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A few hours later, after lots of food and laughs, I said good-bye to the last guest and disposed of the last bit of garbage, then headed upstairs. All I wanted was a bath and a good night’s sleep, but I doubted that would happen. Orlando was waiting for me when I got to my room.

“Now was that so bad?” I couldn’t help but say as I began unbuttoning my sundress. He was sitting on the bed, watching me, his face unreadable.

“I guess not,” he said, shrugging slightly. “It was entirely too long.”

I sighed, tugging a nightshirt over my head. “So do you want to tell me what this is all about?”

He avoided my eyes as he stood up to pace the room. I sat on the bed and leaned my back against the wall, ready to just wait it out. Something was very wrong, and I wanted to know what it was.

“Orlando?” I said after a minute or two of silence. “Talk to me, honey.”

He couldn’t seem to stand still now, fidgeting with my hair brush, picking up things off the dresser and putting them down again. “Charlie, I’ve done something you’re not going to like,” he whispered, and I could hear the guilt in his voice. The air in the room was suddenly heavy with it.

“Okay,” I said slowly, my body automatically tensing. He wouldn’t look me in the eye. “Well, whatever it is, I’d rather know than have you keep acting like this.”

He took a deep breath and stood with his back to me, his shoulders hunched slightly. “Charlie, I slept with Carrie,” he said, his voice barely audible. At first I wasn’t sure if I’d heard him right.

“What?” I managed over the lump that was forming in my throat.

“The night of the premiere,” he said, tears clearly visible in his eyes. “We went to a party after the screening, the whole cast, all the crew, a bunch of other celebrities. The energy was incredible, and before I knew it, I was in her hotel room with lots of wine and beer.” He shook his head and rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. “I knew it was wrong, Charlie, I really did. But I couldn’t help it.”

“That’s why you didn’t call me all weekend,” I said, putting two and two together as the first few tears trickled down my face. “And that’s why Carrie’s attitude got steadily worse with me.” I forced myself to look up at him. “Orlando, why did you do this? Please, don’t insult me by telling me you were drunk and got carried away.”

He came over to the bed and sat down in front of me. I pulled away when he tried to take my hands. The images that were racing through my head, fabricated ideas of him with her, made me disgusted at the idea that he’d been intimate with someone else, especially while I was grieving for my dad dying. I squeezed my eyes closed for a moment, trying to get control on myself.

“I can’t explain what I did,” he said, clasping and unclasping his hands in his lap. “All I can do is tell you how sorry I am. I didn’t want to come to the funeral because I couldn’t face you. I feel so guilty about this, I thought it would be better if you dealt with your grief on your own because I couldn’t help you. I was too deep in my own shit.”

“And that’s why you turned on me,” I said softly. “That’s why we fought, and why we came so close to breaking up. Wow, I can’t believe I didn’t pick up on this earlier. I was such an idiot.”

“No, you weren’t,” he said quickly. “This is not your fault, not at all. I’m the one who screwed up, and I can’t tell you how sorry I am for it.”

“Sorry doesn’t make it better,” I snapped, the anger building up in me now. I suddenly felt like I didn’t know him at all, like he was a stranger to me again. “You know what? I need you to leave now.”

“Charlie, we can talk about this,” Orlando said, almost pleading with me. I shoved his hand off my knee when he tried to touch me. “Please.”

“I don’t want to see you right now,” I said, getting up off the bed. I went to the door and opened it. “Get your shit and get the hell out of my house, Orlando. Now.”

He got up slowly, looking completely dejected. The guilt on his face was painful to see, but I kept telling myself that he was the one who’d screwed up, that he didn’t deserve my sympathy. He gathered up his things and put them in his suitcase, zipping it with a deliberate slowness that made me want to strike him.

He paused in the doorway, set down his suitcase, and tried to take me in his arms. I shoved him away and slapped him as hard as I could across the face.

“Don’t touch me,” I said, crying almost hysterically. “Get the fuck out.” I kicked his suitcase into the hall, and pushed him after it. “Good-bye, Orlando.” I shut the door, then collapsed in a heap on the floor.

I spent the better part of the night on the floor, my arms wrapped around my knees, my back against the door. I felt so betrayed, so stupid, yet I couldn’t make the anger stay. All that was left was an overwhelming sadness, a harsh, ripping pain deep in my chest, and the heavy feeling that nothing would ever be the same again. When Ramsey had cheated on me, I’d been more concerned about him wanting a woman like Joanne over me, so it had been about wounded pride. But this was so much worse. I loved Orlando more than I’d ever wanted to love anyone, and I’d let my guard down, let myself trust him completely, even while he was away. The idea that he’d be unfaithful had never even occurred to me, so it came as that much more of a shock. To be honest, with this betrayal happening so close on the heels of my dad’s death, I wasn’t sure I could handle it all.

Since the house was empty, there was no one to snap me out of my fog. When the sun peeked through my window at daybreak, I barely noticed. I got up off the floor, went into the bathroom, and ran a bath. I got in the warm water, and had to fight the urge to just lay on the bottom of the tub and let the water take away all of my problems. I rested my head on the edge of the tub, and let the tears finally break free. They streamed down my face, making the skin red and raw. I cried until I had no tears left, then pulled myself from the bath, wrapped my robe around me, and went into Dad’s bedroom.

The comfort I had been craving eluded me, even in Dad’s room. I laid on his bed, and pulled the covers over myself, but since I hadn’t changed the sheets since Adam left, it wasn’t my dad I smelled, it was him. Somehow, that made me feel worse, and the tears came again.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Orlando with Carrie, saw his lips on that scrawny body, saw his hands caressing her, saw his face twisted in pleasure as they had sex. No, it wasn’t about love between them, it was pure, animal sex. That added insult to injury somehow, because I could have understood him cheating with someone like Kate, someone he still had deep feelings for. But to throw away our entire relationship for something that amounted to no more than a piece of ass after too much to drink? That was hard to stomach.

These thoughts forced me to ask myself a very serious question: Could I forgive and forget, or would I have to walk away from him? At that point in time, curled up in Dad’s bed, with another man’s scent surrounding me, neither option seemed very appealing.

When the phone rang late that afternoon, it jarred me back to reality. I got up slowly, dazedly, and went downstairs to answer it. I could have grabbed the one in Dad’s room, but it didn’t even occur to me.

“Hello?” I rasped, realizing that I hadn’t said a word all since I’d told Orlando to get out. I vaguely heard Nick’s voice in the back of my head, scolding me for not taking care of my voice, but I shook it off.

“Charlie?” Orlando’s voice didn’t sound any better than mine. It was hoarse, like he’d been crying or yelling. The very sound of him cut through me and my hand started to shake as I held the phone.

“What?” I whispered, torn between hearing him out and hanging up on him. The truth was, I didn’t have the energy to do either, so I figured I’d just listen.

“Will you talk to me, please, love?” he pleaded, a trace of hope in his words.

“Why?” There was no malice or anger in the words, just a profound sadness. He needed to know that I was a breath away from giving up on him.

“We can’t fix this unless you’re willing to talk to me,” he said.

“I’m not sure I want to fix this,” I said, sighing heavily. “I can’t just forget it, Orlando, and I don’t know if I can forgive you for it, either.”

“Tell me how to make this right,” he said, a sense of urgency in his voice now. He sounded anxious, eager to please, pathetic, really.

“Answer one question for me,” I said, and I knew I’d hate myself for asking, but I had to know.

“Anything.”

“Why did you do this? Why did you so clearly choose sex over me?”

It was his turn to sigh. “I’ve been asking myself that since it happened,” he said, his breath hitching. I don’t know how I knew, but I was sure there were tears running down his face, just as there were down mine now.

“And?”

“Every conclusion I come to makes me feel sick to my stomach,” he said. He paused for a moment, and I could hear him breathing. I waited. “I wanted someone in that moment to keep the rush of the premiere alive. Carrie has made advances before, especially after you and I made love in the car on the way to the airport, but I’ve always brushed her off. That night, I’ll admit, the fact that she said all the right things and made me feel like the greatest guy in the world went right to my head.”

“So because you needed your ego stroked, you decided to get something else stroked as well?” I snapped, anger flaring in my chest like a beast awakening from its slumber.

“When it was over, I felt so wretched, Charlie,” he said, his voice taking on a desperate edge. His words started to come faster, as though to stop me from interrupting. “I told her to leave my room, to just get out, and I felt like such a prat. I vomited as she dressed, and on her way out, she laughed. I’ve never wanted to slap a woman the way I wanted to slap her. She actually had the nerve to say, ‘not so perfect now, are we?’ in her snotty little voice as she left the room. I locked the door behind her, and tried to figure out how to fix what I’d done, but I couldn’t.”

“Was she worth it?”

“No,” he said quickly. “Not in the least. If I could go back and do it again, I would change everything. I should have fired her when I found out she was keeping your messages from me. I should have put her in her place the first time she tried to kiss me. But the fact is, I didn’t, and now I’ve thrown away the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“You’re right,” I hissed. “You have. You disgust me, Orlando. I should have known that when push came to shove your ego would win out and you’d put your needs above mine. I can honestly say I hate you right now, and I’d be perfectly happy never to speak to you or see your bastard face ever again!” I slammed the phone down, my chest heaving, my whole body shaking. In that moment, I meant every hateful word I’d said, and it scared me how good it felt to say them.

The following day, I flew home to New York. I said good-bye to Aunt Tess and Deanna at the airport, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell them what was going on with Orlando. I figured it was a need-to-know thing, and they just didn’t need to know.

When I opened the door to my apartment and went inside, Lisa jumped on me immediately. I hugged her back, but I was so tired and so miserable, I started to cry as soon as I felt her arms around me.

“Oh my God, honey,” she said, pulling back to look at me. “What’s wrong?”

I shook my head, trying to stem the flow of tears. I couldn’t make the words come out of my mouth, so I just let her lead me to the sofa. I sat down, trying to control the shaking in my body. The tears came faster and faster, and I started having trouble catching my breath.

“Shhh, baby,” Lisa soothed, rubbing my back and trying to hold me against her. I rocked back and forth and really started wailing. I couldn’t stop the shrill screeches that came from my mouth. It felt good to scream, to cry, to shake, to let go. What I really wanted was to lash out at Orlando, to make him hurt the way I was. I loved him and I hated him, all at the same time, and the idea of that made me double over and put my head between my knees to avoid vomiting.

“What’s going on?” Jeremy said, coming out of Lisa’s bedroom. “Charlie, are you okay?”

“She just collapsed into tears as soon as I hugged her,” Lisa said when I couldn’t answer him. “I don’t know what’s going on.”

“Should we call someone? Orlando, maybe?”

“No,” I choked out, forcing myself to look up at him. “Don’t call him.”

“What happened, sweetheart?” Lisa asked, smoothing my hair away from my face. I managed to stop crying, but the shakes wouldn’t stop. I sniffled and swallowed hard.

“Orlando slept with someone else,” I rasped, staring at a spot on the carpet rather than looking at either of them. “That’s why he wasn’t at the funeral.”

No one said anything for what felt like hours, but was only a minute or two. Jeremy shook his head, and Lisa gave me a squeeze.

“He told you this?” she said.

I nodded, sitting back on the sofa, leaning my head on the back. “After Aunt Tess’s barbeque Friday night.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him to get out,” I said, shrugging. “He called the next night, and I told him I hated him.”

“Do you?”

I sighed and sat forward, my elbows on my knees. “I hate the fact that he could do this to me,” I said slowly. “I mean, he had sex with someone he doesn’t even like most of the time. What does that say about our relationship?”

“Did he have an explanation?” Jeremy asked, sitting in the chair across from us.

“He’d been drinking after the premiere,” I said, my voice full of scorn. “Basically, he expects me to forgive him because he was stupid and had too much to drink.”

“That’s bullshit,” Lisa said, rolling her eyes. “And really no excuse.”

“That’s what I told him,” I said.

“So what are you going to do?” Jeremy said.

“I’m not sure right now,” I said. “I’m not sure if I trust him anymore. He’s gone so much, I just know that every time he’s away from me, I’ll be wondering who he’s with, and what he’s doing. That was one of my favourite things about him, the idea that I didn’t have to worry about shit like this.”

“He’s the last person I would have thought could do something like this,” Lisa said, a dumbfounded look on her face. “He seemed so nice.”

“Tell me about it,” I said, twisting my ring on my finger. I’d toyed with the idea of taking it off, but I just couldn’t, not yet. “After a long line of not-so-great, and in some cases down-right horrible, men, I finally thought I’d found a good one.”

“One indiscretion doesn’t make him a bad person,” Jeremy pointed out quietly. “He made a mistake.”

“I’m not sure I’m ready to look at it that way,” I said, trying not to be angry with him. I knew he meant well. “For now, I need to hate him. It’s that simple.”

“Of course,” Lisa agreed, hugging me again. She stood up and picked up my suitcase. “Let’s get you unpacked, then we’ll have some ice cream and a bottle of wine.”

I smiled for the first time in days. “I think I’d just like to get to bed,” I said, rising as well. “I’m so tired, and Nick will kill me if I’m not up to his standards Tuesday night.”

“Are you sure?”

I put my hand on her arm. “I’m positive,” I said. “But thank you for thinking of me.” I took my suitcase from her. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

I went into my bedroom and shut the door, locking it behind me.

Rather than mope around in my room the way I had the last time Orlando and I were on the outs, I decided to go to the theatre early the next morning, to work on my voice and get myself ready for the show the next night. I spent the morning and a good chunk of the afternoon in one of the rehearsal rooms, playing the piano, working on the dancing, singing, and basically doing anything I could to keep my mind off of Orlando.

I was just finishing up for the afternoon when Adam poked his head around the door.

“Hey, honey,” he said softly, coming into the room. “I thought I recognized that gorgeous voice.”

I gave him a brief smile as I took a drink from my water bottle. “I figured I’d better be at the top of my game when I come back tomorrow,” I said, sitting down on the piano bench. Even though I didn’t need any more confusion in my life at the moment, I was glad to see him. A friendly face really couldn’t hurt. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve been having some trouble with one of my costumes,” he said, crossing the room and leaning on the piano, in front of me. “I needed a fitting so they could fix it.”

“How did it go with Cybele the other day?” I dared to ask, figuring it was going to come up anyway.

“She’s coming around,” he said. “We’re still talking with the lawyers about custody, but she’s not being as unreasonable now.”

“That’s good,” I said, not sure what else to say.

“She was surprised I came back so soon,” he said, his eyes searching my face.

“We knew she would be,” I said simply. “Hopefully it was a pleasant surprise.”

“It was,” he said. “I got to spend some extra time with my boys because of it, which I was grateful for.” He paused. “Did Orlando end up coming like he said he would?”

I sighed. At the sound of his name, I felt like someone had kicked a very large bruise. I fought the urge to cry. “He did, yes,” I said softly. I avoided Adam’s eyes, not ready to tell him what was going on.

“Charlie, what’s wrong?” he asked immediately.

I forced a very pinched smile. “Nothing,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m just tired from practicing all day, that’s all.”

“Are you sure? You’re very pale.”

“I’m positive,” I said, standing up. “I should probably get going. Lisa said something about dinner tonight, so I need to pick up some groceries. She’s obviously been living at Jeremy’s since I’ve been gone, because we have absolutely nothing to eat.” I laughed to make the lie sound natural, but it was very hollow and shrill.

Adam eyed me carefully for a few seconds. “Okay, honey,” he said, slipping an arm around me. “But if you need to talk, just call me.”

“I will,” I said, pulling away from him. If he held me any longer, I knew I’d cry. “I’ll see you tomorrow night.” I gathered up my stuff and hurried from the room.

I picked up the few groceries I needed and then went home. Lisa was at Jeremy’s, as I’d known she would be, so I made some Penne Alfredo with sautéed mushrooms and curled up on the sofa with the television remote. Of course, the first thing I saw when I turned on the TV was Orlando’s face. The trailer for his latest movie basically slapped me in the face as I sat there, glued to the sofa, unable to change the channel.

As if the trailer wasn’t bad enough, but it led into an interview he’d given the day before at one of the promotional events. He was in London for the premiere, and he looked horrible. His hair was wild and tucked behind his ears, his face was pale and pinched, and he looked very, very tired. My heart ached just looking at him, knowing that he was hurting as much as I was. The tear the trailed down my cheek took me by surprise, and I realized that I felt sorry for him.

I stood up and shut off the TV. I didn’t want to feel sorry for him. He was the one who screwed up. He was the one who cheated on me, not the other way around, so why should I care if he was in pain? No sooner had the thought entered my mind than I knew the answer. I still loved him, no matter how angry or hurt I was. That wouldn’t change. Reluctantly, I picked up the phone.

“Hello?” An unfamiliar male voice with a thick British accent answered on the third ring.

“Uh, who is this?” I asked, perching on the edge of the sofa, wondering if I’d dialed the wrong number.

“Who are you trying to reach?” The voice was pleasant, yet professional.

“Orlando Bloom,” I said slowly.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Bloom is busy at the moment,” the voice said, and I could tell he thought I was a fan or something who’d gotten hold of the number somehow.

“Can you just tell him to call Charlie?” I figured it was worth a shot.

“Charlie Madison?”

“Yes,” I said, my stomach knotting wildly.

“Hang on a mo’,” he said. “I’ll get him.”

“Charlie?” Orlando’s voice came on the line a few seconds later. He sounded out of breath, anxious. “I’m so glad you called, love.”

I took a deep breath. “I’m not really sure why I did,” I said honestly. “I saw the Pirates trailer, and an interview you did at the London premiere last night.” I stopped, swallowing hard to stop myself from crying. “Uh, who answered the phone?” I had to change the subject for a minute or else I’d just hang up.

“Phillip,” he said. “He’s my new PR assistant. I fired Carrie.”

“Be careful of a sexual harassment lawsuit,” I said automatically. I just knew she’d be the type to do something like that.

“She violated her confidentiality agreement,” he said softly. “It was grounds for immediate dismissal. She can’t say I fired her because we had sex.”

“What did she do?” I asked, knowing I probably shouldn’t.

“Let’s just say you probably don’t want to read the tabloids for a few weeks,” he said.

“Oh.” I didn’t know what else to say.

“So how’ve you been?” he asked quickly. I was thankful to get away from talking about Carrie. “I’ve wanted to ring you so many times, but I figured you wouldn’t want to hear from me right now.”

“Until a few minutes ago, I didn’t,” I said, rubbing my hand over my eyes to clear the tears that were welling there. “Orlando, you looked horrible at the London premiere, like you haven’t slept in weeks. Are you taking care of yourself?”

“I’ve been busy,” he said simply. “And I don’t feel like sleeping much lately.”

“I know what you mean.”

There was silence for a few seconds. I was trying to think of what to say without telling him I loved him. I couldn’t forgive him yet, and telling him how much I cared would only complicate matters.

“Where are you now?” I asked eventually. “Are you still in London?”

“I’m at Mum’s for the night,” he said. “I’m finishing up some interviews and then heading back there in a bit.”

We chatted for a few more minutes, just general small-talk. We kept it light, talking mostly about work. It seemed to be the only safe subject for the time being. When we’d run out of things to say, we started to say good-bye.

“Look, Charlie, you can call me any time, day or night, okay?” Orlando said at the end of the conversation. “Even if you just want to chat.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I’m sorry I said such horrible things to you the other day. I shouldn’t have. We’ll talk again soon.”

“I hope so.” He paused. “I love you.” It sounded like he was holding his breath, waiting to hear what I’d say.

“I know you do,” I said. “Just give me some time, okay?”

“Anything. Good night, love.”

“Good night.” I hung up the phone and sat back against the sofa, feeling lighter than I had in days.