Just One Room - Chapter 7

After making love twice, Rigby suggested escaping the apartment—neither of them could sleep—for a walk on the beach. Deciding she could sleep when she was dead, Madi pulled on a bikini and a cover-up, and Rigby opted for just a pair of swim shorts. They walked through the scented garden, enjoying the hot night. At the edge of the dune, they stepped onto the path leading to the beach, her hand enveloped by his. Madi anchored herself to his side as they kicked their feet through the gently rolling waves, happy to enjoy the night, the peace and the silence.

“I was driving the car when we crashed,” Rigby said, his voice coming from out of the blue.

Madi jerked her head up, jolted out of her thoughts. She’d been thinking about the amazing sex they’d shared and he’d been thinking about his dead wife. Right. She didn’t know what to make of that.

“It was raining hard and I’d collected her from work. I don’t know why because we normally made our own way home,” Rigby said, his voice almost robotic.

His grip on her hand tightened and she looked up to see him gazing out to sea, his face granite hard. “I thought we were going home to have dinner, do some chores, watch some tv, maybe make love. You know, normal stuff.”

It sounded perfect, exactly what she wanted. A nice husband, a sexy lover, a lot of normal. And to be honest, she was a little jealous. She hadn’t come close to the dream that had been ripped away from Rigby in the worst way possible.

“I heard Jocelyn telling Eliot how amazing you were together, how in love you were,” Madi said.

“Except we weren’t,” Rigby said, stopping. He tried to smile but couldn’t. “I mean, I was completely in love with her, wild about her. She wasn’t in love with me. She told me so, in the car as we drove home. There I was, thinking everything was fine, but she just shrugs and tells me that it was not working and that there was someone else.”

No. Way.

Madi’s mouth dropped open and her heart cracked at the pain she saw in his face. It was raw and visceral and a part of her wanted to run from it, to slap her hands over her ears so she couldn’t hear any more. Yet Rigby had lived this; it had been his life.

“I was trying to drive, to keep the car on the road, in not-ideal conditions, and she’s telling me this, in the same voice she would use to order coffee or buy insurance. My world is falling apart, and she doesn’t sound in the least bit worried.”

Madi didn’t know what to say, so she just held his hand with both of hers and waited. “I was shaking from head to toe and I knew I had to pull over, so I did. We sat there on the side of the road in the rain. I remember the howling wind and Clare’s face as she told me she wanted a divorce. We’d only been married two years, and our anniversary was the month before. I flew her to Paris for a long weekend.”

Madi shook her head and closed her eyes, easily able to imagine how devastated, how rocked, Rigby must’ve felt sitting in that car as his entire world disintegrated around him. And, while she didn’t like to talk badly about the dead, what a bitch! She’d cheated on her husband and asked for a divorce while he drove her home in a thunderstorm.

“She was having an affair?” Madi quietly asked, pushing her hair off her face.

“Yep.”

“Apparently, she’d been seeing him, on and off, before we met, while we were engaged and throughout our marriage. She genuinely loved him. I believe that,” Rigby continued.

“So why did she marry you, then?” Madi demanded, incensed on his behalf.

“She also liked money and he didn’t have any. Back then I had a decent business, and I was Jocelyn’s heir, and she’s the owner of a few London properties and a healthy stock portfolio.”

“You have more than a decent business now,” Madi commented. It didn’t matter that he was rich, but she was impressed at the company he’d built. “So if your wife liked money, what changed?” she asked him, folding her arms across her chest.

“Her lover came into some money, enough that she decided to bail,” Rigby replied, cynicism coating every word. “She was also pregnant and didn’t know who the father was.”

Oh, God. No. Madi wound her hands around his waist and rested her cheek on his chest. “That must’ve hurt so much, Rig. God, I can’t imagine.”

Rigby stared out to sea, a million miles away. “I just sat there for the longest time, unable to speak. Eventually, Clare asked me to take her home and told me that I had to spend the night somewhere else. I knew I shouldn’t be driving—I was upset and angry—but Clare didn’t drive, and I had to get us home. That truck came out of nowhere. All I saw was lights and heard this awful screeching sound.”

She’d heard from Madi that Rigby hadn’t been driving fast but a truck passing a slower vehicle on a blind corner connected with the passenger side of their car and spun it into the barrier. Clare had died on impact, and it hadn’t been Rigby’s fault.

Rigby stepped away from her and pushed his hands into his hair. He stared down at her, looking off balance. “I’ve never told anyone what happened in that car,” he said, his voice raspy. “Jocelyn would be so upset if she found out. She thinks we had a perfect marriage. She really loved Clare.”

Madi lifted her hand and touched his jaw with her fingertips. “I promise I’ll never tell anybody, Rig. It’s your story to tell, not mine.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Everyone thinks I won’t get involved again because I had such a perfect relationship, because she was the love of my life—”

“But it’s actually because you were betrayed in the worst way possible and had your world whipped out from under your feet,” Maddi said, her heart sinking to the floor. If she’d thought it would be hard to get Rigby to take a chance before, she now knew, with this new information, that it would be a thousand times more difficult.

And she didn’t blame him. If that had happened to her, she wouldn’t risk her heart again either. It was sad because she knew they could be good together. In bed and out.

“Thank you for telling me, Rig. Thank you for trusting me with your past,” she told him, her voice a little shaky. “But I don’t know why you did. After all, I am just your pretend girlfriend. We’ve only known each other for a few days and when we get back to the city, our very brief, very fake relationship is going to end.”

Instead of telling her he wanted to see her again, instead of assuring her that something was developing between them as she’d prayed, Rigby just nodded. “I wanted you to know why I can’t get involved, why having anything more than superficial sex isn’t possible.”

Right, he’d drawn her the picture and colored it in. Message received.