The Liar's Wife (Adam Levine Dark Romance)

Chapter 25: Story

October 2019

“You want to go where?”

 “Bowery Ballroom,” Adam replied.

Jane shot him a horrified look.

“Oh c’mon,” he said. “There’s an act I want to check out.”

“No,” she replied, turning her back on him to face the mirror where she was getting ready for their night out. They were in New York City for a weekend charity event, but they had one night free to go out on the town tonight. “Absolutely not,” she said into the mirror, shaking her head.

“What’s the big deal?” He rolled his eyes from the bed where he was lounging, half-dressed in his boxer briefs and an unbuttoned dress shirt. He couldn’t help but admire his wife’s easy, graceful motions as he watched her shimmy into a pair of custom-tailored skinny jeans and then place her emerald-studded earrings into her ears. He’d given them to her a few months ago – a gift to mark her 40th birthday, but also a nod to her full recovery. When she’d first come out of the coma two years ago, her hands hadn’t been steady enough to put in her earrings herself, but now she did it without a second thought.

“I just don’t want to go back there,” she said to him over her shoulder. “Negative associations.”

“Why does it bother you so much?”

“Because that’s where – watching you play that show there, that night – that’s where I made the decision to break up with you.” She turned around and looked at him.

He shrugged. “So?”

“Oh, so, no biggie.” She mimicked his shrug back to him. “Just the worst mistake I ever made. In my life. That’s all.”

“Nah.” He shot her a mischievous grin. “I wouldn’t say the worst mistake.”

She smiled in spite of herself. “Oh no?” she rolled her eyes at him as she wound her hair on top of her head and threaded in bobby pins to hold it in place.  “What then? What’s the worst mistake I ever made?”

“Oh, I think you know.” He had one eyebrow raised as he smirked at her from the bed.

She giggled as she came across the room toward him. “What?”

“The worst mistake, Mrs. Levine, was coming up to my suite at the Soho Grand,” he said. “That time after I spotted you in the crowd at the Today Show.” He grabbed her arm and pulled her down onto the bed with him. “You almost escaped, but I reeled you back in.”

Adam rolled his weight on top of her and began nibbling one of her earlobes, and Jane let out a yelp of mock-annoyance as she felt her hair come loose and tumble down again. She pushed him off of her and stood up, forcing her face back into a serious expression as she resumed her position in front of the mirror. “How can you make jokes about this?”

“It was a lifetime ago!” he groaned.  Adam came up behind her and took the bobby pins out of her hands, pushing them back in place for her as she held the coil of hair on top of her head with her hands. “Anyway, if anyone should have negative associations, it’s me, right? I’m the one who got my heart stomped all over that night.”

She met his eyes in the mirror. “It really doesn’t bother you?”

He slipped his arms around her waist now and pulled her back against his front, shaking his head slowly. “It wasn’t a mistake,” he said to her in the mirror. She opened her mouth to protest, but he continued before she could speak. “It had to happen. We weren’t ready for each other yet.”