Is It Just Business?

"I'm so deeply sorry. I...." She stopped talking with a sob and started to tremble as her crying began.

"We need to sort this out, decide what happens next, but perhaps not now." Even I could hear the sadness in my voice, her sobs increased, "once the children are in bed we'll talk, I suggest you go and clean yourself up, get yourself under control, and we'll eat, I don't want them to see you like this."

I stood, needed to get away from her, "Please understand that you must be honest with me if we are to remain...." I left it there. More tears came, she held her arms out to me, a pleading expression on her face, she was looking for some sign of hope for us. At that moment I couldn't give her what she wanted so I turned away and moved into the kitchen.

"Dinner is five minutes," my usual shout to call the children, it had taken me fifteen minutes to get our meal ready to serve so hopefully Linda had been able to get a grip. I heard Aaron run down the stairs sounding like a rumble of thunder, he was already seated at the table when I heard Sophie and Linda arrive together, they were talking quietly together before they too got themselves seated.

We ate our meal as a family as we had so many times before, but there was an atmosphere, I tried, really tried, but the sadness inside affected me. What would become of us? How bad was this situation? Perhaps this would be our last meal together? All these negative thoughts kept reverberating around my thoughts. I just did not know anymore.

Linda tried to take up the slack, getting the children to tell us about their week, then about our plans for the weekend, where they needed to be dropped off for sport, etc. that sort of thing. To me it sounded false, but it seemed to work. She settled them to bed while I cleared the kitchen.

I felt rather than saw Linda arrive in the doorway, "Can I help?" She tried to sound positive.

Unfortunately, I could not reciprocate, without looking at her as I normally would, I snapped, "No, I'm almost done." By the time I was ready Linda was waiting in the lounge. Seated on the sofa she patted the seat beside her where I would normally settle, I ignored her and went to the chair.

"Are the children mine?" It was cruel, intentionally so. I was hurting, she needed to as well.

"Her expression was incredulous, "How can you.....oh!" Then a pause, "Yes, I can assure you of that, we.....Grant......it started after Sophie."

"All that time?"

"Yes, I am so very sorry, I did my best to keep it separate, my family and my career. he was work, business, cold, necessary." To her credit she was looking at me, the sadness evident, her voice soft, apologetic, "You are family, love, warmth, my life."

"I can see how much you are hurting, there was no way you were to know. I was so careful not to let it affect us, you, and I." She placed her hands over her face, sliding her fingers into her hair to push it to the back of her head, "What have I done?"

"I'll tell you what you have done shall I?" My voice raised for the first time, "you have betrayed ME, not only me, but YOURSELF, OUR FAMILY, ALL OF US. How could you? Why?"

Linda sank back from my tirade, she looked afraid, for the first time in our relationship I saw fear in her eyes, something that was so aberrant to me. I softened my voice, "I need to know, to try to understand, not the intimate details, just the facts, to see if we can get past it."

Her tears had started again, silently running to her chin. "We must.... your pledge.... you promised." As she spoke the realisation of what she was saying dawned on her, so her voice quietened and slowed. "Please, I never loved him, never, I'm yours, always have been and always will be, believe me I have only ever been yours, never his."

She must have seen the disbelief on my face so with a touch of desperation added. "With him it was ambition, work, business, a means to an end, that's all. You have to believe me."

"So, when did it start?" Her hands covered her face, clearly she didn't want to answer, "When?"

Wiping away more tears she said softly, "It was a condition of my partnership, he forced me, no, not forced, coerced me, conquered me, the price of the chance he gave me, the one I'd always worked for." She stayed silent for a few moments, "he just took me, dominated me, overpowered me." Another pause, "I kept it separate, but then came to like it, crave it even, I'm so sorry."

"So at least twelve years. Every week?"

"No, not every week, well mostly once a week, sometimes more. The longer it went on the more I needed it, not him, but what he did to my body, the way he made me feel. He's not like you." She looked away, unable to deal with the fire in my gaze, "What a fool I've been, I'm so sorry."

While I digested what she said she leapt off the sofa and dropped to her knees, placed her head and arms on my lap. "You won't leave me will you, please don't, you're my life, don't throw me away over this, I love you, always have and always will."

Quieter now, her voice slow, deliberate, desperate, "I've already said I will not see him again. I mean it, I can give him up.... I've given him up already, please believe me, you must."

"Must I? Then why now, surely your 'retirement' was a chance to break away from him, but you didn't," She lifted her head to look at me. "You wanted to go to him, left me here to visit him, sorry but it looks to me like you chose him."

"NO!" she shouted, then quieter, "Never, never, not for a moment -- I choose you, only you, always you, please you have to believe me."

"Then why go to him now?"

"I don't know, it seems so stupid. My reason was.... I don't know.... like I said he does things to me.... nothing we haven't done; I've not given him anything you and I have not already shared. He's just different, not better. You have not lost anything by it, you get much more of me, I love you.... I certainly do not love him." She was quiet for a moment, then, "He needs me, I'm all he has in his life, I thought you would not miss me for a couple of hours, just two hours every now and then."

When I didn't say anything she added, "It sounds ridiculous I know."

"Yes it does, so ridiculous that I cannot continue this now, I am drained. I need to think, we need to talk again, but not now, not tonight." As I stood she jumped to her feet, a hopeful expression on her face, however, it dissipated when she saw the look on mine. She stood in the middle of the lounge waiting as I locked up.

She followed me up the stairs no doubt in the belief that we would sleep together, however, I'd moved some of her things into the newly decorated guest bedroom. So, as I turned on the threshold of what was our room, I simply said, "I need some time and space, your room is across the hall."

I heard her gasp as I began to close the door, then in a whisper, "No, please not that, we don't need...." She must have realised that my mind was made up. As I closed the door the last I saw was her standing there looking lost, beaten, shoulders slumped in defeat, a picture of despair.

~*~*~*~*~

I slept fitfully, it felt like my world had disintegrated, everything I believed about my marriage was a lie, how could I not have known. Was I too trusting, obviously! I wracked my brains for any signs I might have missed, nothing! I'd seen nothing. There was just that one weekend when I now know it started, she was preoccupied, then she seemed at peace but determined. Perhaps I'd ask her about that. My mind awash with what if's, what now, what do I do? Is there a future for us?

Waking early, I was getting ready to take Aaron off for football practice and then Sophie to her dance class, we were eating breakfast when I heard Linda getting up, my heart rate accelerated with a feeling of dread. I was not ready for this. I needed to act normally for the sake of the children, it would be hard, we'd always been such a loving family, well I thought so anyway.

"Good morning, I appear to be a little late, didn't sleep so well...." It was her usual cheerful greeting voice, the one I used to love, I guess that I do not have my wife's ability to compartmentalise as when her eyes met mine she stopped mid-flow. In a quiet voice she managed to add, ".... sorry."

Her voice then returned to the usual bright tone as she checked on the children, and made herself the usual bowl of cereal, I could see the cheerfulness did not extend to her eyes, there was a sadness and wariness there, it was subtle but nonetheless I could see it.

For my part I didn't ignore her, but kept my interaction to a minimum, like her I was concentrating instead on the children. I left Linda at the kitchen table as we headed off for the morning.

I dropped Aaron off first then after leaving Sophie with her friends at the dance studio I settled myself in the nearby coffee shop. As usual I joined a number of the other parents who like me decided this was a better use of time than returning home and then traipsing back again to collect our precious offspring.

The talk was light and cheerful as it usually was between like-minded parents, so I was able to put my problem to the back of my mind for a short time. Sophie and I then stood on the side-line to watch the end of Aaron's soccer match before heading home. As I pulled into our drive I felt the weight of sadness press on my heart as I was back to the reality of Linda's betrayal and its impact on us as a family.

As soon as I walked in I could see from Linda's eyes that she had been crying, she was doing her best to disguise it and her mood, by engaging with the children who, as usual, filled her in with what they had been doing at their respective hobbies. I noticed that she stole occasional glances my way but didn't try to engage directly with me.

What we did on Saturday afternoons varied, today Linda suggested that she and Sophie went to the mall for some 'girl time retail therapy' leaving Aaron and me to our own devices, I was soon alone as his friends called for him and they went off to do what boys of his age got up to. Alone with my thoughts was probably not what I needed as I sat and stewed on my predicament.

Do I accept Linda's assertion that what she and Grant had been doing took nothing away from me and our marriage? Does she mean enough to me that I can ignore what she has been doing, is my love for her enough? Am I better off with her, or at least the part of her that she hadn't shared with him, or do I break my childhood pledge and take the nuclear option to blow up our family?

In trying to rationalise her behaviour, I must have more information, I knew that it would be painful, but I need answers to a few very important questions, (1) why, including how it started, then (2) why carry on this long, particularly after the company was sold, and (3) is it because she loves him?

Having decided this I further realised that I must have honesty as a minimum, but how would I know? She had successfully kept me in the dark all this time, played me for a fool while I trusted her completely. We needed to talk but, first I need information. Where to start, I could contact Grant, but would he be honest? Then it came to me, Natalie, I would start with her.

Her phone number would be in Linda's office, pre-programmed into her office phone, it was, and she picked up after the third ring, "Hello Linda, what have you done to Grant, he's devastated?"

"It's not Linda."

"Oh Shit! Jon." She ended the call.

I rang back immediately; her phone was engaged. I left it for a minute then tried again, this time she picked up on six. "I'm sorry Jon, I needed a moment."

"Linda is out shopping with Sophie, so I guess she missed your call to her mobile!"

"Sorry, you're right, I....."

"Don't worry I already knew about her and Grant, I rang you because I need answers to a couple of questions, three actually."

"Shouldn't you be asking Linda?"

"As it appears that I have been kept in the dark for years how can I trust anything she now tells me?" I let that sink in for a couple of seconds, "but if we have any sort of future I need to know she is telling me the truth now."

"I'm not sure I can help you." She sounded hesitant.

"The only other person is Grant, and I am not sure he will tell me the truth, even if he did I'm not sure I'd hold my temper long enough with him to satisfy my curiosity?" I realised my voice had a hard edge to it so softened it to continue, "please, I thought you were her friend, and hoped that you would help her save her marriage."

"OH GOD NO!" Natalie shouted, then calmed down and in a quieter voice added, "don't say that, please, you can't end your marriage over it, you mustn't. I know she loves you beyond everything."

"Sorry, but from where I am sitting at this moment that is quite hard to believe."

"Yes, I suppose so, particularly if you have only just learned of it." I heard another phone ring her end. "Just a minute, let me get this."

I sat and listened to her answer what must have been her mobile phone. "Hi Linda," a pause. "Jon rang, I said.... I thought I'd...." she didn't finish, Linda must have interrupted. "Yes, he's on the other line now," a longer pause. "So I understand, he wants me to help him trust," she went quiet for a few seconds. "OK, I do what I can. Bye."

"Sorry, that was Linda, but I guess you heard?"

"Yes." I decided to see where she was going with this now.

"You said you wanted answers, she wants me to be honest, to tell you what I know."

"First, when did it start?" She confirmed what Linda had said, in that she was sure something happened the day of her promotion.

"I'm not sure you can answer the next one." I paused to phrase it carefully, "I know they are lovers but are they in love?"

"They have been very discrete, I'm quite sure no one else knows, just me, Grant, Linda and now you. They do not act like lovers in fact I'm not even sure she likes him; he's my brother and I do not find him particularly likable." She paused as if thinking, deciding if to say the next bit.

"That does not answer my question."

"I get the feeling he loves Linda, as far as he is able to love. She has lasted much longer than any of the others. As a woman I guess she must have some feelings for him to have carried it on for so long. I know she was reluctant to give him up."

I felt my heart sink, that is what I dreaded. "That's what I thought, I could not understand why it continued after they no longer worked together."

"You need to talk to Linda about that."

"Does he want her?" I dreaded the answer but had to ask, "if I throw her out will he take her in?"

"No! You mustn't, she loves you, her children, she'll die if she loses you over this, I just know it!"

"It may not be my choice." Even to me I sounded sad, "I may not be able to deal with this."

"Promise me you will try?"

"Why should I do anything for you? We have socialised together, I thought we were friends, how could you all keep it from me? You've allowed them to carry on this.... relationship for so long, to do that to me, to us, our marriage?" I was getting upset, I needed to end the call. "When you answered my first call you, when you thought I was Linda, you said Grant was devastated?"

"It seems that she went to see Grant this morning and told him it was over, that she would not see him again, she couldn't do it anymore. She'd had to choose, and he had lost out to you."

The fact that she had been to see him hit me hard. I was stunned and angry so immediately ended the call. I resisted the urge to vomit as I tried to control my breathing, lurid visions of her in his apartment, in his bed, flashed into my mind. What did she think she was doing?

I still had the phone in my hand when it rang, without thinking I answered it, "Jon, what happened, you disappeared, did you hang up, please don't do it again. I need to make it right. Make sure you are alright."

"I'm not sure that is in your power anymore. You betrayed me almost as much as she did, you and Grant were in it together, even before we met, your seduction started from day one."

"I thought it strange that you paid for her last year at University, he wanted her then, and you facilitated it, you looked after Grant by seducing an impressionable young woman, lining up a whore for your dysfunctional brother."

"No, that's not true, she's not a whore, and she was employed for her business acumen, her ability, and personality. The rest came later. You see he is incapable of a normal relationship so takes lovers, always a happily married woman, someone who has too much to lose by making life difficult for him when he ends it, which he invariably always did. But...." Once again a reluctance to continue. "But Linda was different, she is special, but you know that, she compartmentalises everything, that is why our business was so successful under her. Why you knew nothing, why Grant is completely oblivious of your relationship with Linda.... it was separate, she kept it that way, both isolated from the other."

"You've given me a lot to take in, I won't thank you because I am too angry so I wouldn't mean it. I feel like an idiot, a cuckolded fool, she was my wife, I loved her beyond anything but our children, I cannot see how we will survive this...."

"Jon, please," Natalie interrupted me, "don't think that way, would it help if I came round to see you, we could talk it through properly, I might be able to help?"

"Next to Grant you are the last person I want to see," I snapped. "Linda and Sophie will be here soon, I need to get myself together for the sake of the children, then talk it through with Linda again, see if I can live the rest of my life with a whore!"

"Stop it, STOP IT!" Natalie was getting angry now, "don't call her that, please, let her explain, give her that chance, I beg you. I know what it looks like but please do not think of her that way."

I had said all I wanted to say to her so stayed silent.

"After what I've done to you I can't ask you to promise me, but I'm begging you to be kind to her, to be the husband you've always been to her, the man she has genuinely loved since you first met. So few of us know about the two of them that your reputation is safe whatever the outcome. Just give her a chance."

"I'll talk to her but make no promises, it is on her, she needs to convince me." I almost ended the call, then added, "but from what I can see she has been a paid whore since you offered her that promotion, it's the only conclusion can I draw?"

"She's not..."

I'd heard enough, so ended the call. Natalie was intelligent enough not ring back this time.

~*~*~*~*~

After the children had gone to their rooms Linda came and sat with me, "Natalie phoned me."

"I know I was listening."

"No, she spoke to me after your call." She looked close to tears as she spoke, "she was upset, I've never known her be like that, you must have hit a nerve or something?"

"What did she say?"

"That I needed to tell you everything, be truthful, answer your questions, that you were beyond upset and that it was on me, well on the three of us, me mainly, but also on her and Grant."

I noticed a tear roll down her cheek. "I want the truth, I had three questions I needed to speak to her in order to verify your answers but in talking to her I have a fourth question."

"Why did you need to verify? I've always been honest.... No, I haven't... have I? I've ...." Her gaze shifted to the floor as her head dropped as she realised what she was saying.

"You've lied by omission for so long how am I supposed to trust you to tell me the truth now, especially as you know our marriage is at stake. I'll make it clear to you now that a lie will certainly end it. This is on you. This whole situation is of your making, and you are the only one that caused this.... and what is worse you've always known about my pledge, my promise to myself and yet still you wantonly betrayed me. Only you have the chance to convince me not to break up the family I cherish above everything, and believe me it is a slim chance, very slim."