Feels Like Falling - Kristy Woodson Harvey Page 0,18

for at least ten years. We made a point of going out to dinner together at least once a summer. They were a good bit older than Greg and me, but down here, everyone was friends with people of all ages. It made things so much more interesting.

As Bill’s face came into view, it almost took my breath away. I mean, literally. My chest constricted, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Our couples’ dinners with Bill and Sharon were over. My marriage was over. Oh my God. I was over. For nine years I had been Greg’s wife; we had been part of a pair. We had been a family. What would become of me now? It hit me so hard sometimes, in unexpected moments like these. Everything was normal; everything was fine. Until it wasn’t. I bit my lip and looked away as tears came to my eyes, mortified at the quiet scene I was making. I had been on the verge of tears all day over Wagner’s leaving, and this put me over the edge.

Bill winked at me and, as if reading my mind, said, “Don’t think you can get out of dinner just because you had the good sense to drop that deadweight.” He put his arm around me and squeezed me to him sideways. “I promise you, Gray, you’re better off.”

People said this kind of stuff all the time, and sometimes I could even say it to myself. But it didn’t take away the shame. I had failed. Our marriage hadn’t been perfect. Hell, even I knew it wasn’t all Greg’s fault. Yeah, he had cheated and he had been jealous of my success, but I had been too wrapped up in work and Wagner. I had been overly stressed. I had let my marriage fail. It was a hard pill to swallow, and the realization furthered that deep, dark, scary thought that I didn’t deserve to be with anyone else. I didn’t deserve to be happy.

I nodded, a little teary from Bill’s kindness. “Thanks, Bill. I’ll look forward to it.”

The older man squeezed my shoulder. “What can I do for you, Ms. Gray?”

I was so glad he didn’t say, “Ms. Howard.” Because I wasn’t. Or maybe I was, but only in name. In my heart, Howard didn’t belong to me anymore.

I shook my head. “I feel horrible.”

“Why?”

“I got Diana Harrington fired.”

He chuckled. “Oh, honey, no way. She was terrible at her job, just terrible. She was always getting orders mixed up and pictures cropped wrong and jamming the machine. You were my scapegoat.”

I was relieved, but also a little miffed that I’d come out here to do the right thing only to find that Diana had the story all wrong. I would call and tell her that I tried to set things straight, but it wasn’t my fault she got fired after all. “You promise?”

“Oh yeah. She had a file as thick as my forearm of infractions and complaints. It’s a shame, though.” He looked down at the floor and shook his head.

“Why’s that?”

“Oh, we go way back with Diana. She cleaned our house for ten years before she went to work at the factory. Kept our kids. Hell, half raised them. Then when the factory shut down, I hired her to work for me. But she’s always been tough. She’ll figure it out.” He shrugged.

I nodded, feeling another tug of guilt. Whether it was my fault or not, here was a good, decent woman out of work. It put my ClickMarket woes in perspective. Whether I got to keep all my company or not, I wasn’t in danger of being hungry or out on the street. I thought of my parents, of how hard they had worked to make ends meet, of how many years they had lived paycheck to paycheck when my mom had been too depressed to go to work after my brother died, when the anxiety that, if she wasn’t the one taking care of Quinn and me, we would die too had kept her tethered to home and to us. I never wanted to live like that. I’d promised myself that I wouldn’t. I had thought, very na?vely, that money could protect me. It had taken me until now to realize that it couldn’t.

My phone buzzed in my hand, and I looked down to find a text from Andrew. Can’t wait for next Friday. I promise, I’m taking you somewhere no hoity-toity blue-blooded woman in her right mind would