“Fix?” It came out on a shriek. “You can’t fix anything. You have a child with her!”
“I love you, tesoro mio. I’ve always loved you. Nothing’s changed that. Nothing ever will.”
Words she’d once treasured and held close to her heart—words she’d believed to be the absolute truth—rolled over her like mercury, without a trace of residue. “Everything’s changed, Nick. Absolutely everything.”
Chapter Ten
Karen slammed the meat tenderizer into the steak, visualizing Nick’s testicles. “I want to do this to our bastard son-in-law!”
Peter gave her a worried glance. “Do I need to hide the cooking knives?”
“How can you be so calm about it?” She whacked the steak again. “He’s betrayed our daughter in the worst possible way.”
“And he regrets it.”
“So that’s it? He regrets it, so he’s forgiven?”
“I didn’t say that.” Peter spun some washed lettuce. “I feel sorry for him.”
Her disbelief at the statement almost matched her fury at Nick. “How is that even possible?”
“If you’d come with me to see him, you’d feel the same way. He doesn’t look like Nick. I swear he’s shrunk.”
“Good!” She slammed the meat again. “I want him to suffer!”
“And I don’t want pulverized porterhouse.” Peter lifted the mallet out of her hand. “He made a mistake, Karen. An error of judgement.”
“Having sex with his wife’s best friend, getting her pregnant and bringing the child into his marriage is not an error of judgement! It’s duplicity and treachery.”
Peter tossed the diced salad ingredients into the bowl. “I’m not defending what he did. I hate what he did, but calling it treachery’s a bit rough. I think Nick’s been trying to do the best he can in an untenable situation. Surely the fact it’s made him sick must count for something.”
“Nonsense! He wasn’t being made ill by anything honorable or noble. It was fear of Libby finding out.”
“I don’t know.” Peter sounded doubtful. “He seems genuinely remorseful.”
“Well, bully for Nick!”
Throughout their marriage, Karen and Peter often found themselves on opposite sides of a debate. Sometimes Peter genuinely disagreed with her, but mostly he played devil’s advocate. He knew she needed it to reassure her that, unlike her father, robust discussion with him was safe. She loved him for it, but right now she was furious.
“This situation demands far more than just an ‘Oops, I’m sorry.’ If I were Libby, I wouldn’t accept an apology as being anywhere near good enough. In fact, if I was her, I’d—”
“We’re parents of two adult daughters, Karen. The days where you get to call the shots and make all their decisions for them are long gone.”
“You make it sound like it was a bad thing. You know I was only keeping them safe. All I’ve ever wanted is to keep them safe.”
Peter sighed, the sound old and taut. “Whether we like it or not, we’re going to have to respect and live with whatever Libby decides. And not just for her, but for the little girls too. We can’t badmouth Nick. He’s their father and they love him.”
“I concede no such thing. More than anyone, I know that not every father deserves the love of their child! I never want to see Nick Pirelli again.”
“You can hear how irrational that sounds, right?”
“He’s cut our daughter clean through and destroyed everything she’s ever believed about their life together. You’re her father. Instead of standing there rationally intellectualizing the situation, you should want to call him out.”
“You’ve been reading too many historical novels. Besides, dueling’s not my style.” Peter laughed but when Karen didn’t crack a smile he sobered. “Come on, Kaz. You’ve always said you fell in love with me because I offered you the calm oasis you needed.”
And during all their years together, that’s exactly what he’d given her. Karen never had any intentions of entangling herself in a relationship—why give a man an opportunity to control her life when she’d fought so hard to get out and away from her father’s vicious dominance? But Peter had walked unexpectedly into the life she’d built herself.
They’d met at a tiny, inner-city art gallery in Melbourne. The art teacher at her school had invited her to an exhibition there, and since Karen was still making up for a childhood devoid of any culture, she’d accepted. Jittery with nerves, she’d planned to wait for Sylvia outside but rain drove her indoors. Her friend never arrived and Karen found out later that her car had broken down in the wet weather.
Utterly out of her depth, Karen had stared at the major canvas of the exhibition, trying hard to match the artist’s story of the work with the image in front of her. People around her murmured affirmations about the use of light, color and texture and how brave the artist was to expose his soul in such a harrowing work. As they drifted away, Peter walked up and scratched his head.
“Looks like …” he peered at the artist’s name, “… Dukes had an accident in the garage with a can of blue paint and he didn’t want to waste an expensive canvas.”
She laughed. Peter grinned. They strolled around the rest of the exhibition together and as they studied each work, he drew her out, seeking her opinions. He didn’t always agree, but his equable responses were always delivered with polite regard. When the gallery owner flashed the lights at eight o’clock to hurry out the lingerers, Peter said, “If you’re hungry, there’s a cheap Greek around the corner.”
Perhaps it was the casual invitation and the way it gave her control, or the fact that a noisy BYO restaurant full of Greek families was devoid of any of the ritual signatures associated with a date, but whatever the reason, Karen found herself sitting opposite a man for dinner for the first time in years. Over taramasalata, baba ganoush and gyros—foods she’d never tasted before—she became increasingly drawn to Peter’s intellect and his quiet and relaxed manner. It scared her, so she deliberately made some outrageous statements to
