Double Regrets: My Boyfriend Is My Ex’s Boss

Six years ago.He was just Alex,without that expensive last name from his Father.

The phone call came at 4:17 in the morning.

"Mr. Blackwood. Your mother has been admitted. Please come."

Alexander was in another city. He drove all night. He made it by sunrise and his mother was awake.

She had been a single mother for twenty years. His father had walked out of the apartment when Alex was four and never come back. She had worked two jobs and burned dinners and made it to every parent-teacher conference and never once said a bitter word about the man who left.

She was the only person in the world he loved.

"Listen," she said.

He listened.

"The girl next door. Anya. She's been bringing me soup every day for three years. When I had pneumonia in February she carried me down four flights of stairs to the ambulance. The hospital called her first, Alex. Not you. Her. Because I asked them to."

"Mom - "

"Her visa runs out in eleven days. They're sending her back. There is nobody for her there, Alex. Nobody."

He saw it coming.

"Mom, no - "

"Marry her."

"Mom."

"It does not have to be real. It only has to be a paper. You owe her, Alex. I owe her. She kept me alive long enough to see you grow."

"...I promise."

She died at 8:42 that morning.

He married Anya at the courthouse two weeks later.

He did not call Amelia. How could he?

Hi,Amelia, this is my new wife! Hope you guys can get along?

That's ridiculous!

* * *

One year later.After a lot of things with "his marriage and his dad", Alexander finally went home.

It took him an hour to drive past Amelia's apartment building. Twenty more minutes parked across the street trying to figure out what the hell he was going to say.

Hi. Sorry I disappeared. My mother died and I got married. Long story. Are you free for coffee.

The door of her building opened.

Out came a man in a navy suit. Behind him, a woman.

His Amelia.

In a yellow sundress, carrying a baby bag that looked too big for her.

She walked half a step behind the man. She was smiling.

The man got into the driver's seat. Did not open her door. She got in by herself, still smiling, the bag on her lap.

The car pulled away.

Alexander never saw the man's face.

He sat in his own car for a long time after the street was empty. Hands on the wheel.

Then he drove away too.

* * *

He never learned the husband's name.

That was the rule he made for himself, and he kept it for six years.

The first month he asked one person - an old college friend, someone they had both known back when they were both still kids. He asked, "Is she happy?" and the friend said, "Oh, very. Beautiful little family. He treats her like a queen," and Alexander said, "That's all I needed," and changed the subject.

He never asked again.

Not the man's name. Not the company. Not the address. Nothing he could go look up at three in the morning.

If he had a name he would Google. If he Googled he would find a face. If he found a face he would memorize it. If he memorized it he would see it every time he closed his eyes.

So no name.

Just the answer. She's happy. He's good to her. She's fine.

He would say thank you, and he would change the subject, and he would go home, and he would take his pill at eleven and lie in the dark for two hours before it kicked in.

Some nights he did not take the pill. Some nights he just lay there.

He had a lot of those nights.

* * *

Anya was kind.

Two years they lived as roommates. East wing, west wing, polite hellos in the kitchen.

Then one night she knocked on his door.

"I'm tired of being alone, Alex. Aren't you."

He let her in.

It was not love. It was two people too tired to be lonely anymore.

Lily came nine months later. Brown eyes. Stubborn chin. The first thing in three years that had made his chest loosen, just a little.

He thought, okay. This is enough. This is what life is.

Anya knew it wasn't, before he did.

She left a note on the counter on Lily's third birthday.

Alex -

I deserve to be happy. So do you. We are both still loving people who aren't here. Let's stop pretending we don't know.

Take the apartment. I want Paris. Take care of our girl.

- A.

He read it standing in his socks, cold coffee in his hand.

He smiled, and signed.

* * *

Lily took it badly. The quiet way.

For six months she did not say Mommy once. Then suddenly she said it everywhere. To the nanny. To the bakery woman. To strangers on the playground.

She was trying the word out, the way a child tries keys in a lock she doesn't have, hoping one will turn.

She had favorites. A teacher. A neighbor.

But the one she came home talking about, every day, for the last four months -

"Daddy, Leo's mommy made cookies and gave me three. Daddy, she has soft hands. Daddy why doesn't Leo's mommy like Leo? Leo says she does but I don't think so because - "

"Lily. Bedtime."

"But Daddy - "

"Bedtime."

* * *

Last night. The gala.

His CEO's little party, he was not interested in. But Lily was bored at my office, she sneaked out to eat some desserts that I forbid her. So I had to stop her,my sweat little devil!

And I saw that woman.

White cotton dress. Cake box on her hip. The wrong kind of dress for the room.

He had glanced at her once.

Then once more.

Something in his chest had done something stupid.

Don't, he had told himself. Stop it. Every woman with that heir color in a sundress is not her. You've done this a thousand times.

Then the cake had hit the floor and the cream had hit her face, and a five-year-old boy had called her the cleaning lady, and the whole room had laughed.

And Alexander had stood up.

He had reached into his jacket for the pocket square. He had taken three steps before he caught himself.

Stop.

Look at her. Cream in her hair. Cheap dress. Married. Crying on her birthday in front of four hundred strangers.

That is not your Amelia.

Your Amelia is happy. Your Amelia has been happy for six years.

Whoever this is, she is not happy.

Sit down.

He sat down.

He never looked at the dais.

He went home and could not sleep and took two pills instead of one and still lay awake until dawn.

* * *

Now.

Alexander Blackwood sat at his desk at eleven in the morning with a phone in his hand and Meg's voice still in his ear.

She is filing for divorce. He has hurt her for six years.

Her name is Amelia. Amelia Quinn.

Is that his Amelia Quinn? That girl's face showed up in his mind again.

His heart had done something he had not felt in six years. It had not just lifted. It had jumped.

For one full second - a second he was deeply ashamed of - he had been happy.

Happy that she was getting divorced. Someone she had married was being thrown out of her life. She was gonna be free and alone.

His Amelia. She had not been fine.

And he had stayed away. Cleanly. Disciplined. Nobly. Because he was a good man who did not interfere in another man's marriage.

What a useful little story he had told himself.

He stood up.

He walked to the window.

He picked up the phone.

"Cancel everything tomorrow," he said. "Get the plane ready. I'm going to Paris."

He set the phone down.

If that was her last night.

He'd find out in the morning.

* * *