Piece of My Heart (Under Suspicion #7) - Mary Higgins Clark Page 0,35
“I’m sorry, it’s so selfish, but all I’ve wanted for so long is to start a life with you. I kept dreading that your show or my court docket or something somewhere would blow up and get in the way of the wedding or the honeymoon, but now it’s poor little Johnny. Is it possible some cosmic force is plotting against us?”
“Are you kidding? What are the odds that the two of us were ever going to meet, let alone adore each other’s families or like the same food or finish each other’s sentences? Or fall absolutely head over heels in love where I can’t even imagine a tomorrow without you?”
His face broke out into a small grin that took her breath away. “Okay, you just managed to make this a happy birthday after all. The happiest, in fact.”
“Until the next one and all the ones after that.”
He kissed her, and for just one second, she stopped worrying about anything at all.
Chapter 23
Marcy could count on one hand, with four digits to spare, the number of times she had ever lied to Andrew.
It was on their fifth date, when the conversation ventured into past relationships. Had any of them gotten serious? Ever talk of marriage? Why hadn’t they worked out in the end? As far as Marcy was concerned, nothing in Andrew’s past could possibly matter. She knew on their very first date—a setup by a mutual friend—that she was going to spend the rest of her life with him. And when he proposed to her exactly one year later, he said he had felt the same way.
But nevertheless, they had that inevitable, awkward conversation the way people do. As it turned out, Andrew had dated a bit in college, but was never serious with anyone until law school. Her name was Christina. They stayed together through their judicial clerkships and had even talked about marriage, but then she accepted a job in London, and the long-distance relationship eventually played itself out. It all sounded very cordial.
Marcy, like Andrew, had also had only one serious prior romance: Brian Lassiter. They went to college together in Northern California and then took their dreams to Los Angeles, hers to be an actress, his to be a screenwriter. There was no ring because he couldn’t afford one, but they vowed to get married as soon as they both had their feet planted in their future professions. It happened for Marcy first. She wasn’t a star by any definition, but within a year, she had her Screen Actors Guild card, two national advertisements, and a recurring role in a network TV drama. Marcy would have been perfectly content to head to city hall, but Brian wanted to wait a little longer, until he sold his first screenplay. She agreed, because she supported him unconditionally.
A “little longer” turned out to be three more years, but the wait had paid off—at least for Brian’s screenplay. One week before the big splashy premiere of what would become one of the year’s top-grossing films, Brian broke the news. He loved her—he would always love her—but he was no longer in love with her. It was over, and Marcy was devastated. She couldn’t get out of bed, but she couldn’t sleep either. She couldn’t eat. And she certainly couldn’t act. For the first time in her young life, she was a complete and total mess.
But all of that was in the past by the time she was on her fifth date with Andrew and he was asking her, “So why didn’t it work out?”
She knew in her heart that she was going to spend the rest of her life with this wonderful man.
So she lied. “We were so young. We just grew apart, is all.”
She immediately felt guilty about the fib, but she assured herself it was harmless. She never wanted Andrew to look at her and wonder if he had been her rebound guy, or a second choice that she had settled for. The truth was, Marcy had always thought the idea of a “soul mate” was preposterous, until she met Andrew.
But then, this morning, for the first time since that fifth date, she found herself lying when Andrew asked where she was going as she reached for the car keys on her hotel nightstand. “To get more of the flyers copied.”
Technically, that was true, but the copy shop would be Marcy’s second stop in town. Her first was to see Detective Langland on her own.