A Hidden Affair: A Novel

  I fight the urge to reach across the table and shake him. Not like us. I believed that the immediacy of our bond was special, unique. Now he just seems like one of those men who falls in love easily, clings to each woman like a life raft.

  I remember the chess set Jared used to keep in the corner of his college room. Chess was too long and slow for me and I grew impatient with the endless waiting, the tiny advances that each turn seemed to bring. But for Jared it was always chess. Sometimes he would play with a lone opponent, someone else from college who shared his intrigue with the game. Other times, there would be a game in progress, Jared on one side and the opposing side played by various students, whoever came into his room and wanted to take a turn. Those were the ones he really loved. In addition to the normal challenge of thinking several moves ahead, he had the chance to face off against different opponents, each with his or her own strategy. It kept him on his toes, he said, forced him to change plans midgame. That’s how he lives his life, I understand now. When circumstance had made his plans impossible, he changed strategy seamlessly, trading me for Nicole, one life for the other.

  “We traveled together for several years before settling down and getting married. And we’ve had a nice life here, until this.” His smile fades and for a second I think he is angry about my finding him. Then I realize he is talking about the jeopardy that has resulted from Nicole’s work on the wine deal. “I warned her that this last transaction was too much, that she was in over her head. But she wouldn’t listen. She’s stubborn, like you.”

  Ari said I reminded him of his wife in that way, too, I recall. As if stubbornness was a highly sought virtue in a woman. Why do men seem to have this need for comparison, to legitimize one relationship to the next? I want to tell Jared that Nicole is nothing like me. I served my country, did what I thought was right. Nicole is a petty criminal. But I bite my lip, knowing he is too blind to Nicole’s flaws to understand the difference, and that he means this as a compliment.

  “I kept tabs on you,” he admits. “I was glad to see that you left England without looking back, that you had moved on.” I want to laugh out loud, to tell him how untrue that is. “I wanted to stop running, too, and have a life. I needed to put the whole thing to rest.”

  “And that’s why you sent Chris the article,” I interject, realizing.

  “Yes. When I heard that the British government was investigating, I knew this was my chance to get my research into the right hands once and for all. As a reporter, Chris had the investigative skills, and he was the one person I knew who was determined enough to try to see this through. But I never counted on you coming back to England or on him dragging you into this.”

  “It pretty much ruined him, you know,” I say, more reproach in my voice than I intended. “Chris became obsessed with finding you. His marriage and his career fell apart.”

  “I know.” Jared’s shoulders sag. “Have you told him that I’m alive?”

  I shake my head. “When I left England, I wasn’t sure if it was true and I couldn’t bear to get his hopes up after all he had been through. And later, well, I didn’t know if it was safe for you. It’s your secret to share.” I watch his eyes working as he imagines reaching out to Chris and telling him the truth.

  “What about Duncan?” he asks, running down the litany of friends who paid the price for his actions. I can tell from his voice that he heard about the death of Duncan’s partner, Vance. “Do you know where he is?”

  “I don’t know,” I reply. “When I came back and started asking questions, he got nervous and ran. I tried to reach him several times after he left London, but he was gone. And then once Vance was killed, there was no way Duncan was coming back.”

  Jared lowers his head, running his hands through his hair. “Duncan never understood that even though he agreed to keep quiet and stop pursuing our research, he couldn’t really be free because he knew too much.”

  “He might have been,” I reply remorsefully. “If I hadn’t stirred things up.”

  “Jordan, don’t.” He reaches out, puts his hand atop mine. “Even if you hadn’t spoken to Duncan, it was inevitable that those skeletons were going to get unearthed at some time.” Hearing the comforting, take-charge Jared of old, I am reminded of a time when I could let him take care for me and make me feel safe. “I tried to help him,” he adds.

  “You did?”

  “Not directly, of course. But last month, when I caught wind of what was going on in London, I got in touch with Lord Colbert to ask if he would help Duncan.”

  Duncan had attended a different Cambridge college; he wasn’t one of our own, but the Master would not have refused Jared’s request for assistance. “The Master found Duncan for me. He wouldn’t tell me where Duncan was, but he said that he was safe. I got the impression that Duncan was trying to persuade Vance to join him, and that it was somewhere they could have perhaps gotten married, or at least had their union recognized legally.”

  Would Vance have gone? I remember his haggard, haunted face the night I had followed him to the club to ask about Duncan’s whereabouts. As an actor, the decision to leave the place where he was known for a life of anonymity in a foreign country would not have been an easy one, but I believe he ultimately would have done it for the man he loved.

  “I can’t believe it’s over,” I remark. “So many years, looking for answers.” Jared bites the inside of his cheek and I can tell that he is unconvinced, galled by the fact that some of those implicated by the information he found have not been brought to justice. “It’s over, Jared,” I repeat. “Your research got into the right hands and the government is finally taking care of everything.”

  “How did you get to Greece, anyway?” he asks finally, changing the subject.

  “I traveled here by boat from Trieste with Ari but . . . ”

  “Nicole’s cousin Aaron?” he interrupts, grimacing as though he has a bad taste in his mouth.

  I nod. “He was coming to see her. Something about the wine.”

  “How much do you know about that?” he asks, echoing Nicole’s earlier question.

  “Enough.”

  A strange look flickers across his face and I can tell that he is aware of the kind of people Nicole deals with in her work, the danger it has brought. I want to ask him how he can bring himself to compromise his principles to be with someone like her. But I refrain, unsure if I really want to know the answer.

  Jared clears his throat. “What on earth does Ari want with the wine?”

  “I don’t know. But the address in Zante town where he thought he could find Nicole turned out to be bad, and Nicole is going to warn him before he gets into trouble. Then she’s going to get rid of the wine.”

  “I don’t like this . . . ” His brow furrows as he contemplates the danger his wife might face. “Damn Ari, he’s always been trouble for her.” I want to point out to Jared that it was Nicole who got herself into this mess. But it isn’t my place to defend Ari anymore. “How do you know him anyway?” he asks.

  “Um, we met in Monaco. I was searching for you and he was trying to find Nicole, so we traveled together.”

  He looks out the window, not speaking for several minutes. “Where are you headed from here?” he asks finally.

  For a second I am hurt by his brusqueness. Am I being dismissed? But that’s just Jared, I remember, practical and to the point. “I don’t know,” I admit. I had been so focused on getting here to find Jared, I hadn’t really thought about what I would do once I was finished, how I would get back now that Ari and I are no longer traveling together. Or where, for that matter, I would be going back to—the States or somewhere else? “I need to make my way to Athens, I guess. Book a flight home.” Wherever that is.

  “It will be impossible to get off the island by ferry tonight,” he informs me.

  “I booked a room at the resort . . . ”

  “It’s too dangerous to get back there by boat now that the tides have changed.” He shakes his head.
“No way. I’m afraid you’re stuck here until morning.”

  A mixture of dread and relief washes over me. I’ve waited a decade for this moment with Jared and I’m not eager to see it end. At the same time, the notion of spending the night here, in this house he shares with Nicole, is not a comfortable one.

  “There’s a spare futon,” he adds, setting the terms of my stay for himself as much as me. This pronouncement, more than anything else, serves to drive home the state of things, the distance we’ve come since being together.

  I shift awkwardly. “Great, thanks.”

  “Are you hungry?” he asks, as if there is nothing unusual about the situation.

  I shrug. “You know me, I can always eat.”

  He goes into the kitchen alcove. I stand up and walk to a low bookshelf by the fireplace and kneel down. It seems to hold mostly copies of the classics that I wonder if anyone has ever actually cracked open. I scan the spines, then stop. Wedged between The Canterbury Tales and the edge of the shelf is a worn paperback.

  “Oh,” I say aloud as I pull it out. It is The Two Towers, the second of the Tolkien trilogy. I run my fingers over the familiar cover, recognizing the coffee stain as my own.

  Jared walks over to me. “I took it with me. I guess I thought that since we were reading it . . . ” He does not finish the sentence. I imagine him now, scared and alone, taking the book from the shelf. He could bring virtually nothing with him in order to fake his death and yet he had dared to take the book.

  “Did you . . . ?”

  “Keep reading? No. I must have read it a dozen times as a kid, but I haven’t picked it up since college.” Somehow the thought gives me comfort. At least in one respect he had not gone on without me.

  He returns to the kitchen and I replace the book, then straighten. I glance around the cabin once more, noticing several framed photographs on the mantelpiece. Curious, I get up and move toward them. There is one of Nicole and Jared beside the cottage, another of Nicole in front of a mountain somewhere, smiling at the photographer, presumably Jared. The two of them, I realize as I scan the pictures, always together. I reach the second to last photograph from the right, then stop. It is different from the rest, an image of Nicole lying in a hospital bed, holding a small bundle of white cloth. Jared stands behind her, gazing down adoringly.

  “Oh!” I say aloud, bringing my hand to my mouth. Hearing me, Jared comes out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on a towel. He walks over.

  “That’s Noah,” he says, taking the photo from me. “That’s our son.”

  chapter SEVENTEEN

  THAT’S OUR SON.”

  Jared’s words seem to reverberate off the cottage walls, echoing in my head. A scream rises within me, sticks somewhere between my bowels and my throat.

  “You said you knew about Nicole, so I thought you knew about Noah, too.”

  Jared pulls the final photograph from the mantel, smiling as he runs his finger over the image. It is a picture of him and Nicole, clutching a toddler between them. “He’s three years old.”

  Jared has a child. I digest the news slowly, letting it sink in. Instantly the portrait of his life since he disappeared is complete. When it was simply a wife, it was easy to imagine her as a stand-in, another woman who filled the empty space in the years that he could not be with me. But faced now with the somber child, with his exquisite dimpled cheeks and blue eyes, the reality is unavoidable. Jared has gone on these many years, lived his life, learned to love again, and created a family. He has the life that I do not, that I could not have while I was eternally grieving for him. I feel angry and foolish at the same time.

  Why hadn’t Nicole told me about their child yesterday? The fact that she bore Jared’s son would have been the ultimate trump card. Because as much as she hates me and needs to claim Jared as her own, she is not willing to use her child as a game piece. Whatever else I think of her, I have to grudgingly respect her for that.

  I study the photograph once more. Looking at the little boy, embraced in his parents’ arms, I cannot help but remember the baby that I decided not to have years ago. Jared’s baby. He or she would be here now, if I had chosen differently.

  “He’s a wonderful boy,” Jared says, not seeming to notice my reaction.

  “He’s beautiful,” I manage, taking in the image of the child, a miniature version of Jared, only with Nicole’s warm coloring and blond hair.

  “He’s staying with friends of ours on the northern side of the island for a few days while Nicole is gone. He loves to go there because they have twin girls about his age. It can get a little boring for him here with just us.” He replaces the photograph and returns to the kitchen. “You don’t have children, I take it?” he asks over his shoulder.

  I might have, I think, if you had only told me you were alive. If only I had known. I consider telling Jared about the baby that I had given up, believing that he had died. Part of me wants to share the burden of guilt, to make him carry some of the pain. But even though I made the decision based on bad information, the choice was still mine—and the consequences, too. There is nothing to be gained by telling him, nothing I can say that will change the past.

  “No,” I say with effort. “I never married. It’s the job, you know. Just too hard with all of the moving around.” I hold my breath, wondering if he will see through my explanation, realize that my solitude has more to do with the feelings I’ve harbored for him all these years.

  But he seems to accept what I’ve said at face value. “I caught this earlier,” he says, returning with two plates of steamed whitefish, rice, and green leafy vegetables heaped on either side. He carries a bottle of wine to the table and opens it.

  “Smells delicious.” I sit down. “Does anyone know that you’re here?”

  He takes a bite of the fish. “Just you, the Master, and Nicole. No one else back home, not even my mum. I hate her living alone, thinking I’m dead. But if she knew, she would want to see me and meet Noah and of course that’s impossible. It’s better this way.”

  “Is it?” I hear the bite in my own voice, angry as much at what he had done to me as to his mother.

  “I don’t know.” He sets down his fork and drops his head to his hands, the armor of certainty he’s worn all these years cracking. “I did what I thought was best. I’ve always tried to do that. But I’ve hurt so many people, Jo. My mum, Chris, Duncan, you. I’m so sorry.”

  It’s okay, I want to say, but I cannot. I take a sip of the wine. The taste is simple, less sophisticated than the bottles Ari and I received from the Contis, but good and crisp, with hints of dates and nuts. Ari. I cannot help but wonder where he is, if he is all right. Whether he misses me. I stop, glass still at my lips, caught off guard by the thought. Here I am with Jared, the man I’ve been longing for all of these years, yet I cannot stop thinking about Ari.

  We eat the remainder of the meal in silence, slipping back to that easy place from years ago where we could enjoy each other’s company without speaking. Jared clears the dishes, waving away my offer to help.

  I walk to the window. Outside, the sun has set and the water sparkles in the moonlight, a sea of jewels. Jared always wanted a place like this, somewhere quiet and beautiful and away. Nicole was right: he’s at peace here, or as close to it as any of us will get.

  “It’s getting late,” Jared says, after he has finished cleaning up. He moves toward the room at the back of the cottage. There is a large futon close to the wall on the left, a narrow bed opposite it. “You can sleep here,” he says, gesturing toward the futon. “It’s more comfortable.”

  “No,” I blurt out. It’s bad enough I have to sleep in this room that Nicole and Jared share, but sleeping in their bed would be really too much. “I mean, the other one will be great.”

  Jared shrugs and hands me a set of simple white cotton sheets, then walks from the room. I make up the bed before sprawling across it. This must be Noah’s, I realize, taking in the faint odor of sour milk.

  A m
oment later Jared returns, having changed into a T-shirt and sweatpants, his face still damp from washing. He tosses something to me. “Here.”

  A sweatshirt. My mind reels back to a certain night at college. It was during the Lent term, sometime after the December boat club dinner when Jared and I realized we did not hate each other, but well before the night in London that spring when we first kissed. We had been drinking with the rest of the rowing crew and as the college bar closed and the loitering crowd outside dissipated, Jared and I found ourselves alone. “Would you like to come around for coffee?” he asked as we stood in the shadows of Chapel Court, our breath smoky against the wind.

  I hesitated. Coffee or tea was, in some cases, a euphemism for something more, an invitation to hook up. Studying Jared’s face, though, I knew there was no such pretense. It was simply a proposal of conversation, an alternative to the night ending. But I shook my head. “I should be going.”

  He shrugged as if to say “Suit yourself,” then turned and started across the courtyard. After he disappeared through the college gate, I started through the back field toward my own house on Lower Park Street. Suddenly an unfamiliar sense of loneliness swept over me. I did not want to go back to my cold, solitary room. I walked quickly out of the college and onto the street, following Jared home and knocking on his door.

  If he was surprised by my change of heart, he gave no indication. “Coffee?” he asked again.

  “No. I mean, yes,” I stammered. “That is, I just didn’t want to be alone.” I felt my face turn red.

  Without speaking further, he led me into his room, but instead of putting on the kettle, he made up the sofa with sheets and handed me a sweatshirt. I returned from the bathroom wearing it and slipped under the blanket. Then he bent over and I closed my eyes, thinking that he might kiss me. There was a momentary pause and then his lips pressed against my forehead, a parent checking a child for a fever. When I looked up again, he had retreated to his own bed across the room and turned out the light. The next morning I slipped out before dawn, and even months later after we were together and it would not have been awkward, we never spoke of that night again.