Chapter One
Summer Torfan stared down at her neatly manicured
fingernails and the large diamond ring on her left hand. The big, glittery rock
had replaced the teeny-tiny diamond of her original ring and right now she
wished she had the old one back. Had those days back when she and Dave were a
couple of twenty-year-old kids who were crazy in love with each other. Now she
had a three-carat diamond ring, wore a cream Chanel suit that cost more than
three months rent at their first apartment, and a marriage that had definitely
lost its sparkle.
Dave shifted on the leather couch next to her and their
silence seemed to thicken the air, making it hard to breathe. She stole a peek
at him and was struck as ever by how handsome he was. Broad shoulders, strong
legs and a powerful chest she loved to cuddle with. Add to that his head of
thick, dark hair with the first hints of gray coming in and he could be on GQ .
Unfortunately his good looks also led to people calling him her “trophy
husband”. A term he despised.
While she traveled around the world and made a
million-dollar salary as a computer security consultant, Dave stayed home and
raised their two young boys. He’d had a decent job, but when she’d been made
the youngest VP in her company’s history they’d both decided him staying home
with the kids would be the best of all worlds. To everyone’s surprise,
especially her father’s, Dave had made a fantastic stay-at-home dad and their
boys adored him.
Thinking of their kids made her reach across the six-inch
divide on the couch between them at the marriage counselor’s office and grab
his hand. She loved him, she truly, deeply did, and she was going to do
whatever she had to in order to make things right between them. She hated this
tense silence between them but had no idea how to mend the breach. Talking
about emotions and feelings always made her uncomfortable, vulnerable, but
right now she would happily sell her soul if it would fix their marriage.
Even holding hands with her husband felt awkward and she
hated it. They used to constantly touch each other and it had felt as natural
as breathing. Now the emotional walls between them had become physical things,
invisible barriers that kept them apart and seemed to grow stronger every day.
Her analytical mind went into overdrive, trying to repair what was broken as if
their marriage were a massive computer program that just needed the right data
replacement to start operating smoothly again.
He cleared his throat and flexed his hand beneath hers. With
a start she realized she was squeezing his hand hard enough that her knuckles
stood out in white relief. “Sorry.”
He ran his thumb over her fingers in a caressing circle.
“It’s okay. You know I like it rough.” He grinned at her, the tension breaking
and filling her with the warmth that only Dave had been able to bring into her
life. “Wonder what’s taking Ember so long.”
She smiled back and rolled her eyes. “Who knows? Maybe there
was a drumming circle on the way to work and she couldn’t pass it by.”
Dave laughed and she looked around the room cluttered with a
bewildering array of stuff, glad to think about anything but why they were
here. Wait, not stuff, hippie artifacts. That’s what their marriage counselor,
Ember, called it. For all that Ember appeared as a flaky old woman from the
seventies, she was extremely intelligent with degrees from both Harvard and
Oxford. According to Ember, the objects weren’t stuff from her hippie days, or
random collections of crap, they were artifacts of a fascinating time in the US
psyche.
When Summer looked at the old concert photos in that context
she did see them as fascinating objects instead of stuff. It was all too easy
to imagine the mood of the country at that time with free love standing up in
the face of a never-ending war in Vietnam. Though she didn’t think having a giant
hookah in your office was the most professional thing, even if it
Summer Torfan stared down at her neatly manicured
fingernails and the large diamond ring on her left hand. The big, glittery rock
had replaced the teeny-tiny diamond of her original ring and right now she
wished she had the old one back. Had those days back when she and Dave were a
couple of twenty-year-old kids who were crazy in love with each other. Now she
had a three-carat diamond ring, wore a cream Chanel suit that cost more than
three months rent at their first apartment, and a marriage that had definitely
lost its sparkle.
Dave shifted on the leather couch next to her and their
silence seemed to thicken the air, making it hard to breathe. She stole a peek
at him and was struck as ever by how handsome he was. Broad shoulders, strong
legs and a powerful chest she loved to cuddle with. Add to that his head of
thick, dark hair with the first hints of gray coming in and he could be on GQ .
Unfortunately his good looks also led to people calling him her “trophy
husband”. A term he despised.
While she traveled around the world and made a
million-dollar salary as a computer security consultant, Dave stayed home and
raised their two young boys. He’d had a decent job, but when she’d been made
the youngest VP in her company’s history they’d both decided him staying home
with the kids would be the best of all worlds. To everyone’s surprise,
especially her father’s, Dave had made a fantastic stay-at-home dad and their
boys adored him.
Thinking of their kids made her reach across the six-inch
divide on the couch between them at the marriage counselor’s office and grab
his hand. She loved him, she truly, deeply did, and she was going to do
whatever she had to in order to make things right between them. She hated this
tense silence between them but had no idea how to mend the breach. Talking
about emotions and feelings always made her uncomfortable, vulnerable, but
right now she would happily sell her soul if it would fix their marriage.
Even holding hands with her husband felt awkward and she
hated it. They used to constantly touch each other and it had felt as natural
as breathing. Now the emotional walls between them had become physical things,
invisible barriers that kept them apart and seemed to grow stronger every day.
Her analytical mind went into overdrive, trying to repair what was broken as if
their marriage were a massive computer program that just needed the right data
replacement to start operating smoothly again.
He cleared his throat and flexed his hand beneath hers. With
a start she realized she was squeezing his hand hard enough that her knuckles
stood out in white relief. “Sorry.”
He ran his thumb over her fingers in a caressing circle.
“It’s okay. You know I like it rough.” He grinned at her, the tension breaking
and filling her with the warmth that only Dave had been able to bring into her
life. “Wonder what’s taking Ember so long.”
She smiled back and rolled her eyes. “Who knows? Maybe there
was a drumming circle on the way to work and she couldn’t pass it by.”
Dave laughed and she looked around the room cluttered with a
bewildering array of stuff, glad to think about anything but why they were
here. Wait, not stuff, hippie artifacts. That’s what their marriage counselor,
Ember, called it. For all that Ember appeared as a flaky old woman from the
seventies, she was extremely intelligent with degrees from both Harvard and
Oxford. According to Ember, the objects weren’t stuff from her hippie days, or
random collections of crap, they were artifacts of a fascinating time in the US
psyche.
When Summer looked at the old concert photos in that context
she did see them as fascinating objects instead of stuff. It was all too easy
to imagine the mood of the country at that time with free love standing up in
the face of a never-ending war in Vietnam. Though she didn’t think having a giant
hookah in your office was the most professional thing, even if it
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