The Affair

The Next Day

Roman’s eyes popped open an hour before his alarm was scheduled to ring. Instead of rolling over and trying to go back to sleep he lay there quietly alone with his thoughts. Marlena’s words had surprised him last night. In fact, everything about her yesterday had been a surprise. The way she reacted to him in her office versus the way she was when she came home last night. And even though she explained her actions and words he wasn’t quite sure if there wasn’t something more to it. Then again, he told himself, he was probably overanalyzing the situation. If was being completely honest with himself he would admit there were problems in the marriage. Nothing serious, but problems nevertheless. They needed to spend more time together – alone. They had drifted apart, but he would take care of that starting today. They needed more romance in their marriage. With that thought in mind, Roman turned off his alarm and got of bed leaving Marlena asleep. Operation Romance had just begun. He quickly dressed and went downstairs. While waiting for the coffee to brew, he pulled out a note pad and jotted down a few sentences. Feeling quite pleased with himself he poured a cup of coffee and re-read his note. It was perfect; well almost perfect. Something was missing. And then it hit him. He knew what he needed and at this time of the morning, there was only one place he could get it. He hated to do it but this was an emergency; a romance emergency. She would understand. She had helped him before. With that in mind, he set his cup down and went out the back door, around the front and crossed the street. He was sure no one would see him and even if they did, what could they do? He was the police after all. He headed straight for her garden. There they were. They were beautiful. He just needed one. He would apologize. She would understand he told himself again. Roman stooped over and pulled a rose from her garden. There was no doubt about it. Alice Horton had the most beautiful roses on the block. Hurrying before anyone saw him or Marlena woke up he ran back to his house. He entered thru the back door grabbed his note and headed upstairs to their bedroom. Without making a sound a placed the note and rose on his pillow and left. On his way to work he began planning phase two of Operation Romance. Phase one had gone off without a hitch.

The loud ringing in her ears startled her. Automatically she reached for her alarm clock and turned it off. It took a few seconds before everything came rushing back to her; Rebecca, her fight with John and the confrontation with Roman. Expecting to see Roman sleeping beside her she was surprised when she saw his side of the bed was empty. Just a note and a single red rose were placed on his pillow. Sitting up, she reached for the note and the rose. This was not what she expected or wanted. Roman believed all they needed was a little romance and time together and everything would be normal again. Things would never be the same again; she loved John. John; what had she done? She wanted to call him; no she needed to see him. But she couldn’t. She had to get to her weekly staff meeting. She physically ached for him. She put the note and the rose down and got dressed for work. On her way downstairs she shoved the note in her purse and picked up the rose. As soon as she opened the door to the kitchen, the aroma of fresh coffee assaulted her sense of smell. Assaulted was definitely the correct word. The rose fell to the floor. For a moment she thought she would faint but just as quickly as it arrived her dizziness left. Still feeling a bit unsteady on her feet, she sat at the kitchen table. Too much stress, she thought. Yesterday had been a demanding day and she hadn’t really eaten anything. She skipped both lunch and dinner. John had been her lunch and dinner. There he was again; invading her thoughts. He was always there, just below the surface. And there it was again; the pain of their argument and the ache she felt for him. She closed her eyes in order to get a grip on her emotions. After a few moments she was able to stand. She stooped down, retrieved the rose and walked to the kitchen sink. Marlena found a vase in the bottom cabinet, filled it with water and placed the rose in it. She stood there a few moments staring at it. This was the first time she really took the time to look at it – it was breathtakingly beautiful. It was such a romantic gesture on his part. Her eyes brimmed with tears. What should have brought her joy only brought her pain. What should have filled her with anticipation of things to come only filled her with dread. If only she loved him, if only she wanted only him…there were too many if onlys to continue. She wasn’t in love with him; she loved John. She no longer wanted him; she wanted John. Her future no longer included him; John was her destiny. John. Once again her thoughts returned to him. The ache in her heart grew stronger. The emptiness she felt engulfed her. After a few moments of staring off into space, her attention returned to the present. She looked at her watch and realized it was time for her to leave for work. She turned off the coffee maker and headed towards the kitchen door. As she passed thru the den her eyes settled on the telephone. She just needed to hear his voice. She picked up the phone and dialed his number.

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John’s alarm was ringing. He reached to turn it off but instead knocked it on the floor. The ringing stopped but now he would have to get a new one. Thank God it was quiet again. He had a slight headache. It was the tequila and he knew it. At least he had enough sense to stop after three drinks. It had been a restless night. Sleep hadn’t come until just before his alarm rang. He couldn’t stop thinking about Marlena; about their fight. And when he wasn’t thinking about their fight, he thought about her being alone with Roman. Just the thought of them together nearly drove him out of his mind. He kept picturing Roman’s hands on Marlena; him trying to make love to her. Stop it! This wasn’t helping the situation. He needed to talk to her; to settle things between them. He would do that today; this morning. But first he needed to feel like a human being again. Still feeling the effects of his headache he slowly got out of bed. A nice long hot shower would help him. He could stand there and let the water run over his body while he decided the best way to approach Marlena. John headed into the shower. He turned it on full blast and stepped in. As he stood there underneath the shower he thought he heard his phone ringing.

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No answer. She let it ring until his answering machine picked up. There would be no message. She hung up and walked out of her house.

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He grabbed the phone. “Hello, hello.” There was no one on the other end; just a dial tone. Marlena! He dialed her house. If anyone else answered he would hang up. The answering machine clicked on. No message. He hung up.

Roman motioned for Bo to come in his office while he sat at his desk on the phone. He was ordering a dozen of red roses to be delivered to Marlena.

Bo walked in and plopped down in a chair. “Since you’re ordering a dozen of roses for Marlena, I assume she’s happy you’re home.”

“Yea she’s happy I’m home.”

Bo could sense his brother wasn’t telling him everything. It was in the way he answered him and the way he looked. He just didn’t seem like a man who spent a romantic night with his wife. “Is there something else going on?”

Roman was uncomfortable discussing the problems in his marriage, but he needed to talk to someone and he knew Bo would understand. Bo and Hope had experienced their share of problems, but now they were together and most importantly – happy. “To tell you the truth, things didn’t go the way I thought they would.”

“Whadda you mean, things didn’t go the way you thought they would?”

“Well the kids were by mom and pop but all we did was talk.”

”Talk, just talk.”

“Yea, just talk. Marlena feels that lately we’ve sort of grown apart. You know how it is. Both of us busy with our jobs, and it’s not like we have jobs we can leave at the office. The job comes home with us more times than I care to think about. Add three children to the mix and you can see her point of view.”

Bo nodded his head in agreement. “Roman, let me ask you a question. You said Marlena thinks you two have grown apart, what do you think?”

“I didn’t think we had a problem until she mentioned it but after mulling it over in my head I can see where she’s coming from. It’s not easy being married to a cop. Always on the job, leaving home in the middle of the night, not coming home, going undercover, you know the routine.”

“That’s for sure, I definitely know the routine. Hell I live the routine, only Hope and I are both cops so she knows how it goes.”

“I thought Marlena was used to it, but I guess she’s not.”

“Bro, you were a cop when she met you, when she married you, so it’s not like she didn’t know what to expect.”

“But I think when I was held captive by Stefano for all those years, and John assumed my life she changed.”

“I will say this, when you were gone, before John came into the picture she had a lot on her plate. We, I mean the entire Boaty family, did everything we could to help her, but she was determined to be on her own until …” Bo suddenly aware the next words out of mouth would be about John stopped speaking.

Roman picked up where Bo left off, “John came in pretending to be me.” There was a small trace of bitterness in his voice.

“Roman, that’s not fair and you know it. He didn’t pretend to be you, he thought he was you. Marlena thought he was you. We all thought he was you; even me. We found proof or at least what we thought was proof.”

“Proof Stefano engineered.”

”You know what, hindsight is always twenty twenty. Nobody and I mean nobody thought Stefano could be that diabolical.”

“You mean evil. Evil is what I would use to describe Stefano. And one day, he will pay for everything he did to me and my family. That’s a promise.”

“I’ll do everything in my power to help you. That’s my promise to you.”

“Ok, enough about my personal life. What brings you here this early?”

Bo was happy to change the topic of conversation. He still hadn’t forgiven himself for not seeing thru Stefano’s switch. He had accepted John as his brother. And the other thing was, during John’s time as Roman they had become as close as two brothers could. Sometimes he thought John understood him better than his own brother. “Well, I have some news for you and you’re not going to like it.”

”What’s going on?”

“One of my informants got in touch with me and passed on this bit of news.”

“Tell me.”

*****************************************

Marlena arrived at her office twenty minutes before her meeting began. She sat at her desk and contemplated her life. What was happening to her? Ordinarily she was a very rational and organized person; but yesterday had proven just the opposite. Her life was a complete mess. She was fighting with the man she loved, a fight she didn’t really understand, and she had a date with her husband, a man she was no longer in love with. And even though she and Roman had talked about the state of their marriage, she knew he didn’t really understand that it was over. She wasn’t the same woman he married at Saint Lukes Church all those years ago. She had grown and changed over the years he was gone. She knew most of the changes in her were due to John, but not all of them. In the years between Roman and John she had become a stronger person. She had to; after all she had two small babies to take care of; to protect from Stefano. Once John entered her life, she had given herself to him completely, body and soul. She had never loved anyone the way she loved him; not even Roman. She couldn’t imagine her life without him and now they were fighting. She needed to talk to him; to set things right between them; today. She dialed his private line in his office. Again, no answer. She looked at her watch and saw she only had a few minutes before the meeting would begin. Marlena grabbed her note pad and walked down to the conference room.

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John tried several more times to reach Marlena at home. Finally he gave up and went to his office. Waiting for him was a stack of messages on his desk. They ranged from urgent must respond immediately to can wait a little longer. Even seeing the urgent messages didn’t deter him from trying to reach Marlena. He dialed her office.

Her secretary answered, “Dr. Evers office.”

“Dr. Evers, please.” He hoped Diane wouldn’t recognize his voice.

“I’m sorry; Dr. Evers is in a meeting. Would you like to leave a message?”

“No message.”

He hung up. Damn! He had hoped to speak to her first thing this morning. He knew he wouldn’t be able to fully concentrate on work until things were somewhat back to normal. There was nothing left to do but wait until he was able to reach her. He might as well start returning some of the calls he had to make. Great, the first call he had to return was to one of his executives stationed in New York. The message said it was urgent he spoke to her before noon today. John dialed her number.

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“Are you sure that’s what he said.”

Bo pulled out his note pad and flipped it open. He read over his notes. “Yea, that’s what he said. I wrote it down to make sure I wouldn’t leave anything out.”

Roman sat back in his chair and rubbed his chin. “You’re right. This is not good; not good at all.”

“Tell me about it. We need a game plan.”

“That we do. Abe should be getting here soon. As soon as he comes in we need to go over everything again.”

“Tell you what; I have some paperwork I need to complete so why don’t you buzz me when Abe gets in.” Bo stood up to leave.

“Will do. And Bo…”

“Yea Roman.”

“Thanks for earlier.”

“You’d do the same for me.” Bo turned and left Roman’s office.

Roman leaned back in his chair and spoke out loud to no one in particular. “Everything will work out. We’ve been thru too much and we love each other.” He picked up a file from his desk and began reading. There was nothing left to do until Abe came in.

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Marlena entered the conference room and took a seat. She hoped no one would notice she was upset. No such luck. Laura spotted her the minute she walked in and could see something was wrong.

“Marlena, are you alright?” She sat next to her.

“Yea, I’m fine.”

“Honey, we’ve been friends too long for me to be polite, so I’ll just come out and say it. You don’t look fine. In fact, you like you just lost your best friend and since I’m your best friend and I’m here, do you want to tell me what’s really going on?”

Marlena wanted nothing more than to confide in Laura but now was not the time and she didn’t really want to drag her into this mess. “Yesterday was a particularly long day and I guess I’m still recovering from it.” She prayed this answer would satisfy Laura. She was wrong.

“Marlena did something happen yesterday?” She figured what ever upset Marlena had to do with John since she saw him enter her office yesterday at lunch time.

Seeing Laura would not let it go she told her part of the truth. “Well, Roman came home yesterday.”

Ah that explains it Laura thought; or at least part of it. She could sense it was more than just Roman; something happened with John. “I see.” She took her Marlena’s hand and squeezed it. “You know I’m here for you, don’t you?”

“I know.” Before either one of them could say anything else Dr. Tom Horton walked in and called the meeting to order.

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John hung up and looked at his watch. He had been on the phone for more than an hour and the situation was still critical. There was only one thing for him to do and he hated it. But before anything else was done, there was one phone call that had to be made now. If he delayed any longer, there wouldn’t be enough time. He flipped through his rolodex and found the number he was looking for.

“Hi, this is John Borne and I have an important job for you. It has to get done today. Can you handle it?”

“No problem; what do you need?”

“Ok, here’s what I want you to do.” John gave his instructions and hung up. He pulled the next urgent message from the growing pile on his desk and read it. It was going to be a long day. He sat back in his chair.

************************************************

Finally the meeting was over. Marlena rushed back to her office before Laura started in on her again. She didn’t know how much longer she would be able to keep the truth from her. As soon as she sat down she buzzed her secretary.

“Any messages for me?”

“No messages, but you did get one call.”

Marlena’s heart began to beat fast. John. She knew it was him. She tried to sound as calm as possible, “Who was it?”

“He didn’t leave a message.”

Marlena sighed in relief. It was John. “Ok, I’ll be here working until my first patient arrives.” She wanted to speak to John but she would place the call herself. She dialed his private number. Before the call could connect, her secretary buzzed. Her first patient was waiting in the outer office. She’d have to call later.