Selling Grace: A Light Romance Novel (Art of Grace Book 1) (18 page)

"Whenever you're ready," he answered, although his hug loosened so that I could stand up.

Once back up on my feet, I took a deep breath and swept my hair back, swiping one finger under each eye to try and brush away any lingering tears. "Let me go use the bathroom really quick, just to freshen up," I said, worried about how much I might have ruined my appearance. "Can you keep an eye on the gallery's front desk for me?"

Still sitting behind the front desk, Carter lifted one hand up to his forehead in a mock salute. "I shall not waver in my duty."

I smiled at his light little joke, even as a new wave of tears threatened to come bursting out. "Thanks," I said, and beat a retreat back to the bathroom in the back of the gallery before I broke down again.

In the bathroom, I gripped the counter with both hands as I glared at my reflection in the mirror. "You can handle this," I told my reflection. "Albrecht might still buy the statue, and even if he doesn't, you'll find some way to convince Barry that he doesn't need to get the ten thousand dollars from you right now. You can get through this. You are strong. You've made it this far - you're not going to fall apart now, right at the end."

The words sounded good, but I still wished that I could bring myself to fully believe them.

Thankfully, I hadn't bothered putting on much makeup this morning, or else the tears would have made me look like even more of a mess than I appeared. I wiped under my eyes with a bit of toilet paper to blot away some of the runny mascara, brushed my hair back, and splashed a little water on my cheeks to try and reduce some of the redness from the tears. I still didn't look great, but at least I maybe wouldn't appear like I was in the middle of some horrific breakdown.

I could get through this. I squared my shoulders, took one last deep breath, and marched out of the bathroom so that I could let Carter head off to work.

Chapter Twenty-One

*

It wasn't until after Carter had left, still casting glances back over his shoulder as if worried that I'd break back down into more tears the second that he turned his back on me, that I had another idea.

Barry! All of this was Barry's fault, so I needed to go talk to him!

The more that I considered this idea, the more sense it made. Barry was the one that it all came down to, after all - I just had to convince him to give me a bit more time, or let me stretch out my payment over several months. After all, wouldn't he rather have some money over time, instead of none at all if I couldn't pay him? He'd be fair about this, right?

I managed to hold onto this optimism up until I walked into his dental office, across town.

I knew the location well, of course, but something about it seemed a little... off, this time. I remembered the building looking a little fresher than it appeared as I strode inside; some of the plants in the front lobby were now brown and drooping, and the whole place smelled slightly musty, like it hadn't been cleaned in a while.

"I'm sorry, but Dr. Bulger is currently busy-" the receptionist at the front desk tried to say. I knew her, vaguely - Melissa, I was pretty sure. A vapid blonde who could almost be pretty, until she opened her mouth and started spilling out her nonstop litany of complaints.

A sudden thought hit me. Had Barry been fucking her, too? I nearly stopped to ask her, before I thought better of the idea.

Melissa kept on trying to stop me, but I ignored her words. I dimly heard her tone rise in pitch as I breezed right past her without stopping.

I pushed open the door to Barry's office, and caught him sitting at his desk, his mouth open as his hands struggled to wrap around a thick Subway sandwich. "Hi Barry," I said, dropping into the chair across from him.

"Excuse me! You can't just come barging in here!" Barry protested, apparently oblivious to the fact that I had just managed to do that exact thing.

I noticed that the sandwich in his hands was dripping little globs of wet mayonnaise down onto the wrappings spread out beneath it on his desk, and winced a little. I'd really been okay with marrying this man? At some point, I'd convinced myself that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with
this
?

I decided to ignore his whining. "Look, we need to talk about this payment thing," I said, and waited.

These words, of course, prompted a whole new round of stuttering, complaints and excuses pouring out of the man across from me. I just sat there, my arms crossed in front of my chest and watching calmly as little flecks of sandwich flew out of Barry's mouth.

"Are you done?" I finally asked.

He looked angry enough for steam to come hissing out of his ears, but he nodded. "Fine. Go ahead."

"I might not be able to get the money to pay you back, not by the end of the month." There. Say it straight, no beating around the bush. "I've got a big commission on a piece that might sell, but it's not a sure thing."

This time, Barry was the one to cross his arms and glare across his desk at me. He dropped the sandwich back down and it landed with a soft, wet plop in the little puddle that had dripped out of it.

"I'll sue," he stated, sounding a little smug.

Really? "For what?" I asked in exasperation, my temper creeping into my tone. "I don't have any damn money! Even if you sue, there's nothing for you to win! Barry, wouldn't you rather get the money paid back to you in installments than have to go through all of this?"

Barry's expression, if anything, grew even more truculent. "Look, I need that money!" he snapped. "I don't care how you get it, but I need it! No excuses! I'll sue your parents, if I have to! You owe me!"

My mouth dropped open, and I stared at the self-satisfied, smarmy little excuse of a man sitting across from me. This was what all our time together, with me devoting years of my life to this man, added up to in the end? A threat to do whatever it took in order to get one last chunk of cash out of me?

"I owe you?" I was dimly aware of my voice rising, but I couldn't bring it back down, couldn't clamp down on my anger, any more than I could make it start raining outside. "Barry, you cheated on me! You threw away our marriage! Why the hell do you think that I should be the one to pay? I ought to be making you pay, for everything that you put me through!"

I realized that I was up, out of my chair, leaning over the desk and shouting down at Barry. He cowered back, looking a bit like a turtle as he pulled away from me. A petty little part of my mind really wanted to put one of my palms on his dropped sandwich and squeeze it flat, covering his entire desk with a thin layer of the still-dripping sauce from inside the bread.

After a moment, however, I managed to get ahold of my temper. I took a step back, no longer looming over Barry, and forced myself to take a deep breath, to let my eyes close for a moment as I regained my balance.

Just try reasoning with him, I told myself.

When I opened my eyes again, I saw Barry frowning at me, clearly not sure of what to do next. He started to open his mouth, but I spoke up before he could say anything.

"Both of us want this whole divorce process to be over and done with, in the past," I said carefully, keeping my voice even with an effort. "Right?"

After a moment of staring at me, he realized that I was waiting for a response from him, and he nodded. His tongue flicked out to lick his dry lips, but he didn't say anything yet.

"Good. And that's why I want to get you paid off as soon as I can, so that I can be done." I dropped down into the chair on the other side of his desk, letting out a breath that I hadn't realized that I'd been holding in. "God, what happened to us?" I asked softly. "Weren't we both happy and optimistic at the start, before everything fell apart?"

He sighed as well. "Yeah. We just kept on lying to ourselves, insisting that the two of us would click together at some point."

I glanced up in surprise. Those were insightful words, even more so from Barry! I hadn't expected anything so profound to come from him. "You think so?"

"Yeah. I wanted a wife to be at home and do everything that a wife does, and I somehow thought that, at some point, it would turn into everything that I needed. And you thought that you needed to play that role." He ran a hand through his thinning hair; the gesture didn't look nearly as good on him as it did when Carter pulled it, I thought to myself, but held my tongue. "We both convinced ourselves that we wanted the wrong things."

"If only we'd realized that we had made the wrong choice before we went ahead and got married," I lamented, pretending to raise a fist and shake it up at the heavens - and Barry actually laughed.

"Would have saved us a lot of paperwork, at least," he nodded.

Suddenly, I realized something.

This was the most civil, peaceful, longest conversation that I'd held with Barry since I told him that I wanted a divorce. Maybe, just maybe, there was still some hope for the two of us managing to peacefully coexist after all.

Not as romantic partners, however. One look at the man, even not thinking about our disastrous shared history, told me that I had absolutely no intention of jumping in bed with him, or even letting him give me a kiss after dinner.

So maybe I could convince him, after all. "But going back to the money thing - if I can't pay you right now, it won't do you any good to try and sue. It will just make things stretch out for longer. Right?"

Still looking introspective as he reflected on the failure of our marriage, Barry nodded.

"So I'm going to pay you off whenever I can," I finished, trying to make my statement sound set in stone. "I want this to be over and done with, so I don't have any reason to drag my feet. But you'll have to wait on me, and take whatever check I hand you, and you can't argue about any of it. Or else we'll both be stuck, neither of us able to move on - which isn't what either of us wants."

Barry didn't say anything, so I prompted him after a moment. "Right? Do you agree with this?"

For just an instant, I thought he might actually agree with me. His mouth opened, started to form the yes - but then he paused, and I felt my heart sink as his glare returned

"I can't," he insisted. "I need that money."

After another second of glaring back at him, however, I realized that, no matter what I said, I wasn't going to change the man's mind. He was set in his ways, stuck in this slightly musty smelling dentist's office, stuck with his yappy receptionist outside, and he would never come around to my way of thinking.

And he'd threatened to bring my parents into the mix, making them pay for the debt I owed him - the one thing that I'd worked so hard to avoid. I couldn't let that happen.

I needed to get the money.

After a minute, I stood up, sighing. "I should probably let you get back to that sandwich, huh?" I said to Barry, trying to pretend that my heart hadn't dropped down to the level of my toes.

Barry glanced down at the soggy remains of his lunch sitting in front of him with mild surprise, as if he'd forgotten about it completely. "Yeah, I suppose so," he said, even as he pushed it slightly further away from him.

I walked out of the office, not even acknowledging Melissa the Receptionist Shrew as she directed a prissy glare at my retreating back. The whole place felt dated, like even as Barry became a part of my past, his office was being left in the last decade as well. I looked around at the old, well-thumbed magazines in the waiting room, the worn couches with their cracked and fading leather, and claustrophobia suddenly gripped me.

I burst out of the building, out into the bright sunlight. It was a warm morning, the kind of day that would normally fill me with optimism and excitement. Now, however, I couldn't muster up any energy at all, couldn't even crack a smile.

I had no options left.

In just another day or two, Barry would come around, demanding the money - and then, when I couldn't pay him, he'd go to my poor parents, who had at one point been ready to accept him as a son-in-law, and would demand that they pay him money that they couldn't afford to give away.

And they'd do it, because they still loved me. They'd do it, even though it was my fault, my shitty choice.

That hurt worst of all, like a knife straight to the chest.

I went back to my truck, but sitting behind the wheel, I couldn't bring myself to turn the key and head back to work. I just sat there, feeling the last shattered little pieces of my life dropping away. I couldn't think of any other time, not even when I realized that I needed to get divorced, that I'd felt this low. Even when I knew that, without a doubt, the divorce was going ahead, I'd still had some hope for the future. I'd told myself that things would get better, would brighten up after some time.

Now, I really didn't know what to do. I ought to... go back to work, maybe have a drink, talk to Portia, reach out to my parents and explain the situation.

I didn't do any of those things.

I just sat in the driver's seat of my truck, sniveling like an overgrown baby as tears came welling up from the corners of my eyes. At first, just a few tears rolled down my cheeks, but they broke the dam, and their fellows soon came pouring after them as my shoulders heaved and I bawled like an infant.