Free Bittersweet (Xcite Romance) by Alyssa Turner Page B

that he had become lost inside himself. As much as I wanted to wave a magic wand and make it all better, I couldn’t. Keith would have to find his own peace, and I would have to learn where to find mine.
    We employed a full-time caretaker/assistant during the weekdays who helped him with the basics around the house and chauffeured him to the few appointments he still kept. Keith had written three more books in the five years we’d been married and, on occasion, his colleagues would cajole him into guest speaking for a class or two. After the accident, Keith said that he hadn’t the stamina to return to a permanent position, though we both knew that it was more than a lack of energy keeping him sequestered in our four-bedroom suburban home for days on end.
    The house was way too big for the two of us and only served as yet another callous reminder of how different things had turned out than we planned. We’d left Manhattan two years earlier for a quaint Hudson River view 20 minutes north and a promise to start a family. That dream was irrevocably deferred, yet there was no telling how long it would be before the real estate market rebounded enough to sell without losing a fortune. How terribly strange it was, to live in a house where you barely even use half of the rooms.
    On Sundays, I would usually keep myself busy on the sofa with the New York Times crossword until I came up with a reason to get out of the house. I never wanted to bail on Keith during the only day I was sure to be free, but I inevitably found myself crawling out of my skin from the misery of it all before long.
    When the doorbell rang unexpectedly that day around 1 p.m., I glanced at Keith with a quizzical look. ‘I can’t imagine who that could be,’ I said, sliding my bare feet into some goatskin loafers.
    ‘Do you know what day it is, Sabrina?’ Keith asked as I approached the front door.
    ‘Yeah, it’s Sunday. Maybe it’s your mother – did she say that she was coming to visit?’ I peeked out of the sidelight. ‘It’s Evan. You asked him to help you with something on his day off?’ My facetious question came as I opened the door before Keith could answer. I greeted Evan with familiar sarcasm and a plucky smirk. ‘Don’t tell me, you just couldn’t stay away.’
    He stepped in from the frost and began to take off his coat. ‘Hello, Sabrina,’ he said simply and nodded in recognition of Keith sitting in his wheelchair by the sofa.
    I noticed that Keith’s assistant looked a little more dressed up than usual in a pair of black twill trousers and a grey cashmere sweater over a fine-collared shirt. Evan was my age, about 15 years younger than Keith. At 32, it seemed that he hadn’t neared his full potential. He reminded me of the flaky guys I went to college with who missed class half the time, satisfied with merely C-ing their way through one semester after the next. He’d been working for Keith for about two months since his previous assistant moved back to Ohio to shack up with her boyfriend.
    It was clear right from the start that he’d made up his mind about one thing: his next assistant would be a male. The search for a suitable replacement, however, was long and tedious, with Keith deliberating obsessively over each applicant. And then Evan appeared, with a travel-beaten, leather knapsack slung over his lanky torso. I’d been enjoying the view ever since. It was unusual, though, to see him for more than just a few minutes when I arrived home from my curatorial position at the Met and he was preparing to leave. All the while hoping it wasn’t obvious to Keith that I was suddenly able to make it back by 6.30 every evening.
    Calling it my own form of self-prescribed therapy, I had made a habit of immediately changing out of my work attire in the only spot where Evan was sure to be able to watch my reflection in the dresser mirror. I never failed to give him a good show as I stripped down to just my panties, and he never failed