“Thank you,” she said bitterly, certain that no one was on her side. “Somehow, I had forgotten.” Ella broke into tears. She grabbed her handbag and prepared to leave his office.
“Ella, I will do my best.”
“I know. I believe you.”
“We’ll be in touch.”
Ella nodded and left her lawyer’s office.
When Ella walked into the lobby of St. Christopher’s, the first person to stop her was David Greene, who was on his way to a meeting. She had managed to fix her face in the bathroom of the lawyer’s office and had kept from crying in the cab ride back, but as soon as David said hello, she burst into tears. She bit her lip.
“Ella, what happened?”
“Ted wants joint custody. But, David, he doesn’t care about her. He’s using her as a pawn—”
“What? That’s crazy.”
Ella wiped her face with her hands. She checked the lobby clock. No one else nearby had noticed her crying. “I have to get back to my desk. I’m okay.”
“You can’t go back to your desk like this.” Ella’s desk in front of the headmaster’s office was in full view of anyone who’d pass by. “Come. Come to my office. Fitz’s fine for a few more minutes.”
Ella nodded. Her boss had given her most of the morning off for this meeting. “But you were stepping out—”
“Don’t worry about that. Come on.”
In his office, Ella sat on his green sofa, and David sat beside her.
“This is becoming old hat, don’t you think?” she said of her crying jags. As soon as his office door had shut, she’d started to tear up again.
“No. This is a difficult thing.” The sight of Ella’s unhappiness grieved him. He didn’t know how to comfort her. Two friends of his from college had recently divorced, and of the divorces he knew of in passing, the details were uncomfortably similar—overwork, bad habits, affairs, and faulty communication—yet it was never clear to him how love’s alchemy turned passion to indifference.
David had met Ted a few times and fairly or unfairly believed him unworthy of Ella. It was obvious why a woman would marry a man like Ted—the clarity of his ambition, the proven intelligence and good looks—but even in their limited interactions, it seemed to David that Ted didn’t have the deep-rooted kindness that defined Ella. Ted was a thoroughly expedient person. During a charity benefit dinner, Ted had remarked about the actress—the evening’s honoree—who was reputed to sleep with directors to get parts: “So what? If she got on her knees, she was only doing what works. So sex is her currency. Everyone sells something.” He’d tossed it off as if it were a widely shared value. David had smirked guiltily then but recognized that Ella and Ted would always negotiate the world differently. Ted was not unlike David’s father—another man of the world.
Ella pulled out a tissue from her purse to clean her face. David took her in with wonder. Unworthy men got worthy girls because they believed that they deserved the best. If David were ever to get a girl like Ella, he would have to feel entitled to be with her. Top dogs got the best girls—his father used to say this at the club when he noticed attractive women with powerful men. David cared for his fiancée, but what he felt for Colleen couldn’t possibly match what surged through him for Ella. Colleen was smart and kind, and his mother liked her a great deal, but David had never felt the urgency to hold her the way he wanted to hold Ella at this moment. If he took Ella in his arms, he thought he might have a hard time letting her go.
“I love you,” he said.
Ella looked at him. “What did you say?”
It was too late to take it back.
“I love you, and I’ll wait until you’re finished with this marriage.”
“David. What are you saying? You’re engaged.”
“I know. But it has occurred to me that she deserves someone who loves her the way I love you. I think I agreed to my mother’s suggestion about Colleen because I respect my mother, and she’s so ill. Colleen has taken such good care of her, and I felt grateful. And you were married, and I’m thirty-six years old. Maybe those aren’t good enough reasons . . I think I’ve been waiting for you anyway, and I didn’t even let myself admit these things because it’s wrong to covet someone else’s wife.” Once he confessed, he felt freer from his anxieties. He sat up straighter and looked at her carefully. Their relationship might have been ruined forever, he thought. She might think he was an awful person.