Page 49 of Infidelity Rules

If it wasn’t for Julian, I’m not sure I would have made it home last night.

I may very well have curled up under the bar and cried myself to sleep.

I don’t remember much after Juliette’s revelation except Julian’s solid arms around me.

He scooped me up, put me in his car and somehow got me home and tucked into bed with a mug of hot tea and a glass of whiskey. Homewrecker’s choice.

I owe that man a huge thank you.

I want to talk to Marcus. I need to talk to Marcus. But he’s up in the air somewhere and literally unreachable. I also think this needs to be a face-to-face conversation.

I need to think. I need to run.

Within minutes I am out the door and flying down my usual jogging route, trying to clear my head. Trying to outrun this sticky, whopping mess.

I did the opposite of what I set out to do.

The complete reverse. I wanted a casual, flirty fling with a man in a floundering marriage.

I wanted fun and freedom and mind-blowing sex.

Instead, I have commitment, a pending divorce I may have triggered and a desperate wife clawing at me.

And now a baby in the middle of everything. A baby.

But I also have love. For the first time in my life, I have found a love I didn’t know existed. A love I’ve always yearned for, but have been hiding from ever since Liam and Chris. A love that, for once, feels mutual.

And I have joy.

Had. I had joy. And I want it back.

I hate Juliette. I hate Juliette. I hate Juliette. It’s my mantra with each step as my running shoes connect with the sidewalk. Bam, bam, bam. Hate, hate, hate.

I keep going until I wind up at Dezi’s front door, sweaty and wild-eyed.

“Quinn, honey, what’s going on?” she asks, pulling me inside and wrapping her bathrobe tightly around her waist. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

I see Elliot coming out of her bedroom, hair tousled and yawning. I don’t even know what time it is.

I put my hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath from that fast-paced run.

“Sorry to bother you,” I say between gulps of air. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” she says. “We were awake. Did you run here?”

I nod as she gets me a glass of water.

I chug it gratefully as I try to sift through the words ricocheting around my brain — divorce, baby, father, stepmother, love, loathing, tramp, homewrecker.

I take a deep breath.

“Juliette is pregnant,” I blurt out. “She found me at Persimmon and begged me to leave Marcus alone.”

Dezi calmly hands me a towel and gently steers me towards her bathroom. “You, hot shower,” she says to me. “I think you have an old pair of clean sweats here. I’ll set them out.” She then points to Elliot. “Will you go out for coffee and bagels please?”

“Already on it,” he says, grabbing his jacket and rushing out the door.

I’m warm, clean and cozy on Dezi’s couch as she hands me a mug of hot tea. The steamy shower and all of Dezi’s lavender scented products did wonders to calm me down.

Dezi looks at me expectantly with what I can only imagine is her therapist face. But behind it, I see the clouded look of worry in her deep blue eyes.

She listens patiently as I give her the blow-by-blow details of Juliette’s surprise visit, including my fierce and nearly uncontrollable reaction to do whatever it takes to fight for Marcus.

“You’re angry,” Dezi says softly.

“I know,” I say. “I am. I do feel sorry for her. I really do. But for the most part, I’m just so mad at her. It’s absurd, but I feel this rush of violence whenever I think of her. I can only imagine it’s like what athletes feel when they’re all hopped up on steroids.”

“Why do you think you’re so mad at her, Quinn?” Dezi asks.

I sigh. I know why. I know exactly why.

“Because things were going so well in my life,” I say. “I let myself fall in love. Really topple into it. I was finally climbing out of the hole I had dug for myself after getting it so impossibly wrong with Chris. And Liam.”

Dezi nods. “I know.”

“And then she waltzes in and craps all over everything,” I say. “Just blows up my world.”

“Don’t you think she feels the same way about you?” Dezi asks softly. “You know I love you Quinn, but you messed with a married man. That rarely ends well.”

“But he left. Marcus left,” I say, my voice starting to sound hysterical. “He doesn’t want to be married to Juliette anymore. He left her, Dezi. He chose me.”

“I know honey,” she says, pulling me into a hug. “I know he did. But it doesn’t seem like a clean break.”

“Fucking anniversary sex,” I say through gritted teeth. “One time a year. ONE TIME and the woman who can’t get pregnant gets pregnant.”

We are quiet for a few minutes, sipping our tea and coffee and picking at an array of bagels Elliot set out for us.

I cannot believe this mess. I’m finally ready to commit.

To give up my married man habit and now this.

I am desperate to talk to Marcus but it’s going to have to wait.

I think about my encounter with Juliette and how we’re fighting over him as if he were an object with no say in the matter.

I shake my head and sigh. “This whole thing is nuts. It’s not as if Juliette has any control over Marcus. I know I sure don’t. Everything has been his decision, his choice, done at his own pace. Hell, I didn’t even know he moved out until after the fact.”

Dezi nods. “He knows what he wants.”

“Yes. He always has.”

“Quinn, what would you say to Juliette if she wasn’t pregnant?”

“Easy. I’d tell her to go pound sand. And if she wants Marcus back, she’s going to have to win him back.”

“So you’d fight for him,” says Dezi, more of a statement than a question.

“Without question.”

“And now? With a child on the way?”

I am quiet. I want to forget this part and just focus on Juliette, the checked-out wife who ignored Marcus for years.

The wife who chucked her husband and essentially threw him in my path.

Juliette just pisses me off. But the baby makes my heart catch in my throat.

It’s a feeling I want to outrun but can’t.

Scrub away, but there isn’t enough hot water or soap.

Breaking up a family counters one of my cardinal tenants of infidelity.

But then again, I already smashed most of those rules the moment I met Marcus.

Marcus. I need to see Marcus. Can I break up a family that’s already broken? Does that count?

I look over at Dezi. “I can’t force him to go back to Juliette,” I say, cringing somewhat at my own words. They sound so lame.

I can see Dezi fighting the urge to roll her eyes. “Of course not,” she says, shaking her head. “But without obstacles, he may find his way back.”

I stare at her. “Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”

“I’m just saying you have a lot to think about, Quinn. You have some power here. How are you going to use it?”

“I love him, Dezi,” I say, tears starting to well. “I didn’t know someone like him was out there for me.”

“I know. I know.”

“I don’t think I can do it.”

“Do what?” Dezi asks.

“Let him go. I don’t think I can let him go. Oh my god, Dezi. I am in this now. I am all in.”

Dezi nods and just watches me.

“What would you do?” I ask. She’s about to speak but I cut her off. “What would you do, right this moment, if you found out Elliot had an ex-girlfriend or wife who was pregnant and wanted him back? Wanted you to give him up?”

Dezi stares at me, clearly horrified at the thought.

“That’s totally different,” she says, waving at the air as if to blow away the offensive question.

“It isn’t, though. It’s you, loving a man, yet finding yourself in an untenable situation that’s wholly out of your control.”

Dezi shakes her head. “I know you’re upset, but it would be a completely different situation.”

“How you got there, sure. But the end is the same. We both found love. And your love for Elliot is no greater or less than my love for Marcus.”

I watch as Dezi looks down at her hands, folded in her lap.

“Would you give up Elliot? Could you give up Elliot?”

Dezi rubs her face with her hands. “No,” she whispers. “I don’t think I could. Jesus Quinn, what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to fight for Marcus,” I say, standing up. “There was never really another option.”