Trouble Me: A Rosewood Novel (51 page)

Anna knew just how good a fighter David had been. Once the marriage had started to deteriorate with the same dizzying speed with which it had been born, Tess would come over here to Anna’s—she couldn’t burden her parents with the news that her very short marriage was already on the rocks, not when they’d suffered so much. She’d spent hours on this very sofa, crying from the latest spite David had unleashed while Anna paced the room and cursed him with an eloquence that would have made a marine blush.

“It seemed like they’d only just confirmed the pneumonia and then he was gone,” Tess continued. “Passed. I don’t think there’s any other way to describe it.”

“It’s all so hard to believe. David was so active. All that running he did. And those weights.” Anna was of the philosophy that there was one and only one reason to run and that was to catch a cab. Gyms were also to be avoided like the plague. That she could also eat with the appetite of a truck driver and still look like Monica Bellucci was grossly unfair. Tess forgave her because Anna was the most loyal friend in the world. “At least he didn’t suffer at the end,” Anna finished.

Again that worn, empty phrase. But what else was there that anyone could say?

“No, he didn’t. And honestly, Anna, by that point it was a relief to let him go and not to have to watch him lie in that dreadful nondeath.” Raising her glass, she drank deeply to banish the vision of the tubes inserted into his body and the wires attached elsewhere that had served to keep David in that terrible state for far too long. Although now painfully aware of how little she’d known or understood her husband, Tess was certain of one thing: David would have hated being dependent on
those machines to keep his heart beating—no matter what his parents wished to believe.

Though she managed to push aside the image of her husband lying unmoving and unresponsive in his hospital bed, it was replaced by another one almost equally distressing, that of Edward Bradford, turning to her minutes after the hospital staff had confirmed David’s death. His patrician face had been pale with grief, but his blue eyes had blazed, lit with pain and rage. Withdrawing a white envelope from the inside pocket of his gray wool suit, he’d thrust it like a weapon at her.

Uncomprehending, she’d stared at the envelope and then up at his angular face. “What’s this?” she’d asked.

She’d witnessed Edward Bradford’s disdain before, but now it seemed etched into his skin. His thin lips vanished in a sneer. “This is yours—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 give her a million dollars if she stayed by David’s side until he had recovered sufficiently to leave the hospital. Edward Bradford had insisted she agree to his insane idea even after she’d made it clear that David had had every intention of divorcing her, that he had told her he’d contacted his lawyer with instructions to begin the proceedings before he’d walked out of her life four months earlier. As calmly as she could, she’d explained to Edward Bradford that she had to get back to New York and her job at la Dolce Vita.

But then the surgeon had come into the waiting room with the news. The operation to remove the meningioma had not been successful. During the operation, David had suffered an aneurysm. He was in a coma. The doctor’s prognosis was bleak. With such a severe hemorrhaging of the brain, he had about a 25 percent chance of survival. But from the doctor’s tone Tess had understood
that he didn’t expect David to beat those odds. As the surgeon had spoken, she’d looked over at Madeline Bradford and seen something she recognized. Her expression held the same desperation, echoed the same mute pain, that Tess had seen in her own mother’s face when they visited Christopher at the private facility where the Casaris had been forced to place him when they could no longer care for him at home.

Then and there, Tess abandoned any plan to return to New York. Even with the hurt David had inflicted during their short marriage, she couldn’t leave him when his life hung in a balance weighted toward death.

Though the Bradfords had made their dislike of her abundantly clear, they obviously believed her presence might help David. They were wrong, but she couldn’t bring herself to add to their anguish by leaving. She had enough savings to live on for a while, and she had only to ask and Anna would arrange to have her stuff moved out of the shoe-size apartment she’d rented after David had hied off for parts unknown and stow it in her old bedroom in her parents’ brick row house on 46th Street.

Edward Bradford’s absurd and insulting offer of money hadn’t entered her thoughts.

And yet she’d taken the check, not tearing it into so much confetti as she’d longed to do—if only to erase the contemptuous look stamped on his face. The man had judged and condemned her the second he’d learned that his son had married her—a nobody from Astoria. In his mind, her job as a waitress was barely a step above that of a stripper or pole dancer.

She’d taken the check Edward Bradford had all but thrown at her. But as soon as she returned to New York, she’d gone to her parents’ neighborhood bank and arranged to have the money put into a special account to help pay for her brother Christopher’s care. The million
dollars meant nothing to Christopher, yet he needed it more than anyone she knew.

Edward and Madeline Bradford would never know what she’d done with their money, and Tess was glad. Their knowing wouldn’t change their opinion of her or their belief that somehow she’d tricked their son into marrying her.

Perhaps with David’s funeral, Madeline and Edward Bradford had found peace. And if their hatred of her provided some release from the grief of losing their only child, well, so be it. Tess would never see them again. Tonight at Anna’s, she’d be taking the next step in her plan to get as far away from everything that had happened in the last year as she could.

Anna picked up the tray and offered the assorted appetizers to Tess, then put it back down on the coffee table with a sad sigh when Tess gave a shake of her head.

“I’m glad that David died without pain,” Anna continued. “I only wish he hadn’t inflicted so much on
you
. I know it’s terrible to speak ill of the dead, but I don’t know whether I can forgive what he did to you. How could he have
not
told you about the tumor? I still can’t believe he married you without ever uttering a word about it.”

If only that had been the
only
secret David kept to himself, Tess thought. As it was, everything about their marriage had been based on a lie. The biggest one being that David had never loved her.

That’s 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 weeks later. How could she have thought that she and David would make it, that they would enjoy a happily ever after?

Most likely it was because the David Bradford she’d
known during those first months 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 settled into his SoHo loft that, with the suddenness of a light being switched off, his charm had been replaced by a cutting cruelty. Both extremes, his charm and his hostility, had been equally devastating.

She took a sip of wine to wash away the bitterness. “I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve stopped asking myself why he did the things he did or what he said and left unsaid about his life. I might go crazy otherwise. But at the hospital in Boston, his mother told me that David’s first brain tumor had been benign and that the treatment for it had been successful. He’d only been nineteen at the time, Anna. My guess is that when he started experiencing symptoms again, he simply refused to consider the possibility that the cancer had returned. And not being aware of his history, I didn’t think to suspect his headaches of being a sign of something far more serious.”

During the weeks she spent by David’s hospital bed, Tess had talked to the nurses and doctors, receiving a crash course in malignant brain tumors. Now she recognized how deeply David had been in denial about his condition. The symptoms had been there even during the few months they’d been married. When the headaches he suffered became more frequent and intense, he’d refused to make an appointment with a doctor, blaming her instead and saying that living with Tess was enough to give anyone a migraine. When his mood swings led to vicious outbursts, he’d claimed that the stress of looming deadlines for the articles he was writing was the cause, that and the fact that the woman whom he’d married had turned into an uptight nagging bitch. That would be his cue to storm out of the loft,
sometimes not to return until the next day. When he did finally return, his clothes would reek of alcohol and perfume.

“And so what were his parents like?” Anna asked.

She shrugged uncomfortably. “Okay, I guess, considering that I represented an unpleasant surprise. I thought his mother was beginning to soften toward me somewhat near the end.” Though not enough to persuade her husband that Tess should be allowed to attend David’s funeral, she added silently. The hurt of being barred from the ceremony was still fresh.

“What was David thinking, not telling his parents that he’d married you? What a creep. Absolutely incredible.” Anna’s tone was scathing.

“David told me he hadn’t talked to them in years, so he didn’t see why they should come. It was one of the reasons he gave for our eloping, saying that since he’d cut ties with his family, there was no reason to go to the trouble of a wedding ceremony. And by eloping, we’d save my parents the cost of a church ceremony and reception.” She’d been so touched by his concern for his parents’ finances. And the passionate urgency, the bold recklessness of David’s suggestion that they elope, had struck her as deeply romantic. Love had rendered her blind as well as stupid. Her mother would have loved to see her walk down the aisle. On the other hand, as the marriage had ended almost as soon as it began, she couldn’t help but be glad that her parents hadn’t wasted a penny on it. With the economy in the tank, her father’s construction company wasn’t making the profits it had.

“Damn, but he was clever at pushing people’s emotional buttons.” Anna’s words came out in an angry huff. “Sure, it saved your parents money, but he wanted to elope so he wouldn’t have to deal with anything as complicated as a wedding. He knew that money was tight for your parents with having to pay for Christopher’s
care, so he used that line to get what he wanted and made you think he was Mr. Generosity for thinking of them.” Anna picked up the wine bottle and refilled their glasses. “Tess, I wasn’t a good friend. I should have talked you out of marrying that bastardo.”

“No, Anna. You’ve been a great friend. 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 seemed like such a Prince Charming. Even I was fooled. So, back to the parents. When did you finally meet them?”

“David must have contacted them when he was admitted into the hospital. They were there in his hospital room when I arrived.”

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

“That’s an easy one: glacially displeased. After meeting them, I understood why David didn’t want them at a wedding ceremony. If they’d had even an inkling that David planned to marry me, Mr. and Mrs. Bradford would have done everything in their power to stop us. Given how super-wealthy they are, they probably would have succeeded. I definitely wasn’t what they’d envisioned as wife material for their son. I don’t think I’d have even made the cut as one of David’s hookups.”

“You were too good for him, were too good for the entire family. And that’s just your character. Surely the Bradfords weren’t blind as well as snotty.”

“I’m not sure my looks appealed to them either.”

“Prissy puritans,” Anna pronounced.

Tess smiled sadly. It would have been nice to have Anna beside her when Mr. Bradford had all but stuffed the envelope containing the check into her hand. She 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. And so now Edward Bradford had incontrovertible proof that Tess Casari was no better than the money-grubbing fortune huntress he’d chosen to label her as.

“So David’s parents were real rich stuck-ups,” Anna continued.

“Yeah, pretty much. If the Mayflower had been equipped with first-class cabins, they’d have been reserved for the Bradfords. I’ve learned that Boston blue-bloods elevate the snobbery thing to a whole new level, Anna. But all their wealth and perfect pedigrees meant nothing when David slipped into a coma. Edward and Madeline Bradford could have been my dad and mom when they’re with Chris at the facility. Desperate. Powerless. And so sad. It’s why I had to stay when they demanded it.”

“But why did they insist you stay in the hospital? How weird was that?”

“They had some idea it would make a difference if I was close to David.”

“Did they really think you could do something for him that the doctors couldn’t?”

“I think they were desperate, clutching at straws. You see, just before David was taken away to be operated on, they overheard him say ‘Sorry’ to me. They must have believed it meant more than it did. I tried to explain to them that they were placing way too much significance on that one word, and that David and I were as over as a couple could get, that I hadn’t seen or even spoken to him for four months. But they were insistent. Modern science was failing them so they clung to a scrap of magical thinking, hoping that my presence could somehow draw him out of the coma. They were willing to believe in anything, even put their faith in someone they despised.”

Anna shook her dark head in bemusement. “God, Tess. David’s parents probably didn’t even realize that you’re one of the few people who would immediately understand what they were going through.”