A Perfect Life: A Novel Read Online Free

stayed with her. And she was away a lot of the time anyway, so the weekends he spent in Greenwich with his children didn’t bother her. She understood. And only once, when they started talking marriage, and she questioned him about the details of the divorce, and how advanced they were toward the final settlement, did she see a shadow cross his eyes. It was the first clue she had that something was amiss. The first of many. From there the truth unraveled slowly, a lie here, a small discovery there, like a surprise ball one gives to children, where the prizes fall out one by one. But in this case, they weren’t prizes, they were lies.
    Almost everyone at the network had long since figured out that Andrew wasn’t getting a divorce, he was still very much married to his wife, who had no idea what he was up to with Blaise. In fact, she knew as little as Blaise, who had been so busy with work, and traveling so much, that it had never occurred to her to doubt him, or look beyond what he said. His explanation for not having seen a lawyer yet, when she discovered that no papers had been filed, was that they were only “inconsequential administrative details” he wasplanning to take care of but hadn’t yet. There was no divorce. He was simply cheating on his wife and having an affair with Blaise. And while Blaise remained discreet about their relationship for over a year, so as not to jeopardize his “settlement,” he was telling his wife that he was staying in town to work. He had the best of both worlds. The services of a detective told Blaise all she needed to know. Andrew was spending his weekends with his wife and children, and his weeks with her. His friends in Greenwich considered them a happy couple, and his wife had thought that he and Blaise were only friends at work.
    “And how were you going to pull off getting married?” Blaise asked him when she learned the truth. “Tell her that you were going away for a weekend? Commit bigamy?” Blaise was heartbroken. Eventually someone talked, and it wound up in the tabloids, with photographs of his wife and children. Blaise got labeled a home-wrecker and spent three months dodging the press while they stalked her outside her apartment and as soon as she left work. Andrew was a liar and a cheater. The relationship she had believed in and relied on was a total fraud. The man she loved and trusted didn’t exist. She had opened up her heart and fallen hard, but Andrew had never planned to get divorced. He had conned her all along, and she had bought it hook, line, and sinker. She had believed him completely. It never dawned on her that he was lying, because she wouldn’t have. And when Harry read about it, he called her to tell her how sorry he was. He knew she was a decent person, and it wasn’t like her to go out with married men. When she ended the affair, she cried for months. She was devastated.
    The whole affair had lasted sixteen months, and she had been soshaken by it that there had been no one since. She liked to say now that she was single by choice. She had no desire to risk her heart again. And worst of all, he still called. He had never apologized for the lies he told her, but he sent her e-mails and texts telling her how much he loved her, how much he missed her, but never how sorry he was. And he spent a good two years after she left him, trying to get her back into bed, knowing it would make her vulnerable to him again. She was smart enough not to fall for it. She still missed him, and what he had appeared to be, but she never believed his lies again. He still claimed that he and Mary Beth were about to get divorced, which was clearly a lie. And after her, she knew that he had cheated with several other women. Apparently, his wife was willing to forgive him anything. Blaise wasn’t, and she only had one near slip when they wound up staying at the same hotel in London, and she agreed to have a drink with him. She had too much to drink on an empty stomach,