The Candidate by Lis Wiehl & Sebastian Stuart

Author:Lis Wiehl & Sebastian Stuart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2016-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 34

ERICA STOPS COLD ON THE curb, not trusting her own eyes. Is it really Greg? Yes, it is. And seeing him—so handsome, so fit, his skin tawny and burnished by the Australian sun—instantly rekindles something inside her. Raw physical attraction, yes, but also a surge of tenderness. She was in love with this man. Is she still? Can they get back what they lost? Can she forgive him? Erica struggles to get her bearings.

Greg crosses the sidewalk to her. “You look shocked to see me.”

“Sydney is a long way away.”

“Too far.” He reaches out to hold her, and an image of Laurel Masson flashes in her mind; she tenses up and takes a step backward.

They stand there with so much to say and nothing to say. Part of Erica wants to invite him up to her apartment to fall into his arms. Another part of her wants to slap him across the face.

“Can we talk?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Would you like to go to a café or . . . ?”

“How about the park?”

“The park is good.”

They walk in silence, entering the park at Seventy-Second Street and finding a bench in Strawberry Fields, the garden dedicated to the memory of John Lennon, who was assassinated across the street in front of the Dakota apartment house. The centerpiece is the circular Imagine mosaic—and although it’s only yards from the hustle and bustle of the city, there’s a quietude here that Erica finds renewing. At this moment, however, quietude is the last thing she’s feeling.

“Erica, I came back to apologize. I made a terrible mistake. But I can’t face losing you.”

She turns on him. “Maybe you should have thought of that before you slept with Laurel Masson.”

“Don’t I know it? I kick myself a hundred times a day. You have to believe me, Erica; she means nothing to me.”

“You still work together, don’t you?”

“We do. But I’ve made it very clear to her that it’s over.”

“You’re going to go back to Sydney. You’re going to get lonely. She’s a beautiful woman . . .”

There’s a pause, and then he turns and looks at her with those soulful green eyes. “Let’s go down to City Hall on Monday morning and get married.”

Erica jerks back on the bench, as if pushed by an invisible hand. They could be married in less than forty-eight hours. Man and wife. On second thought, it’s the twenty-first century—let’s make that “woman and husband.” Husband who cheats. Within months of their being separated. Then she remembers their history—Greg’s support during her early days at GNN, his bravery that fateful day in Miami, when he was shot and gravely wounded. His kindness and strength and bemused irony. The smell of his pine soap. Her confusion deepens. She’s no longer sure what she feels.

“I’m not ready to take that step, Greg. You know I’ve been through this before. And Dirk at least had the excuse of my drinking for his affair.”

“You can’t forgive me?”

“I honestly don’t know, Greg.” She looks down at her hands: they’re intertwined, curled and twisted together like a knot.

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