Betrayal

Chapter 8

TALLIE WAS PLANNING to call the FBI agent when she got back to her house, but she was crying too hard. Hunt was out, the house was dark, and she just sat in the living room, clutching the investigation folder to her chest, and cried. She hated everything in it, and everything Meg had told her. But she couldn’t run away from it now. She opened the folder after a few minutes and looked at the photographs again as she continued to cry. She looked at the one of him kissing Angela Morissey and holding her little boy’s hand at the zoo, only six days before. She felt as though her whole life had come down like a house of cards.

She was still sitting in the dark, when Hunt came home an hour later. He had a bag of groceries in his arms, and walked into the kitchen without noticing Tallie in the dark. She stood up and followed him into the kitchen like a ghost, and he gave a start when he saw her. She looked ravaged as she stood watching him. She still had the folder in her arms.

“Are you still sick? Poor baby, you look awful. You should be in bed. I’ll make you some soup,” he said. He was in good spirits, and she didn’t even want to try to imagine why. God only knew what he’d been doing before he came home. She wondered why he even bothered if Angela was telling people they were getting married and he was spending every free night with her. She realized now that all the times he had told her he had been with their Japanese investor, it probably wasn’t true. Their whole life together was a lie. He probably hadn’t stolen her money, but he had broken her heart. “Are you okay?” The look on her face scared him. She looked as though she had drifted in from another world, like a ghost. She looked transparent she was so pale.

Without saying a word, she took one of the photographs out of the folder and held it up to him. He glanced at it, wondering what it was, and then his eyes widened, and he stopped dead in his tracks and stared at her. He looked as though he was about to faint, which was how Tallie felt too.

“Nice tennis game you had last weekend,” she said softly, as his eyes met hers.

“Why did you do that?” he asked her, visibly near tears himself as she started to cry again. “You didn’t have to do that. I would have told you if you’d asked me.”

“I didn’t know until I saw this. I had to have you followed to find out. She says you’re getting married. Are you?” He didn’t answer for a long moment.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m doing. I never meant for it to happen. I felt sorry for her. I tried to help her. She wound up in the hospital when her husband beat her up. And then somehow I got involved… Tallie, I love you both. I love everything about our life together, and our work… but she’s a sweet girl and she needs me.” He sounded pathetic as she listened, and weak, as he made excuses for what he’d done. It was all so predictable, and so sad.

“I need you too,” she said as she cried.

He took a breath then and decided to say it all. He had been putting the groceries away and the refrigerator was still standing open as Hunt and Tallie looked at each other.

“She just found out she’s pregnant. That complicates things even more.” It was so ridiculous, like a bad soap opera, but it still didn’t explain what he’d done before with Brigitte.

“What about Brigitte? Did she need you too?” Tallie’s eyes grew hard as they bored into his, and he gave a groan.

“Oh my God. Did she tell you?”

“No. She lied too. You both did. For three years.”

“You were on location. She was helping me get organized a few months after we started, before I moved in, when I was staying here one weekend. I thought it was very nice of her to help. We drank a lot of wine one night, and don’t ask me how, but I wound up in bed with her, which was the dumbest thing I ever did. I talked to her about it the next day, and she wouldn’t let me off the hook. She blackmailed me and said that if I tried to get out of it, she would tell you. I was in love with you, and I didn’t want to lose you. For three miserable years I let her threaten me into meeting her twice a week. They were the worst three years of my life. I never loved her. I just didn’t know how to get out of it without blowing my life apart. She kept threatening me that she’d tell you if I stopped. And then Angela came along, and somehow I got out of it with Brigitte, and I called her bluff. But I fell in love with Angela, and now I love you both. I don’t blame you if you hate me, but honestly, Tallie, I love you and I don’t know what to do.” She had never seen anyone unravel as quickly as he did. But there was no excuse for what he’d done with Angela or Brigitte, even if what he said about her assistant was true. After all that she had learned that afternoon, anything was possible now. But if what he said was correct, he’d slept with Brigitte almost right from the beginning of his affair with Tallie.

“Will you give Angela up?” Tallie asked him in a strong, clear voice that surprised them both, and he stood there staring at her with a devastated expression, unable to answer.

“She wants to have our baby,” he said in a strangled voice finally.

“And what do you want? Angela or me? You can’t have us both. You’ve cheated on me for four years, Hunt, the whole time we’ve been together. I don’t know if I could ever trust you again. Probably not.” And then she surprised herself. “I might be willing to try, but you would have to swear to me to give her up.”

Tears rolled down his cheeks as he looked at Tallie, and they both knew the truth before he even answered. “I can’t,” he said softly. “I can’t do that to her. Not now.”

“And if she weren’t having the baby?”

“I don’t know. I love her and her little boy… and you. Christ, what a fucking disaster this is,” he said as he sat down hard in one of the kitchen chairs and slammed the refrigerator door. “Why did you go to a detective?” He was angry at her, but more so at himself.

“Because of the money, and the hotel bills. You told Victor you went to those hotels with me, and it was a lie. Everything was a lie,” she said, sobbing again. And all she wanted to do was turn the clock back. But she couldn’t turn it back far enough. He had cheated on her the whole time, and if what he had said about Brigitte was true, it was yet another nightmare that she had to deal with too. She had lost two of the people she loved most.

“I’m not stealing your money,” he said in a rough voice.

“I know. I believe you. But you lied about everything else. Our whole life together was a lie. You cheated on me the whole time.”

“I didn’t mean to,” he said weakly.

“But you did anyway. And now you don’t want to give this girl up. That tells me all I need to know. I’m not going to sit here, while you have an affair, and a baby, with someone else.”

“I understand,” he said in a dead voice. “What do you want me to do now?”

“If you won’t agree to stop seeing her, I want you to move out.” He nodded. What she really wanted was for him to love her and give up Angela, but she could see he wouldn’t. He was hooked. You could see in the pictures the way he looked at her. He hadn’t looked at Tallie that way in years. Or maybe ever.

“I never wanted it to be like this, and I didn’t want you to find out this way,” he said miserably.

“Then you should have told me.”

“I didn’t know how.”

“The private investigator did it for you. And I guess one picture is worth a thousand words.” She glanced at the photo of him kissing Angela and he winced.

“Tallie, I’m so sorry,” he said as he walked across the kitchen to her and tried to put his arms around her, as she pulled away from him.

“Don’t!” she said as she put a hand up to push him away. “Don’t make it worse than it is. I think a year of Angela and nearly three of Brigitte is enough, and you could have gotten out of that if you’d wanted to.”

“You don’t know what she’s really like. I didn’t want her spoiling everything for us.”

“You did anyway, and you went on sleeping with her for three years.” It was all hard to believe. And all the while she had thought she was happy at last and he was the best man in the world, while he cheated on her. “I’m not going to make the next movie with you, Hunt,” she added then, and he looked pained.

“Let’s not try to solve everything in one night.”

“There’s nothing to solve. If you’re staying with Angela, I’m done. And I’m not going to work with a man who did this to me, and who’s this dishonest.” He had proven that he had no integrity at all. He didn’t answer, he just sat looking at her with eyes full of embarrassment and despair. He had made a mess of everything, right from the beginning, and it had taken four years to come home to roost but it finally had. “I want you to move out now,” Tallie said in a choked voice. She didn’t know what else to do. She couldn’t spend another night with him, in their bedroom, in the same bed, knowing that he was in love with another woman and having a child with her, even if he said he loved her too.

“I’ll get some things,” he said quietly. “I’ll come back for the rest when you’re in Palm Springs.”

“I’ll send them to you,” she said, as he walked toward her. He tried to reach out to her again, and she took a step back. Her eyes burned holes into his, and he could feel her pain searing through him. It made him realize what he’d done. He had Angela and their baby, but he realized then that Tallie had lost everything, and she looked bereft as he walked by. He had done a terrible thing, and he knew it. Brigitte had been evil and cunning, but he had been weak. And he should never have gotten involved with Angela either. He had gone to the hospital to see her, just to be nice to her, and the next thing he knew he was in love with her and never wanted to leave her or her son. But now it meant leaving Tallie. Whatever he did, someone was going to get hurt, or all of them. And the last thing he had wanted to do was hurt Tallie, which was why he had put it off for so long. And now it had exploded, and they’d all been blown to bits, and his life with Tallie was destroyed. But he didn’t want to stay with her either. He couldn’t leave Angela now, particularly not with their baby. He had no other choice. And he knew it as he went upstairs to pack.

He came back downstairs ten minutes later with a small bag in his hand. He had some clothes at Angela’s place anyway, and he could buy whatever he needed. He didn’t know what to say to Tallie as he stood looking at her from the doorway. Without a word, he went to put his arms around her, and she let him and broke into a wracking sob. He held her as long as he could before he made promises he knew he couldn’t keep, and then he gently let her go and walked out the door with tears running down his cheeks. He didn’t look back at her as he closed the door softly behind him, and a moment later she heard his car drive away, and she looked around her empty house sobbing. She didn’t know where to run from the pain or what to do. She just stood there crying, thinking about Hunt with Angela and their baby, and what Brigitte had done with him. She had been betrayed by them all.