think the lasagna is ready now.” I stand to fetch the salad from the refrigerator.
“Can I help?”
“No… you just sit there with Ethan. I’ve got this.” I hastily cut the loaf of bread, and serve it along with the salad and lasagna.
He shoots me a smile. “Looks delicious… thank you.”
I take a seat. “I hope you like it.”
We both dig into our lasagna and watch Ethan devour his. I smile at the sight of him. He’s just like his dad. He loves food.
“You got yourself a good eater,” Weston says. “You’re lucky.”
“How about you? Are your kids good eaters?”
He shakes his head. “Ashton was always pretty good, but Elizabeth… God, she’s just like her mother. She’s always been a picky eater. She drives me up the wall sometimes.”
“Are you the ‘eat your broccoli or no dessert for you’ type?”
He laughs. “Most definitely. Lizzie hates me.”
I smile. “I’m sure she only hates you at the dinner table.”
“Something like that.” He pokes his fork into his lasagna. “This is really delicious, by the way.”
“Thank you.”
“Bridget was not a good cook,” he tells me, and for some reason, I’m not surprised. I’ve only seen a photo of her, but she strikes me as the quintessential career woman. Who needs to cook when you can pay others to do it? I’m a little jealous.
“Is that why the marriage didn’t work?” I joke. “A man needs a meal on the table.”
“What kind of old fashioned misogynist do you think I am?” he asks with a cheeky grin. “No, that was definitely not the reason. She didn’t cook, but she always made sure we were well fed. And if she didn’t, I did. We worked well together that way.”
I nod, still itching to know why they broke up. It takes every iota of strength I have not to pry.
“No… it was way more serious than that,” he tells me. “She deceived me. More than once.”
“Did she cheat on you?” I ask, not able to rein myself in.
He blows out a breath, and looks down at his half-eaten meal. “No.”
I nod, and my fork dances over my salad as I debate whether to take a bite, or ask another probing question. I stuff a forkful of lettuce in my mouth. That’s sure to shut me up.
“I came to discover a few things about my wife. I’ve never been the kind of husband who pries into his wife’s affairs. I have great respect for people’s privacy as I cherish my own. But I accidentally fell upon her personal email account by chance, and one thing led to another. I was compelled to dig deeper.”
I’ve abandoned my lasagna, completely riveted. Ethan is busy drawing circles in the sauce on his plate. I usually don’t let him play with his food, but tonight I’m just glad he’s occupied.
“I’ve told you all about the arrangement Bridget and I had with Mirella and her husband,” he goes on. “Well, I’d been in love with Mirella for about two years, and I’d always thought our initial meeting was fate. I was under the mistaken assumption that we were soulmates. When, all along, our first meeting was planned… kind of.”
“How so?” I ask, confused. We’ve now both abandoned our meals, and I wonder if we should be eating instead of delving into his past.
“Bridget and I were having dinner with friends, but they cancelled at the last minute. There was a couple at the restaurant whose reservation got lost, and they had no table. And Bridget kindly invited them to sit with us.”
“Mirella and her husband?”
“Yes. I was under the impression that we were all complete strangers. I was instantly drawn to her. She was certainly not perfect by today’s standards, but she was the most beautiful, sweetest thing I’d ever seen. It was love at first sight for me.”
His words cut me. I know it was years ago, but the thought of him being so passionately in love with someone else tears me apart. “So they weren’t complete strangers?” I ask, confused.
“No. My wife, Bridget, and her husband, Gabe, already knew each other. They had known each other for two months, having met at a furniture show, when she was furnishing our summer property.”
I take a sip of my wine. “Oh… and how do you know this?”
“Email communications.”
I sit up straighter. “Were they having an affair?”
Ethan slaps his hands hard on his tray. He does this when he’s done.