Valentine's Fantasy: When Valentines Collide / To Love Again

Matthew groaned his doubt, especially since his mind was already churning for his next payback for being damn near poisoned. “I don’t know, Seth. I think what we need is a vacation from one another. Maybe you can set me up with a book tour or something. Get me out of the house before I make America’s Most Wanted list.”

“All right. You do this conference and when you get back, I’ll get you your tour.”

* * *

After hosting another long night of The Open Heart Forum, Chanté broke her promise and issued Thad yet another rain check. Mostly, she didn’t feel like hosting another pity party. What good would it do?

“Piss or get off the pot.” How many women had she told that to over the years? If you’re not happy, why stick around?

“And the hypocrisy award goes to...me.”

At two a.m., she turned the rental car into the driveway, but sat behind the wheel long after she shut off the engine. To be honest, she was afraid to go inside. Matthew was not likely to let a little thing like spiking his food go unavenged. Of course it was harmless—at most he was nauseous for a couple of hours—at worst he spent the day hugging the toilet.

Like always—she had options. Grab a hotel room for the night, sleep in the car or brave out Matthew’s next chess move. In the end, her curiosity was too strong to back down.

Opening the front door, Chanté peered cautiously inside. The first clue that something was up was that all the lights in the house were turned off. Matthew was giving the appearance that he hadn’t waited up for her.

She didn’t buy it for a minute.

Chanté inched across the threshold with bated breath and her ears strained to catch the slightest sound. Closing the door, she effectively stamped out the only light resource she had. She knew the layout of the house by heart and rushed across the foyer to take the stairs two at a time. If she could just make it to her bedroom, she’d be safe.

But once in her bedroom, she discovered Matthew’s revenge.

The scream she released was more bloodcurdling than all the horror movie scream queens put together. There, strung from the ceiling like party favors, were hundreds of her precious shoes: Prada, Gucci, Ferragamos and even her $14,000 Manolo Blahnik alligator boots, with all their heels severed.

Her shoes. Her babies.

She screamed until she realized this was not a dream or, better yet, a nightmare. “I’m going to kill him,” she seethed. Glancing around, Chanté looked for a weapon—any weapon.

“Payback is a bitch,” Matthew drawled from behind.

She spun around and launched at him.

Matthew never imagined his wife could move so quickly. Before he could think to block the attack she was already on him like white on rice. After she landed a few blows upside his head, he lost his balance and toppled onto the floor where they rolled around like seasoned wrestlers.

“I hate you! I hate you!” Chanté shouted at the top of her lungs. “How could you do such a thing?”

Because you tried to kill me, he tried to say, but the moment he opened his mouth, she socked him in it.

“Chanté, it’s never okay to hit,” he managed to scowl.

“Screw you!”

They continued to grapple. She took the top position, then it was his turn, and then her turn again.

“Goddamn it, Matthew. You’ve gone too far this time.”

“Me?” he thundered incredulously. “I could have ended up in the hospital over that stunt you pulled this morning.”

“If only I could be so lucky,” she snapped.

The rush of small padded paws rushed across the hardwood floor and Chanté glanced up in time to see the short squat bulldog barreling and barking toward her. She jumped just as Matthew shoved and flew back, and smacked her head with a loud thump on the corner of the bedroom’s doorframe.

“Chanté!” Matthew sat up. “Are you all right?”

“Oww.” She sucked in a deep breath and rubbed at the instant knot on the back of her head. “That hurt.” As Buddy continued to bark at full volume, Chanté had an evil image of skewering the dog and roasting him over an open pit.

“Shut him up!”

Matthew scooped Buddy up and jogged him back to his room. By the time he returned, Chanté managed to pull herself up off the floor and limp to the bed.

“Are you all right?” he asked again.

“Of course.” She didn’t attempt to look in his direction. “Don’t I look all right?”

Matthew crossed the room to her bed. “Mind if I take a look?”

His gruff baritone held a warmth she recognized from years long past and she was surprised by a sudden flutter in the pit of her stomach. She jumped when his hand gently touched the back of her head.

“Be still. I promise I won’t hurt you...this time.”

Why in the hell did she smile? Had he finally knocked the rest of her marbles loose?

Tilting her head, Chanté’s sanity was again called into question when her husband’s fingers combed through her hair and her heartbeat quickened.

It had to be a trick of the mind when time crawled at a snail’s pace during her examination. Sitting still and trying not to make any additional contact, she noticed for the first time his change in cologne. For years his signature scent was the sandalwood-based Hugo by Hugo Boss. She had been the one to introduce the fragrance to him as a Christmas gift back in ’96. He loved it because she loved it and he’d worn it ever since.

Now this tangy scent reeked as being a gift from another woman. Chanté sucked in a breath from the sudden conclusion and she pulled away.

Misinterpreting her reaction, Matthew held up his hands and backed away. “Looks like you’ll live.”

Chanté eyed him suspiciously, looking to see if there were any other clues that hinted that there was another woman in the picture. She found none, but once the thought escaped Pandora’s box, she couldn’t force it back inside.

“I want a divorce,” she said in a croaked whisper.

Matthew sighed.

“I mean it this time,” she added as tears gathered in her eyes. “We can’t keep living this way.” Standing from the bed, her head bumped against a pair of Jimmy Choos. “It’s time we let go.”

Her words skillfully carved Matthew’s heart out of his chest. It was probably the millionth time she’d asked for a divorce and probably the first time he knew that she meant it.

And it was the first time he was truly scared.

“We’ll talk about it in the morning,” he said, almost failing to get the words out of his constricting throat.

“I’m not going to change my mind,” she informed him softly. Her eyes swam in a pool of tears. “The only reason we’re still together is because of our careers. How pathetic is that?”

Chanté reached up and began pulling the shoes down from the ceiling. Fat tears rolled like boulders down her face.

“I went too far—”

“We both did,” she said sadly. “I, uh, did promise Edie we would attend some big conference coming up.”

“Yeah. Seth asked me about it today.”

“I think I can manage one last happy face for the public. How about you?”

“Piece of cake.”

She nodded and wiped her face dry. “When we return, I’m seeing my lawyer.”

Matthew clenched his jaw at the sound of the final nail being hammered into their marriage’s coffin and turned to leave before his tears fell.

Chapter 10

For three days, the Valentines’ household had transformed into a multimillion-dollar tomb. Even Buddy seemed to take on his owner’s melancholy and gave up barking.

At seeing the short, stout mongrel following her to the kitchen, Chanté couldn’t bring herself to get angry with him for having escaped his crate again. Especially not with him looking up at her the way he did. His wide-eyed stare seemed to urge her to tell him her problems.

More than once, she found herself doing just that—usually when she found herself filling his dog bowl with kibble.

“I just don’t know if I can handle four days pretending to be happy when I’m not,” she told Buddy. “And I don’t know what I’m going to say when the divorce becomes public.”

Buddy whined as he put his head down on the cold kitchen floor.

“I know,” she whispered, retrieving a box of cereal. “I still can’t believe it’s over.” She filled a glass with water, took her morning pills and then finished fixing her breakfast. She settled on a stool at the breakfast bar. In her head, she scrolled through a list of questions she usually asked her callers who were at the end of a relationship.

Have you exhausted all avenues for reconciliation?

Before she lied to herself, Edie’s voice floated around her head. Maybe you and Matt should seek counseling.

Like before, she scoffed at the idea, but then looking around her kitchen and imagining what it would truly be like when Matthew moved out, she reconsidered.

* * *

The moment her morning meeting with the marketing department was over, Edie raced back to her cluttered office ready to dive into a stack of unread manuscripts, but instead was surprised to see her handsome husband waiting for her.

“Baby, what are you doing here?” She eased into his arms and delivered a quick smooch against his smooth-shaved skin.

“Came to see if I could take my favorite girl to lunch...and to see if you have those fake itineraries printed up. I’m running by the studio this afternoon and I promised Matthew I’d bring them to him.”

“Got them right here on my desk.” She moved to her in-box and then handed him a glossy folder.

“The Marriage Quest conference,” he read aloud. “Catchy.”

“Why, thank you.” Edie’s smile beamed as she rocked on her heels. “I can’t take all the credit. Julia in Publicity helped.”

“The Tree of Life Spa and Resort,” he continued reading. “Sounds interesting.”

“Oh, it is. The tree of life is a part of the map of the seven chakras.”

“The what?”

“Chakras. They are energy centers that represent the dynamic flow of cosmic energy within the human body.”

“Uh-huh.” He snapped the folder closed. “Fascinating.”

“It is,” Edie went on. “You know, I was thinking—maybe we should go with Chanté and Matthew.”

“Why? There’s nothing wrong with our sex life.” Seth stepped back and folded his arms. “Is there?”

“No. No. Of course not.” She slyly opened his arms and eased back into his embrace. “But I thought it would be fun for us to try out new things. Plus, we’ll probably need to keep an eye out on Matthew and Chanté. We have to stop them from bolting when they discover they’ve been tricked.”

“What are we supposed to do—tackle them?”

“Love is a contact sport.” She laughed at her own joke.

Seth failed to see the humor.

“C’mon. We should really be there for them.”

Never being able to resist his wife’s pleading brown eyes, Seth gave in with a sigh. “All right. All right. I’ll clear my schedule.”

“Good. I already bought our tickets.”

“Of course you did.”

* * *

Matthew spent another day cruising on autopilot. He listened with great apathy to his guests’ problems, doled out his earnest opinions and advice, and then smiled and laughed with his staff once they wrapped taping.

In the coming week, the network would broadcast repeat programming while he attended his last conference with his wife. A part of him knew that he should at least give his producers a heads-up about the pending divorce, but the other part of him still hadn’t come to terms with it.

That was silly, considering their wild fights and inexcusable behavior. Deep down, he never thought she would go through with it. She was his yin to his yang. If she got crazy, he went crazy, too.

But leave?

“I should have followed Seth’s advice and just apologized,” he mumbled to the vanity mirror inside his dressing room.

“I’m sorry. Did you say something?” Cookie asked, handing him his coffee.

“No. No. I was just...talking to myself.” He smiled blandly and dropped his gaze to the steaming black liquid in his favorite Open Heart Forum coffee mug.

“Oh.” Cookie clasped her hands behind her back and thrust her surgically-enhanced bosom high into the air. “Well, is there anything else I can do for you?”

“No. I think that’s all. Thank you.” He sipped from his cup and prepared to dive back into his desolate thoughts.

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