KARMA

18. MAROONED

A Note from Ashleigh

This chapter is brand new.

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RYAN

"Get the stuff from the taxi."

"Ryan, wait --- where are you going?"

But I was already pulling a T-shirt on, running out of the apartment.

I had to get to Lisa, find her, explain ---

I ran out of the elevator, out through the glass doors.

Where was she? She couldn't have got far. I pivoted, looked everywhere.

There was a flicker of movement across the park, a bright golden head I would recognize anywhere.

She was in the park.

I ran across the traffic light intersection.

"Lisa," I called out desperately, but the wind took my words, and she didn't even turn her head.

I was running in her direction, about to call her again, when I saw him striding toward her.

Maxim Chamberlain.

He had reached her, and was pulling her into his arms.

I stopped.

He was holding on to her tight, so tight, as if he'd never let her go.

Her face tilted up toward his, her face rising to meet his trustingly, her small hands grasping his shoulders, like they were clinging to a lifeline.

He stroked her face, kissed her forehead tenderly.

I had read of hearts breaking in books, and it had seemed an impossibility for a heart to shatter like a piece of glass. But now, I felt pain, actual physical pain, as if someone had thrust a dagger into my flesh, and it hurt so badly I couldn't breathe. But breathe I must, and here I stood, like a drowning man, my tortured rasps of breath burning my throat, my mouth open, gasping in the warm balmy air.

And for the first time it hit me that I'd lost her.

I turned, and walked away.

Back to the apartment where my mistress waited. Back to the hellish new life I had created.

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I unzipped the trolley bag Lisa had left in the taxi for me. Every shirt, every pair of pants, every tie, had been ripped, cut, shredded. A pile of photographs lay on top of the ruined pile of clothes, photos of me and Lisa through the years, as teens, as young adults, on our wedding day, our vacations, candid shots of us hugging, kissing, smiling, laughing, looking into each other's eyes. Each photo had been torn into fragments.

Tears stung my eyes.

What had I done? What had I done?

Where was that jubilance, the lust I felt for Susan, the thrill of the forbidden now?

Because all I felt was misery.

"Are you okay?" Susan asked. Her eyes were red and raw, the blood vessels frayed within them. She had been crying.

I had made it clear to Susan from the start that I loved Lisa. That I would never leave my wife. She understood.

And now here I was, with her.

"What do you think I feel?" I said sourly. "My wife kicked me out of my house and she's going to divorce me. What do you think I'm feeling, Susan?"