Exception (33 page)

Once more, Taylor’s smile rivaled that of a child on Christmas morning. “Good, because so do I.”

Holding her tightly around the waist and pressing her against him, Taylor twisted his body to the side and lowered them until they lay on the couch with their heads resting on the armrest, facing each other. With assertive fingers, he tucked a few of her long locks behind her ear before covering her hand with his. Even though his story wasn’t half as bad as Emily’s, he was extremely nervous about how she might react.

If you stripped all the details away, his whole story could be condensed in one short sentence, so he started with that. “Georgina was my wife.”

Emily stared at him with shocked eyes. From the little information she’d received from both Taylor and Rina at the gallery she’d known he and the woman had been serious, but never in a million years would she have guessed he’d been married.

Feeling sad for his failed marriage added to her shock. She’d disliked Georgina from the first time she’d heard her name, and was most definitely not sad that the union hadn’t worked. But still, every divorce comes with torn-apart dreams and a lot of inevitable pain. The knowledge that her best friend had to endure all of that at such a young age was the source of her sadness.

She looked at him with kind eyes, and touched his cheek before speaking. “I’m so sorry, Tay.”

In a single breath, his face changed from anxious, to relieved and confused. “I’m not, so why are you?”

“Divorce is always awful, especially when you’re not even thirty.”

“When you’re married to someone who lies through her teeth and is more interested in your name and money than in you, early divorce is the best thing in the world,” he said, smoothing his features and giving her a smile. “I’ve regretted marring her many times, but I’ve never been sorry I divorced her. It was the best decision I’ve made, and meeting you proved it.”

He said it in such a matter-of-fact way that it took Emily by surprise. She felt overwhelmed that, once more, they shared the same type of feelings for each other. She gave him a wide, shy smile. “I’m glad that I’m not the only one who felt my past change when we met.”

“No, you definitely were not,” he admitted with a chuckle. Their eyes were locked in a deep connection, but despite the intensity of it, in Taylor’s mind, it still wasn’t enough to portray how deeply Emily truly had changed him. He brought a hand up and gently ran his fingers down her gorgeous face and along the length of her silky hair. “And you haven’t only changed my past, you know. I’ve told you before, you’ve changed everything, and you keep on changing it. Every second we’re together I’m different, and it’s because of you.”

Her eyes filled up again, but this time with happy, emotional tears. The more she got to know him, the more perfect he became, and she was left speechless, thinking that she would never be able to put how much she needed him in her life into words. Once Taylor removed the hand he had on her cheek, she lifted her head from the armrest and moved her lips to the little patch of skin just above the line of his scruff where she planted a soft kiss.

“Ditto,” she whispered, with her lips still against his smooth skin. After a second quick kiss, Emily returned her head to the armrest and looked at Taylor’s smiling face.

Neither of them said anything for a while; they just lay there, inches apart, lost in each other’s eyes. Each passing second made Emily’s shy blush turn a deeper shade of pink until her cheeks were almost red. “Just quit with the awkward silence and say something.”

“You kissed me,” he said, in between chuckles.

Emily groaned and covered her burning face. “Not that. Don’t say things like that. Besides, I didn’t kiss you, I kissed your cheek.”

Taylor couldn’t understand why she was so embarrassed by such an innocent and sweet display of affection, but it was very funny. With a smug chuckle he teased her once more. “Twice—you kissed my cheek twice.”

“I haven’t done that to anyone other than Charlie, Z and J in a very long time, so don’t make fun of me,” she begged from behind her hands.

“Hey, I’m not. I’m just—wowed.” He removed the hands that covered her face and, with a gently finger beneath her chin, he lifted it so she would meet his eyes. “I really liked it, please do it more often,” he requested honestly.

“When you’re done with your story, I might do it again,” she teased with a shy smile.

“I better get on with it then,” he said, making her laugh. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath in preparation. The mood shifted. “I met Georgina during my junior year in high school. I was the popular jock, and she was the new kid. Being the principal’s daughter didn’t improve her odds at making friends and neither did her shyness, so she mostly kept to herself.

“For many reasons, she was different to most of the girls in school. For starters, she didn’t throw herself at me like the rest of them, which was refreshing. She also didn’t go to school with a full mask of make-up, which I always found a little ridiculous—but still, she was prettier than all of them. We had a few classes together and, after a couple of weeks watching her, I decided to stop being a chicken and introduce myself.

“I sat next to her one day in geometry. We talked a little during the class. She was great to talk to: funny, witty and could carry a smart conversation, which once again set her apart from the other girls, so I invited her to have lunch with me and my friends.

“I walked her to her next class and, before she went in, I invited her to the homecoming dance. That was our first date, and that night we became a couple. I don’t think I ever asked her to be my girlfriend, it just happened. Because I was popular and known for hooking up with the girls but never liking anyone enough to actually date them, she went from being invisible to being the girl who finally caught Taylor Carter’s heart.” Taylor turned on his back and placed Emily’s hand on his chest before continuing, “That should have been my first clue, you know. She loved that, the popularity and the showing off the gifts I gave her, even back then.”

The way Taylor fell silent and shook his head was heartbreaking, and made Emily hate Georgina even more. She caught herself wondering how life would have been if she had been the new kid at his school. As quickly as the thought occurred, she pushed it out of her mind.

“When I got into Harvard, she decided to go to Boston U so we could be together. My mom hated the idea, but there wasn’t much she could do other than demand that I lived in the dorms for at least the first two years. I guess she hoped that, in that time, I would meet someone else and get over Georgina. You can imagine how happy she was when that didn’t happen and, in our junior year, we moved in together.”

The sarcastic edge to his last sentence brought a question to her mind. “So your mom didn’t like her?”

“That’s an understatement. They hated each other with a passion,” he said with a chuckle. “Mom’s very good at seeing through people.”

Emily nodded once before Taylor continued his story. “We were in Canada when I got my acceptance letter to the Cambridge post-grad program. I’d dreamt about it for most of my life and, when it finally happened, my family and I were overjoyed. Mom invited all of our friends and family for a lunch to celebrate my big achievement. It was an amazing day and everyone had fun with the exception of Georgina, who was sulking during the whole thing.

“We’d had that discussion countless times. We were dating for almost six years and she thought that, if we went to England as boyfriend and girlfriend, I would settle and we would never be married. Once again, I explained that a piece of paper wouldn’t make me anymore committed to her than I already was. We weren’t even twenty-three yet, we had our whole lives ahead of us, so why rush things? I wanted to go to England, get my masters and my PhD and then think about it, but she insisted and made a big deal of how important it was for her to be Mrs. Taylor Carter, so I finally caved.

“We had two months between the day we decided to get married and the date my classes would begin. I wanted to elope; go to City Hall, get married and have a honeymoon before going to England, but Georgina wanted a big society wedding, and somehow she pulled it off.”

Even from her partially obscured view, Emily could see how sad he looked as he continued. “My whole life I’d thought that when I finally decided to get married I would give my fiancée my grandmother’s ring. It’s been passed down for generations, and playing with that ring on Grandma’s finger is what I remember the most about her. The stone isn’t too big, but I’ve been taught to value memories more than money and, because of that, to me that ring is priceless. Besides, you just don’t see rings with that kind of detail and craftsmanship anymore.

“I called Mom and told her we were going to get married, and that I wanted to give her the ring. Mom wasn’t too happy about that, as you can imagine, but she agreed, knowing it was important to me. I took it to be polished and cleaned, which took a few days. I planned to take her to dinner at our favorite hole-in-the-wall and then drive to the high school gymnasium where we had our first kiss. In my mind, it was a simple and romantic proposal, and planning that actually got me excited about the whole wedding idea.”

His words made her Emily smile. She agreed that everything from the vintage ring, to his lovely proposal was incredibly romantic in all its simplicity. He looked at her from the corner of his eyes and couldn’t help but smile at the swooning look on her face. “Does that sound good to you?”

“That sounds absolutely perfect, Tay. I’ve always been a sucker for vintage rings,” she confessed truthfully. In the space of a few beats before she continued to speak, Taylor’s brows pulled together, forming a small line between them. “And what happened?”

He cleared his throat before answering. “When I got home after picking up the ring, she came running over to show me the one she’d bought since, according to her, I hadn’t thought about it. At the time I was heartbroken and shocked, like you,” he said, smoothing the crease between her eyes. “But after the divorce I was glad.”

Her questioning eyes probed him for more information. “That ring was too special for her,” he said, running his thumb over her knuckles. “When it was over, she kept the monstrous Tiffany rock she’d always dreamt of having, and I kept something much more precious than that.”

She smiled with appreciation at the humbleness that was one of her favorite traits about him. “And what happened after the big society wedding?”

“We moved to England, without a honeymoon, and I started my classes right away.” The annoyance he still felt over that spoke volumes. “The beginning of our marriage was great, as most new things are. While I was studying and working on my thesis, she kept busy decorating our apartment and helping out with charities. The year went by extremely fast and before we knew it I started the PhD, which came with offers for a TA position and an internship, which I took. On top of that, I did a lot of extension seminars, like the one in which I met Rina. Despite how busy I was, I loved every second of it. But, to Georgina, all of that was an unnecessary waste of time that kept me away from her.”

With every new piece of information Emily disliked Georgina even more, and she finally began to understand why Rina had used the long line of unpleasantries to describe her. Her heart ached for him. In her eyes, he was the perfect man, and deserved so much better than a bitchy wife who didn’t encourage his passion.

With a deep breath he continued. “For three years, I tried my very best to be an accommodating and thoughtful husband, sending loving texts whenever I was having a long day at the library or couldn’t be with her for some reason. I planned romantic dinners and short weekend trips—I even overlooked the ridiculous amounts of money she wasted on clothes and shoes and bags that she only wore once or twice. But, no matter what I did, her demands and jealousy only got worse with time.

“It was hard for me to understand.” He let out one of those humorless chuckles. “In fact, it still is hard to understand how, even though she had a husband who loved her, and more comfort than she could’ve ever dreamt of having, it still wasn’t enough. She wanted more. When I asked her what more I could give her, she told me she wanted to have our faces printed on the cover of magazines, and to have a husband who lived up to his powerful name.

“I remember thinking that I didn’t recognize the woman I’d married anymore. She wasn’t the shy girl I’d met in high school, the one who was cooler than all the other girls. If anything she’d become worse than them. Other than the name and an address, we had absolutely nothing left in common. She had become a complete stranger who valued a last name and the money that came along with it more than her husband. I was horrified, and so hurt, that I could barely be around her.

“Two months later, I was studying late in the library when she texted asking me to come home as soon as I could. When I got there, she’d prepared this great dinner with all my favorites. There were candles and flowers around the room, and she’d even made a CD with all the songs that had been important to us in the almost nine years we’d been together. While we ate, she apologized for being so weird and materialistic. She said she’d lost sight of what was important, but that she knew I was the love of her life and all she wanted was to make our marriage work—especially since she’d just found out she was pregnant.”

Emily’s eyes almost popped out of her head. He’d never mentioned having a kid, which led her to think that, at some point, they must have lost the child. Instead of asking questions, she let him speak. His breathing was heavy and his eyes were unfocused, making it very difficult for her to read anything other than sorrow in his expression.