Once Tempted Read online

  She’d been on the receiving end of Edward Bradford’s disdain from the first day she met him and his wife, Hope, at the hospital, minutes after David had been transferred to pre-op. He never looked at her without making his contempt clear. Now his thin lips tightened as he sneered. “Don’t pretend you’ve forgotten. It’s the money I promised you. You’ve fulfilled the bargain. You stayed by my son’s side. Take it and go.”

  The money. The absurd offer David’s father had made to pay her a million dollars if she stayed at the hospital until David was able to be discharged—an offer so preposterous she hadn’t taken it seriously.

  Anna’s voice rescued her from the memory that filled her with biting shame. “It’s terrible to speak ill of the dead, but I’m not sure I can forgive David. How could he have married you without saying a word about the fact that he’d already suffered a brain tumor?”

  If that had been the only secret David had kept from her. It now seemed as if everything about their marriage had been based on a lie. The biggest one being David’s saying he loved her.

  That was what she got for believing in fairy tales, for believing for even a minute that a dashing, cosmopolitan journalist would fall in love at first sight with a working girl from Queens, sweep her off her feet, and propose marriage within the space of weeks. How could she have thought that she and David would make it, that they would enjoy a happy ever after?

  Most likely it was because the David Bradford she’d known during those first weeks had been the most charming man she’d ever encountered. The most determinedly persuasive, too. It was only later, after she’d agreed to elope with him and they’d made their trip down to city hall, that, with the suddenness of a light being switched off, his charm had been replaced by a poison-tipped cruelty. Both extremes, his charm and his hostility, had been equally devastating.

  She took another sip of wine to wash away the bitterness but then reminded herself not to drink too much. She would need a clear head tomorrow when she talked to her parents and told them of her plans.

  “I’ve decided it’s better to stop asking why David did the things he did and said—or, in his case, left unsaid. I might go crazy otherwise. But at the hospital, I learned from the doctors that David’s first brain tumor had been benign and that the treatment had been successful. He was only eighteen at the time, Anna. A kid.”

  “Oh God. That must have sucked.”

  “Yeah. I don’t know whether he didn’t recognize the symptoms or if he simply dismissed the possibility that after ten years in remission the growth had returned. As I was completely in the dark about his medical history, it didn’t occur to me that his headaches signaled something deadly serious.”

  “Especially since he blamed them on you.”

  “Yes.” Whenever she raised the topic of seeing a doctor, he flat out refused, turning what had begun as a conversation into a full-scale blowup. Living with her was enough to give anyone a migraine, he would rage, since all she did was nag and interrupt him when he was trying to write. He would never meet his deadlines because his wife was too much of a stupid bitch to leave him bloody well alone.

  This would be his cue to storm out of the apartment, sometimes not returning until the next day, reeking of alcohol, other women’s perfume, and sex.

  And when tears filled her eyes, he’d smirk and tell her the hookers he’d bought were better lays than she’d ever be. Once they’d used their mouths, they knew to shut them.

  Anna glanced at her pityingly, as though she could read her thoughts, and moved the tray of appetizers closer to her. “Are you hungry? The salami’s from Balducci’s.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t, Anna. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I don’t know what I was thinking, making all this. The good news is that Lucas will have a nice midnight snack when he comes home from the office.”

  Tess seized the chance to talk about something else. “Is Lucas taking any vacation time?”

  “Mmm-hmm. Starting tomorrow. We’re driving to New Haven on Christmas Eve to spend it with his parents. We’ll celebrate Christmas Day with mine. Mama’s over the moon. She’s been baking for weeks. What were David’s parents like?”

  Tess shrugged uncomfortably. “Okay, I guess, considering that I was the interloper. I thought his mother was beginning to soften toward me near the end.” But not enough to persuade her husband that Tess should be allowed to attend David’s funeral, she added silently. The hurt was still raw. It made her want to curl protectively into herself. How she wished she could forget every last one of the Bradfords’ insults.

  “So he really never told them he’d married you?” Anna asked. “Incredible.”

  “He hadn’t talked to them in years,” she said wearily. “It was the principal reason he used to convince me to elope. That, and how we would be sparing my own parents a whole lot of expense if we skipped a church ceremony and reception.” She’d been so touched by his sensitivity.

  Love had made her blind as well as foolish. It would have made her mother happy to see her walk down the aisle. But since the marriage had ended nearly as soon as it began, Tess couldn’t help but be glad that her parents hadn’t wasted a penny on it. Cold comfort, but she’d take it.

  “Bastard. He knew that the cost of Christopher’s care hangs over your parents’ heads so he used it to get his own way. I’m not a good friend, Tess. I should have stopped you from marrying that stronzo.”

  “No, you’ve been great. The best. I’m not sure anything or anyone could have persuaded me that David wasn’t exactly what he seemed at first.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Anna nodded glumly. “He played us all so well. Even I was fooled.”

  Tess gave a little smile. “And that’s saying something.”

  “It sure is. So when did you finally meet Mr. and Mrs. Bradford?”

  “At the hospital. They were there when I arrived. David’s doctors must have convinced him to let them inform his parents of his condition.”

  “Great place to meet the in-laws. How did they act when they met you?”

  That was an easy one. “Like I was a walking, talking slap in the face. After meeting them I understood why David didn’t want them at a wedding ceremony or even standing with us before the justice of the peace. If they’d had even an inkling that David planned to marry me, they’d have done everything in their power to stop us.”

  “Simply because you weren’t what they’d envisioned as wife material for their son?”

  Tess laughed bitterly. What could she say to her big-hearted friend? “I doubt I’d have even made the cut as one of David’s hookers.”

  Anna shifted on the sofa to hug her again. “Stop. You were too good for him—were too good for the entire snooty family. And I’m just talking about your character. Surely the Bradfords weren’t blind?”

  “I’m afraid my looks hardly appealed to them,” she answered drily.

  “Oh, right.” Anna made a face. “You’re gorgeous. Mama’s right when she says you look like a young Gina Lollobrigida—though maybe not when you’ve spent the last two months watching your good-for-nothing husband slowly die—but the Bradfords were probably hoping David would get hitched to some emaciated blonde in a tennis skirt. Prissy puritans.”

  Tess smiled tiredly. It would have been great to have Anna beside her when Mr. Bradford had demanded she take his money. Anna would have told him where to go.

  Tess had been tempted to. Tempted to rip up the check under his nose and then spit in his eye for good measure. But she hadn’t. So now Edward Bradford had incontrovertible proof that Tess Casari was no better than the money-grubbing fortune huntress he’d believed her to be.

  “They sound like real stuck-ups,” Anna continued, drawing her own conclusions.

  “Pretty much. At some point over the last two months I decided that if the Mayflower had been equipped with first-class cabins, they’d have been reserved for the Bradfords’ forefathers. Boston bluebloods elevate the snobbery thing to a
whole new level. But you know what, Anna?”

  “What?”

  “All their wealth and perfect bloodlines meant nothing when the surgeon came and broke the news that David had suffered an aneurysm during the operation and was in a coma. Edward and Hope Bradford could have been my parents when they’re with Chris at the facility.” Powerless. And desperately sad.

  “So that’s why you stayed in the hospital?”

  Tess shrugged. “When David was wheeled away, I was ready to leave and come back home to New York. Seeing him made me realize that nothing had or would ever change between us. The marriage was over.” Her voice lowered. “The truth is, Anna, it hurt too much to stay.”

  “I can understand that.”

  “David’s father didn’t. When I tried to tell him and his wife I had to go back to New York—that I’d lose my job if I didn’t return and that I wasn’t in a position where I could be unemployed and still expect to eat and pay the rent—my explanation didn’t matter. He was determined I stay.”

  And that was when Mr. Bradford had made his proposal, saying he’d pay her a million dollars if she stayed until David left Mass General. He was a father maddened with fear for his son. How could she have taken him seriously?

  Once more, she shoved the memory away. “But then the doctor came to us with the news about the aneurysm, and in those three minutes everything changed. No matter how I felt about David, I couldn’t leave him while his life hung in the balance.” A balance she’d understood from the doctor’s tone was tipped toward death.

  “But why did the Bradfords want you there when they didn’t even like you?”

  “Crazy, huh?” Tess sighed. “When I entered his hospital room, David said ‘Sorry’ to me.”

  “Saying ‘Sorry’ hardly absolved the sins he’d racked up.”

  “His parents thought it meant something—that he actually cared for me. Apparently he’d refused to speak to them at all.”

  “Wow.” Anna shook her head in amazement. Even though she wore a fuzzy angora sweater, she rubbed her hands over her arms as if to ward off a chill. Tess knew how she felt. “You weren’t kidding about them being on lousy terms. That probably made them resent you even more. So they became fixated on the idea that your sticking around would somehow make a difference?”

  “They were clutching at straws. I explained that they were placing way too much significance on David’s ‘Sorry.’ I told them he and I were as over as a couple could get—how before he’d walked out following our last fight he’d announced he was contacting his lawyer to begin divorce proceedings.”

  That she’d never received the divorce papers didn’t change the ugly truth that David had regretted “becoming shackled to a tedious bitch like her” the second the ink was dry on their marriage certificate.

  “Let me guess what happened. The Bradfords insisted.”

  “They arranged for me to stay in one of those rooms at the hospital reserved for family.”

  “And not at their house?” At Tess’s look, Anna grimaced. “Right. Silly me.”

  Silence descended as Anna digested this last piece of news. Tess couldn’t bear to divulge more of how the Bradfords’ hatred for her had manifested itself. Over the long weeks she’d spent at Mass General, she’d forgotten Edward Bradford’s offer of money. To her it had been a surreal episode in a world gone horribly wrong, one in which the man she thought she’d loved and with whom she’d pledged to spend a lifetime was lost in an unearthly sleep, slipping further away with each passing day.

  But when David finally succumbed to the pneumonia laying waste to his body, Edward Bradford hadn’t chosen to grieve with his wife and Tess. Instead he’d withdrawn the envelope from inside his jacket and thrust it at her as if it were a weapon, a weapon he’d been carrying next to his breast for God only knew how long. The painful vigil she’d shared with him and his wife hadn’t eased his disdain at all. Right after shoving the check at her, he’d ordered her to leave. As a parting shot, he’d icily informed her that she would not be welcome at the funeral service.

  Stupid with shock, she’d put the envelope in her bag. Numb, she nonetheless recognized that refusing the money would have accomplished nothing. The man had judged and condemned her the second he’d learned that his son had married her, a nobody from Astoria who worked at an events company.

  She’d left the hospital feeling dirtied and ashamed. But upon arriving in New York, she’d gone directly to her parents’ neighborhood bank and made arrangements to open a special account to pay for her brother Christopher’s care at the private facility. The million dollars as such meant nothing to Christopher, yet he needed what that money would buy more than anyone she knew.

  Edward and Hope Bradford would never know what she’d done with their money. Tess was glad. Their knowing wouldn’t change their belief that somehow she’d tricked David into marrying her.

  “Hey, Tess. It’ll be okay, really.” Anna’s arms were wrapped protectively around her. With a shock, Tess realized her shoulders were shaking, racked by the memories assailing her. Yet still her tears remained locked inside. Her shame, too.

  She couldn’t tell Anna about the Bradfords’ money. The details were so sordid. Of course Anna would defend her actions. Tess could even predict her response. She’d give one of her inimitable shrugs and then say something along the lines of, “Really, Tess, what’s one million when you’ve got, what, five hundred of them? Chump change. No biggie, cara, let it go.”

  But it was a biggie in Tess’s mind, and she couldn’t let it go, or confess aloud how dirtied that final episode with the Bradfords had left her feeling. So much during this past year had hurt her, but for some reason being treated with such withering animosity, as someone who was nothing more than a gold digger, was the cut that sliced deepest. She didn’t want to show the wound to anyone.

  Though Anna was as close as a sister, she couldn’t share this with her. She simply wanted to forget it all. Perhaps after David’s funeral Hope and Edward Bradford would find peace, too. And if their hatred of her provided some release from the grief of losing their only child, well, so be it. She would never see them again. Tonight she’d be taking the next step in her plan to get as far away as she could from everything that had happened in the last year.

  With a sniff she straightened her shoulders and tried to smile. “I’m sorry I’m such a mess.”

  “Don’t apologize, silly. I’m just glad you’re back home. The guy Giorgio hired to replace you is like Martha Stewart on steroids. I think even Giorgio’s getting a little weirded out. He’s probably forgotten half the things he said when you told him you had to stay in Boston—”

  “I felt so bad leaving you guys in the lurch. It must have been crazy at La Dolce Vita.”

  “Everyone understood, even Giorgio in his heart of hearts.” Anna leaned forward with sudden energy. “Why don’t I call him for you, Tess? Tonight’s event was a birthday party for a ninety-year-old stockbroker who still plays ice hockey with his great-grandchildren and takes them out on his yacht every summer in Newport. It’s a small gathering, only forty people. It’ll be over by now.”

  This was it. Slowly Tess shook her head. “I can’t come back to La Dolce Vita, Anna. I’m leaving New York after Christmas.”

  “Leaving? For where?”

  “California.” It was as far away from Boston and the Bradfords as she could get without leaving the continent.

  “California.” From the way Anna pronounced it, Tess could have announced she was moving to Mars. She fell silent, her expression solemn. “It’s so far. But I guess I understand why you’re doing it. If I’d been through what you have, I’d want a fresh start, too. So, where in California?”

  Tess reached over and picked up her handbag from where it leaned against the edge of the sofa. Opening it, she pulled out a folded map. “I picked this up. It shows the entire state.” Moving the untouched platter aside, she laid the map on the coffee table and smoothed out its folds. “I thought yo
u could help me choose my destination. What do you think of L.A.? Or maybe—”

  “Wait! Wait! I know!” Anna interrupted, her eyes bright with excitement. “Let me get my nonna’s favorite scarf. We can use it as a blindfold. I’ll tape the map to the wall, spin you around a few times, point you in the right direction, and give you a little good-luck shove. You’ll walk toward the wall with your index finger extended. Wherever your finger touches on the map, that’s where you’ll go. Fate will decide.”

  AS FAR AS Tess was concerned, fate was a nasty witch.

  She was pretty sure she’d have felt this way even if she hadn’t been exhausted from driving solo cross-country, roughly a couple thousand miles farther than she’d ever driven before, and in a car she now had serious doubts about.

  It had been sold to her by a distant cousin of one of the retired employees from her dad’s construction company. The price had been right and the mechanic had assured her it should make the trip to Northern California with no problem. But maybe she should have had the car looked at by someone more interested in inspecting the engine than in checking her out, and one who wasn’t related by marriage to the car’s owner. That was Astoria for you: on every corner a cousin or an in-law.

  And she’d been in a hurry to get a set of wheels and go, convinced that the only way to escape the ghosts of the past year was to get the hell out of New York and put the pedal to the metal. That was how messed up her life had become.

  Now she could add yet another life lesson to her personal list. It wasn’t just marry in haste, repent at leisure—but also buy a car in haste, repent as your palms grew slick when the steering wheel failed to respond at even the easy stuff, like switching lanes. The less said about the blinding snow in Kansas and the car’s iffy brakes, the better. Then there were the vehicle’s ominous coughs and rattles. With each, her stomach had tightened.

  But somehow she’d made it to the Golden State, which on a cold, gray January day didn’t look very golden to her and didn’t make her feel like shouting “Eureka!” at the top of her lungs while she launched into a quick jitterbug, or whatever the state dance was. As a going-away present, Anna had given her a guidebook to California that contained all sorts of trivia and factoids about the state. Before Tess reached her current level of exhaustion (somewhere around Colorado), she had studied the guidebook every night after she’d checked in to yet another motel.