The Husband Diet (A Romantic Comedy) (19 page)

Chapter 26:

Love Stinks

I
was diligently working away on my laptop, grateful that we were having a quiet day at The Farthington. As my mind wandered to what I’d be cooking that evening, I became aware of a low buzzing sound, like a cell-phone alarm vibrating. I looked around me but all was normal. The noise became louder until I found myself investigating in the front office, where I almost fainted dead away.

At the center of our posh, gilded reception, surrounded in a circle created by our elegantly dressed and distinguished guests, was no less than a catfight.

Dr. Hendricks and Dr. White, both blonde and Barbie-doll-like, were rolling on the plush carpeting, in a swirl of yellow and turquoise designer suits, pulling on each other’s hair while grunting and squealing. The same ones, as far as I could tell, I’d secretly envied the day before, all immaculately dressed in their labels. The kind that had made me feel like the big fat toad in the fairytale—ugly and unwanted.

And now dresses rode high over their thighs, exposing lacy and fleshy bits, some of them even wobbly. And I’d wanted to be like them, thinking they’d looked like supermodels. And you wouldn’t believe the language. Some people you can’t take the trash out of, degree or no degree.

But the horrific part was that no one was intervening. The busboys and the rest of the male staff watched in admiration as these two “ladies” clawed at each other, pushing the other’s chin back, scratching each other’s eyes out, not to mention uprooting clumps of peroxide-blonde hair.

It was, pound more, pound less, what I had envisaged happening between Ira’s lover and myself. Thank God I wasn’t that desperate.

I wrung my hands. I had never been so ashamed of my gender in all my life. “Call security!” I hissed to Leslie, my main receptionist, who, wide-eyed, scurried toward the phone.

“I’ll teach you to steal my man, you slut!” the yellow Barbie said to the turquoise one.

“He’s not your man—he can’t stand you!”

And these people were doctors, brain surgeons and shrinks. What hope did the rest of us have? It was too much. I couldn’t wait for security to get off their fat asses while these two women destroyed what I represented.

Without thinking, I ran over to them, trying to part them, but only managed to get my eye punched and my cheek scratched. It was like having an enraged lion swiping at you with French-manicured claws. I licked my lips and tasted blood on my face.

Now, had I been anywhere else and not on the job, I’d have lost it like a bull taunted by a red cape, and licked them real good, but being in my position, I had to carry myself gracefully, whatever the situation. So I smothered a few of my own foul four-letter faves and ran to the corner of the hall where I grabbed one of the fire extinguishers and let them have it—the whole damned thing.

As the foam started to envelop them, they squealed, trying to get up, but slipped, over and over, clutching at the floor, losing their shoes in the process, as if they’d stepped into a giant cake. Their hair, make-up and clothes were one humongous mess. I was so relieved I almost had a fit of hysterics. Instead, I watched them, my chest heaving from the exertion (they should make these contraptions a bit easier to handle), my eyes shooting daggers.

“Get someone to clean this mess up,” I said to Lindsay and turned, glad to have put the scene behind me. “And bill those two ladies for the damages.”

The hilarious part, if there was any, was that the guy in question hadn’t even stepped forward to split them up. I’m sure he was there, because everybody else sure was, cheering them on. In my posh hotel.

After having written a personal report about the incident and e-mailed it to Mr. Farthington, I called it a day. I was, after all, working only until three now.

At five, my doorbell rang. I opened the door and started. Julian, loaded with grocery bags. I’d totally forgotten about our cooking lesson.

“Hi, Erica. I got some lean
filetto
and some articho—” I shot him a glance as I stepped aside to let him in. He was watching me in shock, his face paling.

“What happened?” he asked as his hand caressed my cheek. I flinched at the pain, and his mouth formed a grim line.

I led him into the kitchen, almost resigned that we were going nowhere all too fast. I
enjoyed
his company. He was a good cook, willing to learn, fun, confident and had an aura of security around him that attracted me like a magnet. The fact that he was drop-dead gorgeous and was godlike in bed was a bonus. He gently took my arms and peered down into my eyes.

“Who did this to you?” he said gruffly.

“Catfight at work,” I replied.

He fetched a terry towel (good thing I had just changed them) and got some ice from the freezer, coming to crouch in front of me, his fingers gently dabbing at my bruised face.

“You always seem to be in the right place at the right time,” I whispered, wincing at the cold contact, but he said nothing, his eyes searching mine, so close I lost myself in the amber and teal specks of his green eyes.

Long moments passed before he whispered, “How’s that?” and I whispered back, “Better, thanks.” But he wouldn’t stop studying me. “I’m okay, Julian. Really.”

“
Okay?
You got
punched
. What happens when he really picks up that baseball bat? You wouldn’t survive that one, Erica.”

I blinked. “What are you talking about? You think Ira did this to me? No, I told you—I tried to break up a catfight. At work. Two brain surgeons, believe it or not, fighting over a male colleague. Whose wife was in Chicago.”

He looked at me gravely, with a mixture of anger and doubt, but finally exhaled, his mouth tight.

“Okay,” he said, his voice so gentle I wanted to cry. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked at me square in the face, his expression softening. There we were. This was it. Something was happening and I couldn’t stop it. “Please, Erica, I—”

“Hi, Mr. Foxham. Like Mom’s shiner?” Warren asked as he walked in, not surprised or disturbed in the least to see his principal there for the umpteenth time. Rumors at school must have stopped, because Warren seemed much happier now. Not that we were doing anything wrong, mind you. Unless you call getting wet on the spot as soon as Julian’s fingers touched my face. Oh, God, it was worse than I’d thought.

“Now you take care of your mother, Warren, all right?” he said softly and Warren nodded.

I ruffled Warren’s hair and he put his arms around me. One of his rare moments. I sat still and enjoyed the feeling as Julian watched us.

I turned to him. “Come on, you—wash your hands. I want to see you doing justice to this fantastic food. You’re making stuffed artichokes and
filetto
in mushroom sauce.” I could get
used
to having my own personal chef.

Julian eyed me, then the kids, and finally reached into the grocery bags. In thirty minutes, he’d managed to get the food in the oven.

“Why do you think you need lessons?” I asked, suddenly suspicious. He checked the timer.

“I told you. I’ve wanted to learn all my life. And now that I’ve found an expert...”

“I’m no expert.
Zia
Maria is.”

“She’s great,” Julian agreed. “But I’m only interested in
you
.”

“So it was just an excuse for Round Three?”

He grinned. “You make it sound like a fight.”

I sighed. Sex with Ira
had
been a fight—a war. But with Julian it was way too easy to feel something good. If only I could talk to him about Tuscany.

Are you nuts?
my alter ego snapped at me.
You barely know the guy and you want to drag him all the way to Europe? Don’t you think you’re taking a lot for granted?

Maybe,
I snapped back.
But if I don’t risk it, how will I ever know?

You’re in for a big crash,
it countered.
You talk to him about the future, especially in another country, and you’re going to scare the crap out of him. Your own husband and father of your children wouldn’t follow you—what makes you think Julian would?

Okay, so maybe my conscience was right. Because sooner or later, if this continued, it would have to take
some
direction—right? But for now I’d take what life gave me. Which was countless orgasms a week. Not that I was complaining, mind you.

“Erica, you’re amazingly sexy,” Julian whispered against the side of my face, and then down between my breasts as his hands traveled over and over my butt. Hoo boy. If he kept that up we’d be doing it among the artichokes.

But how exactly was I sure this could lead to Tuscany? There was no way I was ready to trust a man again just yet. Not even Julian. But the sex, I could enjoy and milk forever. Until he got sick of me and would break the heart I professed had been closed for business. Not to mention the kids—they adored him. What if he broke their hearts, too? This was something I couldn’t accept.

I kissed him back and he sighed.

“What?” I asked.

“I told you, Erica. I don’t just want this to be about sex.”

“Why don’t we take one day at a time, huh?” I whispered softly lest the kids came back downstairs and then I’d have one hell of a task explaining why Mr. Foxham had his hands down Mommy’s pants.

He ran a hand through his gorgeous black hair and nodded. “Okay, we’ll do it your way. For now.”

Which to me sounded not like an ultimatum, but a promise.

Chapter 27:

Irreconcilable Differences

O
ne rainy afternoon, Julian asked me to meet him at his home. Was he going to dump me? Or move our sex relationship up to the next level, with maybe leather straps and chains? Hell if I knew what was going on between us really.

At first I’d said yes (to meeting him at home—not the chains), but by the time I was due there, I chickened out and went to my local coffee shop for a cappuccino instead and watched the streets flood under the sudden downpour. There were a thousand things that I still worried about.

Due to my healing self-confidence, and also thanks to Julian’s reactions to me in and out of bed, my weight was no longer an issue for me anymore. Sure, I wasn’t a Barbie doll, but I was no longer obese. Big? Sure, but happy too. I had taken to seeing myself as Julian did—curvy and sexy! And that, in a normal woman’s mind, should have only been the start of a happy ending. But you know me and my obsessive fears.

What if he really did suffer from Superman syndrome and eventually got fed up with saving me? He’d break my heart and the kids’. I knew I was being a chicken, but I had the horrible feeling that I had fallen in love with him after—what—a couple of months? On what planet had I allowed that to happen? And to boot, it was getting so bad for me that on a couple of occasions I’d almost asked him to move to Tuscany with us.

Talk about a commitment.

I knew Julian loved his job, his home, his parents. Why the hell would he leave all that for me? It wasn’t like he’d said he loved me or anything—right? So rather than dump him (before he dumped me) over the phone, I had the decency to call rather than make a no show.

“Julian?” I said into my cell phone, my heart in my throat as the rain beat against the large windows of the café. And then I told him why I wouldn’t be keeping our date, all in one breath, before I could change my mind. That I wasn’t ready for another relationship, especially with my kids’ principal. Yeah, it sounded pretty lame to me too, but when you’re chicken you’re chicken.

I was feeling better already. I was glad I’d decided not to see him. Apparently he wasn’t as glad. He sighed softly. “Where are you?”

I swallowed. No way I was telling him. “In the coffee shop round the corner from my home.”
Shit.
“Don’t come,” I added lamely.

“I’ll be there in five minutes.”

“Don’t! I won’t be here,” I warned him. But who was I kidding?

Exactly five minutes later he poured into the shop, his jacket flying in the wind behind him, his hair wet from the downpour. He looked damn sexy, all wet from head to toe. What the hell did he want with a woman like me? I had baggage—physical, emotional and lately even under my eyes.

And I’m passing this guy up?
I asked myself, bewildered. I could at least
ask
him if he liked Tuscany—no?

Julian slid into the booth next to me without a word, his eyes caressing me, so warm my skin began to heat up. He put his hand on mine, his eyes liquid. “Hey...”

I closed my eyes and swallowed. He sighed.

“It’s become way too obvious that we care about each other, sweetheart.”

Sweetheart.
I laughed bitterly at the sound of the endearment. I wasn’t used to hearing it from my husband’s lips, let alone from another guy. And if I could think of a billion reasons to go with him back to his house, I could think of two billion for not doing it, now, as the rain pelted the scurrying passengers outside, forcing them to run for cover. Were they going to meet their lovers, too, or were they going home to their families, where I should have been as well, getting a nice roast ready, instead of flirting around?

Who was I kidding? I’d never been able to flirt in my whole life. I was a total loser in the romantic field. And to the point, here I was, caught in one of those pathetic scenes you only see on really bad daytime TV.

I lowered my head, feeling the top of the ketchup bottle pressing into my forehead. That would leave me a nice, round red mark for all to see. K is for ketchup and kissing.

As hard as I tried, I couldn’t tear my hand away from beneath Julian’s hot, protective touch. He would have to do it for me and pronto because my body was dying to reach out and grab him by his coat and beg him to stay. Forever, if he was crazy enough.

“Do you like Boston?” I blurted. He stared at me and then grinned.

“Love it. Why?”

Fan-bloody-tastic. “Just wondering. And what’s your second-favorite city? Or country?”

He groaned. “Jesus Christ, Erica—just answer this question. Do you still love your husband? Is that what’s stopping you?”

I looked up, raising my eyebrow. “Hello? Have you not been listening to a word I’ve said since we met?”

As much as I had wanted Julian, who represented all that had been denied to me as a teenager—the impossible mixture of popular, nice, talented and modest guy with the good looks—the truth was, I was terrified of admitting this
want
if he was going to refuse to move to Tuscany with me.

He then suddenly beamed at me, his finger reaching down to touch the sore spot where the ketchup cap had carved itself into my forehead.

“I’m happy when I’m with you, and you’re happy when you’re with me.”

Huh. Simple as that. Concise, but true.

I nodded. “But don’t you care about your reputation? Or your job?”

“Not as much as I care about you, no,” he said, holding on to my hand, stroking the back of it. How quickly our dutiful principal had morphed into a lovesick puppy. At least he looked like one, though I knew all he wanted was to get into my pants again. Which earned him oodles of brownie points.

“So you’d leave your job if you had to?”

“Erica, nothing is going to happen to my job just because I’m sleeping with you.”

Just then my eyes faltered and caught sight of his dark juicy lips. The lips I was dying to kiss again. The temptation was killing me. He was so close. What harm could one kiss possibly do? Just one.

“Technically you’re sleeping with a married woman—you know that?”

He shrugged. “You’re divorcing him.”

“And I have two kids.”

Julian took my chin in his hands. “The kids adore me. Erica, work with me here. What are you afraid of? That I’ll leave you?”

“Technically we’re not even together yet,” I said and he rolled his eyes.

“My chaise and bed don’t agree with you. Besides, my mom’s curious to see what you look like with your clothes on. Even though I prefer you naked.”

I gawked at him. “You want to introduce me to your mom?”

“Well, technically you’ve already met.”

“Did she ask you who I was?”

Julian laughed, his eyes twinkling. “She already knew.”

* * *

As I came in through my front door I heard strange noises. A burglar? There was no sign of forced entry that I could see. Gathering my guts, I inched my way down the hall and stopped at the foot of the stairs, making an effort to breathe quietly, something that my burglar wasn’t doing. I slipped into the kitchen and grabbed my biggest knife, the one I used to cut meat.

As stealthily as I could, I crept up the stairs, avoiding the seventh step that always creaked. It was coming from my bedroom. The thought of someone helping himself to the contents of my safe filled me with rage and I had to make an effort to not fling the door open and kill the guy by simply jumping on him. But if this guy was armed I’d be in trouble, so I peered around the corner and through the chink in the door. And my jaw dropped open.

Ira and a woman. They were emptying his drawers, shoving the carefully ironed and folded clothes into a small suitcase.

The woman turned her head to the side and our eyes locked. Pretty, young face. A familiar face. She screamed.

Ira jumped back and turned to see me, knife in hand. I’d forgotten all about it, as dazed as I was by the sight of my husband and his lover. The husband I’d tried so hard to sex up, the marriage I had tried to save. The knife felt heavy in my hand, my hand felt heavy on the end of my arm, but I couldn’t let it drop to the floor. Could I use it? Was I going to finally realize my dreams of killing him? Only this time I’d be the betrayed wife that had flipped.

I gave the young woman a closer look. And then it dawned on me. “Maxine? Is that you?”

Ira’s young secretary ran past me like the bed had caught fire.

“Erica, what the hell!” Ira yelled as if I’d walked in on him using the toilet. “Put that down—what are you, nuts?”

But all I could do was stare at him. Wow. Boss screws secretary. The same cliché repeats itself. Hadn’t I been knocked up by him when he was my boss? And then I started to laugh. Real, rolling-on-the-floor laughter. Maybe I
was
nuts. For having renounced Julian all this time. For trying to stay faithful to a man that neither deserved it nor loved me. For a man who had no respect for me or my home. I leaned against the door and cackled, holding my sides until I couldn’t breathe anymore.

The door slammed and their car took off like a shot. I grabbed the keys from my pocket, closed the door behind me and slid into my Kia van. I turned on the ignition and drove away from my pain.