope, for your sake and mine, you’re
here when I get home.”

Those were the last words he spoke before he
stormed from the room. Stopping only to haul his keys off the
table, he got the hell out of the house he and Zoey had bought
together to live in for the rest of their happily married fucking
lives.

“
Let it be stated that you
still qualify as the best darn bartender in Australia.” Zoey
punctuated her statement with a big sip of her
margarita.

“
Once a great bartender,
always a great bartender,” Fiona said with a smile and no pretense
at false modesty.

“
See? All those late
nights pouring other people drinks paid off again. You have just
made your friend happy.” That wasn’t the only payoff. Fiona’s years
of experience had also made her the part owner of two of the
hippest wine-and-cocktails bars in Australia.

“
I’d hazard a guess it’s
the tequila making you happy, not me. But hey…” Fiona smiled sadly.
“We can’t be sure. My skills versus your fourth margarita. It’s a
tough call.”

Zoey squinted at the two Fionas sitting on
the opposite side of the dining table. “This is the first time I’ve
been happy in months. So shut up and take the credit.”