A/N: Chapter 3! (Sorry it's short… It just finished a little sooner than I anticipated.)
And ilovestarshollow, you guessed it!
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Chapter Three – Nicole Leahy
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"If I could stop thinking about how great things used to be, maybe I could find the strength to leave."
Helen, Diary of a Mad Black Woman
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Nicole didn't know the man that well.
Truthfully?
She'd just met him that night.
Never had she thought of herself as the 'cheating kind'. And never had she wanted to be thought of like that, either. Personally, she detested those women and how they treated others.
And it frightened her to think that she'd become one of them.
She didn't hate Luke. She just wanted to get back at him, to make him feel her pain.
It was the way he felt about her. As much as he denied it, she could see it in his eyes. In the way he looked at her. There was always a hint of longing in his gaze, the look of wanting more than just the simple, platonic friendship that he claimed was all that they shared.
Nicole knew Luke wouldn't cheat on her. She knew he wasn't like that. But she couldn't help but think that when he looked at her, kissed her… even made love to her, that it wasn't really her he was thinking about.
Somehow she knew that Lorelai was always in the back of his mind, subconsciously controlling him and pushing her way into his thoughts.
And she hated her for it.
She knew it was wrong. It didn't seem that Lorelai was coming on to him or anything. It wasn't like she was trying to steal Luke away, even as much as she tried to convince herself of that fact.
But Nicole couldn't help being jealous.
It seemed that Lorelai was just… effortless. She could steal Luke's attention with a flip of her hair or a smile. And she herself tried absolutely everything to make him want her, and it never seemed to break the spell that Lorelai cast on him.
She'd considered divorce, over and over. She'd gone over the pros and cons. She'd weighed her options.
As a lawyer, she knew the process. She knew what it entailed.
But somehow she could never bring herself to do it.
Every time she was close to initiating the procedure, all she could think about was the cruise and, ultimately, the spur-of-the-moment wedding.
It didn't hold a candle to the dream wedding she'd thought up in junior high, but it was still nice. Romantic, she called it. She told herself that they were so in love that they couldn't wait, that they didn't need a huge, fancy, expensive wedding to prove how much they cared.
Nicole remembered how happy they were. How carefree. She remembered how much fun they had and how much they enjoyed themselves. And she thought that maybe if she stayed, he would one day get over Lorelai. He would move on.
It had to happen eventually, right?
She tried to convince herself that if she stayed with him, one day they would get back to the way they were that summer.
One day, they would love each other again.
And that was all she really wanted.
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To Be Continued…
I'm going to keep this as in-progress. My original plan was to have the next chapter be Emily Gilmore, but brown-eyed-beauty87 gave me some great ideas. I could do Francine Hayden or Shira Huntzberger. And I considered maybe a prior relationship of Patty or Liz. There are so many options now! Thoughts, anyone?