The Man Who Can't Let Her Go novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Wrong Woman
Lydia walks into a birthday party and is kissed in the dark by her husband, who meant to kiss someone else; she walks out, and he tells her in the hallway that he never signed the divorce.
The moment Lydia Winthrop pushed open the door of the private room, two arms locked around her waist from behind.
A mouth came down on hers in the dark.
She froze.
Three years in another city, and her body still knew his scent before her mind did.
It was Hayden VanAlen, her husband, the boy from the house next door.
Then the lights blazed on.
Forty guests jumped up from behind the tables and threw confetti.
"Happy birthday, Cissy!"
The cheer died in their throats.
They were staring at Lydia, not at the birthday girl.
Hayden's arms fell away from her at once.
Lydia felt the cold where they had been.
A woman by the cake whispered, "That's Lydia. That's his wife."
A man let his party popper drop to the floor.
"Isn't she the one who walked out?" someone said. "Why would she come back now?"
Lydia turned and looked up at Hayden.
His face was white to the lips.
His eyes went over her coat, her travel bag, her hair pulled back in a hurry, and he stared at each one.
Then he looked past her shoulder at the door, and she understood.
He had been waiting in the dark for someone else.
Nobody moved.
A woman in a pale blue dress pushed through the crowd with one hand on her chest.
It was Cissy Channing, twenty-seven today, who had grown up three houses down from the two of them.
"Lydia! Oh, thank God," Cissy said, and hugged her hard.
She smelled of vanilla and cold air.
"Henrietta told me she'd written to you, but I never dared hope you'd come."
Lydia was too tired to hug her back, so she stood still and let it happen.
"I'm not here for a party," Lydia said. "Henrietta asked for me. The doorman said her family was up here."
"She's at the hospital on Maple Street," Cissy said gently. "We've all been going in shifts."
"I know. I came straight from the airport."
Hayden spoke at last.
"Grandma asked for you?"
His voice came out rough.
"She's been asking for months, Hayden," Cissy said. "I told you that."
A guest by the window laughed under her breath.
"Walking into Cissy's birthday like that. The nerve."
Lydia turned her head and found the woman.
"I walked in on a man kissing me in the dark," she said. "If you want to know whose party this is, ask him."
The woman looked at the floor.
Nobody laughed after that.
An older man by the bar set down his glass.
"Hayden, tell her this is Cissy's night," he said. "She has no place here."
Hayden did not answer him.
He was still looking at Lydia's left hand, where the ring used to be.
She closed her fingers over the bare skin and held his stare until he looked away first.
Cissy touched Lydia's sleeve.
"Don't be hard on him. He's had a terrible few years."
"I'm not here for him either."
"I know." Cissy's eyes were wet.
"You must be dead on your feet. Is there anything you want to tell him? Write it down, say it to me, anything. I'll make sure he hears it. I always do."
She took Hayden's phone out of his hand, since it had started buzzing against his palm, and dialed a driver for Lydia without asking him.
"He's hopeless with this thing," she said, and smiled.
Hayden let her.
Lydia looked at the phone in Cissy's hand, then at Hayden's empty palm.
She had come here to see a dying woman.
She had not come to stand in a ring of strangers and be judged for the three years.
So she made her choice in one plain sentence.
I'm leaving this room.
"Thank you for the car," she said to Cissy. "I'll take a taxi."
She picked up her bag.
Forty faces turned as she walked back toward the door.
She heard a chair scrape behind her.
"Lydia."
She did not stop.
Hayden caught up with her in the hallway, between the coat check and the elevators.
He did not touch her this time.
He stood a full arm's length away, breathing hard from the stairs he had taken two at a time.
"Henrietta is dying, and you want to talk about this now?" she said.
"No." He swallowed. "I want to say one thing, and then you can go."
"Then say it."
His eyes were red at the rims.
"I never signed."
Lydia stared at him.
The elevator opened behind her, and a doctor's voice on the speaker called the hospital's number, and she did not hear either one.
"The divorce papers," Hayden said. "I never signed them, Lydia. I have never signed anything."
The doors slid shut again.
Through the wall, they could both hear Cissy laughing and telling the guests to cut the cake.
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