Page 50 of At the Heart of It (The Can’t Have Hearts Club #4)

A t nine the next morning, Kate tapped on Viv’s front door. They weren’t scheduled to shoot until the next day, or maybe ever, depending on how things shook out with Jonah.

The legal team was working on that.

But at the moment, Kate had something she needed to get off her chest.

The door swung open, and Viv looked at her blankly for a few beats. “Kate.” She smiled, but it wasn’t her usual soaring, serene smile. It was a tired smile. The smile of a woman who hadn’t slept well and perhaps ate six donuts for breakfast.

Maybe that was just Kate.

“Good morning, Viv.” She held up a white paper cup with an earthy cardboard sleeve around it. “I brought you some of that tea you like. The cardamom rose black from Metolius Artisan Tea?”

Viv seemed to force the corners of her mouth a bit higher as she held open the door and waved her inside. “You’re an angel, Kate. Such a good soul.”

The lump in Kate’s throat grew thick and sour, and she followed Viv into the parlor with guilt draped like a wet shawl around her shoulders.

Her fingers felt numb around her own cardboard cup of tea as she looked about, almost surprised to see the space not cluttered with cameras and lighting equipment.

“Pete came by and collected everything this morning,” Viv said. “He said they needed the equipment on another shoot.” She gave a sad little smile and looked down at her fingernails. “He gave me a hug and told me not to worry.”

Kate smiled back, even though she didn’t feel it. “Pete seems like a guy who’d give good hugs.”

“That’s true.”

The small talk felt stilted and echoed in the hollow spaces of the room. Kate looked around, noticing the empty spots where cameras and lighting equipment had stood only days ago. “It must be hard,” Kate said. “Having the filming in your space. No privacy or escape.”

Viv turned and offered a small shrug. “Yes, but it’s what I wanted. What I asked for.” She gave a brittle little laugh. “Admittedly I haven’t always been a great judge of what’s best for me.”

Kate forced a smile of her own and wondered how much to read into that. Was Viv making small talk or offering something deeper?

“Please, sit down.” Viv gestured to the seating area, and Kate hesitated before choosing the squash-colored club chair where Jonah had seated himself at that first meeting.

God. How long ago was that? It seemed like years, though it was only a matter of weeks.

Kate found a coaster and set down her cup of tea on the coffee table. Viv arranged herself on the dove-gray leather love seat and tucked her bare feet beneath the hem of her linen skirt. Then she folded her hands in her lap and looked at Kate expectantly.

Kate took a deep breath. On the drive here, she’d practiced what she wanted to say, but now she was questioning her approach. She was questioning a lot of things, actually.

She cleared her throat. “In chapter sixteen of But Not Broken , you talked about having the hard conversations,” Kate began. “You described the moment you had to tell your best friend that your relationship was over and you’d decided to leave?—”

“Kate?”

“Yes?”

“Just say it.” There was the tired smile again. Viv lifted a hand and tucked thick swath of dark hair behind her ear. “Sometimes it’s okay to just jump right in and say what you need to say.”

“Right.” Kate cleared her throat. “Okay. First just let me say how much respect I have for you. I’ve made no secret of how much I admire you both professionally and as a person.”

“Oh, for the love of Christ.” Viv closed her eyes and pressed her palms together just below her chin. As Kate watched, heart pounding, Viv lowered her forehead to her fingertips. She breathed deeply, in and out, eyes shut tightly. “Just say it already,” Viv said.

“Okay.” Kate licked her lips. Hadn’t Jonah praised her for her way with words? But somehow it seemed harder now. Was it because she was talking to Viv, or because she wasn’t talking to Jonah?

“So, Viv?—”

“They’re canceling the show.”

“What?”

Viv lifted her head, blinking. “That’s what you’re here to tell me, right?”

Kate shook her head, not sure if the news she’d come to deliver would be better or worse. “No. Um, not even close.”

“But after yesterday?—”

“No, Chase loved it. He saw parts of the footage last night, and Amy and I gave him a full report on the phone this morning.” Kate stopped there, not wanting to share too much. Not wanting to feel her gut churn at the memory of Chase’s delighted laughter.

“This is solid fucking gold right here,” he’d said. “The ratings are gonna go through the fucking roof with this epic blindside.”

Of course, that might all be in jeopardy if Jonah really did walk away. The lawyers had told her to stay out of it for now, insisting they had things under control. That they were making progress with Jonah and his attorney.

Kate had been more than happy to step away. To leave the tough stuff to someone else for a change.

Viv looked at her, uncertainty etched between her brows. “So what did you come here to tell me?”

Kate licked her lips and took a breath. “It’s about Jonah,” she said. “See, the thing is—” Kate cleared her throat, annoyed with herself for bumbling her words. “There’s more to my relationship with him than you realize.”

“Ah.” Realization dawned and Vivian gave a sage nod. “I understand.”

“You do?” Her stomach rippled with unease, but maybe this would be easier than she’d thought.

“It’s okay, Kate.” Viv smiled. “Believe me, you’re not the first.”

“What?”

“If I had a nickel for every woman who’s developed a little crush on my husband?—”

“No, that’s not it.” Kate dug her nails into her palms, thinking Viv had a point about just spitting things out. “I—we—” She took another deep breath and looked Viv in the eye. “I slept with him.”

Viv blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

Okay, so there was a more delicate way to say that.

But Kate pressed on. “It’s true. I didn’t mean for it to happen, and I never meant to hurt you, Vivienne.”

Viv pressed her lips together a moment, digesting the information. “In Ashland when you met before?”

Kate shook her head. “No. It was true what we told you at that first meeting. That whole thing was just a stupid coincidence. I mean, we kissed, but that was it.”

“You kissed in Ashland,” Viv said, her expression still uncertain. “But more happened after that?”

“Right,” Kate confirmed, wishing there were a way to just fast forward through this conversation. To not spell out every last humiliating detail. “But as we got to know each other, we started to grow closer.”

“I see.”

“But I swear to you I had no idea that you still had feelings for him when he and I slept together.” The first time , her conscience whispered.

“The first time,” Kate said aloud, and forced herself not to look away.

Viv stared at her. She didn’t speak for a very long time. Kate ordered herself to sit quietly, to give her a chance to process things.

“Holy fuck.”

Kate swallowed. “Right.”

Viv sat and breathed for several long moments. Then she looked up at the ceiling, her perfect, pointed chin tilted toward Kate like an offering.

I can see up her nostrils , she thought, and then felt guilty.

She felt another wash of guilt when Viv met her eyes again.

“You know, if there were a camera in the room and this were all part of an unscripted television program, this is where I’d smile sagely and assure you that I knew all along,” Viv said.

“That I always had a sense about this, and that the two of you belong together.”

“I—”

“But that’s bullshit.”

Kate jumped a little, and Viv sighed. “I don’t mean whether you belong together. I have no idea about that. Although now that I think about it, this makes sense. The way he’d always look at you when he didn’t think you were watching. The way his face lit up when you walked into the room.”

Kate shook her head as a pang of loss rippled through her. “Not anymore. He hates me.”

Viv gave a small smile and shook her head. “Joe isn’t like that. He has a hot temper sometimes, but he’s not capable of hate. It only looks that way because he loves so deeply.”

Kate looked down at her hands. “I’m sorry, Viv. I could give you some excuse about how I never meant for it to happen, but it’s like you wrote in chapter seven of On the Other Hand ?—”

“Kate.” Viv clapped her hands together, and Kate looked up sharply. “Please stop quoting me to me .”

“Right.” Kate nodded. She needed to just say it. To spell out the rest of the story and live with the consequences, no matter what those might be. To stop skirting around the facts.

“I knew you loved him and I slept with him anyway and I’m sorry,” she said. “That’s what I came here to say.”

Vivienne nodded. She picked up the cup of tea in front of her and started to take a sip, then seemed to change her mind.

She probably thinks it’s poisoned , Kate thought, and felt worse than she already did. How was that possible?

“I appreciate you telling me,” Viv said. “Coming clean. That takes courage.”

Kate nodded and gripped the armrests of her chair. “For what it’s worth, it’s over between us,” she said. “Jonah and me, I mean. Having me betray him like that—there’s no recovering from that.”

Viv lifted one delicate eyebrow. “You mean the part where you did your job and kept my secrets from him and his secrets from me?” Viv shook her head. “That’s not betrayal.”

“It is to Jonah,” she said. “And sleeping with my idol’s ex-husband when I know she’s still in love with him—” She stopped, not sure she wanted to go any farther. “That’s betrayal, too. A different kind.”

“You’re the one putting labels on things, Kate. Not me.”

Kate swallowed hard and picked up her tea. The paper cup still felt warm, but the liquid inside had turned tepid. She took a sip anyway, trying to wash the taste of guilt from her mouth.

“You want some unsolicited advice from a professional?”

Kate looked up, and felt her heart pick up speed. Clutching the cup a little tighter, she nodded. “Yes, please.”