Chapter 4

Inaya.

I liked her name, how you had to twist your tongue to say it, and it fit her, this twisted woman whose brain led her down dangerous paths of suicide, whose sadness had developed like a disease. It was suffocating her, and I was suffocated just watching it.

She’d shown up to the beach in a long maxi dress, the straps thin on her bare shoulders, and had on a one of those oversized floppy straw hats to shield her eyes from the burning sun. Her eyes looked dark from some mascara and lack of sleep, accentuating her deep bedroom eyes, and she had on a nice cherry-red lipstick, making her teeth look so white that I wanted to rub my thumb over them. Her black hair was loose, whipping in the salty ocean air. I could stare at her for hours. She was beautiful.

“Hi,” she said shyly. She had a leash in her hand, a panting golden retriever looking up curiously at me. “This is Mango, my dog. He’s still a puppy, so forgive him if he acts out.”

“I won’t mind. I like dogs.” I let Mango sniff the back of my hand to get acquainted, and then Inaya unclipped him from his leash. He went bounding into the water, barking at seagulls. Inaya looked amused, crossing her arms and watching him play. It seemed that her dog was one of the few things that made her happy.

“Are you hungry?” I asked her.

“A little,” she admitted.

“Do you eat halal?” I asked. “I brought a few halal meats just in case.”

“I don’t, usually, but thank you,” she said, smiling. “That was very thoughtful.”

Her smile caught me off guard. A radiant smile, one that belonged on the cover of a magazine. I was breathless, and for one striking moment, it felt like deja vu, like I’d been here before, looking into those same amber eyes, sadness roiling in them.

I set up the charcuterie board, pulling out the ingredients from a cooler. Inaya helped, stealing the Castelvetrano olives, popping one in her mouth every few seconds. I laid out the duck prosciutto, the beef sausage, and honey roasted turkey. The blueberry vanilla goat cheese, which had cost way too much, was a beautiful little log that I laid out on the board. Then came the crunch: artisan toasted baguette crips, crackers, and a trail mix with generous pieces of chocolate throughout. The old style mustard, honey, and fig jam was next, and as I began to put out more cheeses, Inaya’s eyes widened.

“All this? For the two of us?” she asked.

“Believe me, if you can’t finish it, I will,” I said, pulling out some blackberries from the cooler. Some thinly sliced Granny Smith apples, raspberries, strawberries and chocolate bark later, we were ready to devour our feast.

Inaya seemed lost. I got the idea that she’d probably never had a charcuterie before. I taught her how, showing her which pairings were tastiest, and then she started experimenting. She especially loved putting the goat cheese on a cracker, stick a slice of beef sausage on there and drizzle it with honey. Her own design.

Within half an hour, we’d eaten the whole thing.

“That was delicious,” Inaya said. “I’ve never had anything like it, but I’ll have to again.”

“I’m happy to arrange another board anytime you’d like.”

Inaya looked at me, clearly uncomfortable. “You’re not seeing me again after today.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s wrong. I should have never come.”

“What’ve we done that’s wrong?”

“I ... I’m not your wife, Ben. I don’t think you’d like it if your wife went and had a romantic lunch with someone else at the beach.”

“Romantic, huh?”

“That’s all you heard,” she muttered, looking out over the crashing waves. Cautiously, I placed a hand over hers. Her hand was so much smaller than mine, each finger slender with delicate bones.

“I don’t like this,” she said, but she didn’t pull away. “You promised not to make a move.”

“I promised not to kiss you.”

She glanced at me, her eyes pained. I wondered what storm was brewing in that beautiful head of hers.

“Why did you agree to come here today?” I asked her.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I guess because you were right. I needed to get out of the house.”

“It wasn’t because you wanted to see me?” I teased.

She flushed pink. “I ... no.”

I laughed. “It’s okay. I can handle rejection pretty well.”

“Why are you doing this?” she whispered.

I thought about it for a second, then answered honestly.

“I want to see you happy.” I wanted her to blossom so that I wouldn’t be fucking some sad sack of bones. I thought about Douglas, about how fucking stupid that man was. That asshole, fucking this poor creature, then making her feel pathetic and small afterward, like she was deliberately having miscarriages to upset him. My own mother had had a miscarriage when I was little. I remembered how much it had broken her up, and I remember feeling the hole in our home. The pink nursery was this forbidden place, a macabre reminder of the little girl who never came to be.

I fucking hated Douglas. I was going to fuck his wife. She needed to get back at him, and I was going to help her.

But she was a fragile thing, skittish like a stray cat. I had to let her decide on her own if this was what she wanted. In the pit of my stomach, I knew that she did and was too scared to act on it.

“Let’s take a walk,” she said, getting to her feet. She whistled for her dog, and Mango came splashing out of the water, bounding toward her. I got to my feet and dusted the sand off my shorts.