Now that she finally had her chance to speak her mind to Roger, Holly was not sure where to begin. She looked at him and found that his eyes were fixed upon hers.
She smoothed her lips and decided to start with a question. "When I showed up last night, didn't you wonder how I knew where to find you?"
"I was having you followed, so I was kind of expecting you. I figured you would end up telling me the whole story sooner than later."
Holly opened her mouth in surprise but quickly composed herself. No wonder he was the one who had found her on the dirt road. "Since when have you been following me?"
"Since the afternoon when you came into my office and talked to my phony secretary. She's an agent, of course. It took her a few hours to spot the bug you had planted and by then she had already spoken to me on the phone and mentioned the Adriana, so it was easy to guess that you were on your way," Roger said as he reclined on his chair. "I admit I was very impressed with you. I didn't know you had it in you."
"To err on the wrong side of the law, you mean?"
Roger waved his hand dismissively. "Oh, that line has always been a bit blurry to me, as you well know. I meant I was surprised by your tenacity. You seemed hell bent on finding me, and you succeeded. Tell me, why was it so important to you?"
"I already told you: because I hate it when someone tell me what to do without explaining why! Especially you. I had a right to know why you forbade me to see Richard."
"I didn't forbid, I strongly advised."
"Potato, potahto."
"Is that the only reason why you wanted to find me?"
Holly blushed. "Not quite. Let me go back a little. I met Gilly Grant at the convention, and she's the one who told me that you had left your position at Spaulding. After I ran into you at the beach, I thought that the only way to find you, as distasteful as it might be, was to pay a little visit to Amanda."
Roger sat up straighter, clearly uncomfortable. "You saw Amanda?"
Holly nodded silently. "Nearly made a fool of myself too. She seemed especially tickled by the fact that you two had been separated for more than a year and that yet, you hadn't contacted me to share the news."
She waited and when she saw that Roger was keeping silent, exclaimed "Oh, why didn't you tell me, Roger?"
"What was the point? I thought you were married to Fletcher. You never told me about your divorce either, you know."
Holly crossed her arms and grunted. "What a fine pair of pig heads we make."
Roger smiled sadly. "I don't know about that. I guessed we were just trying to protect each other's marriage. It's rather noble when you think about it."
"Maybe you're right. But then why didn't you tell me when you found out that Fletcher and I were over? You've had plenty of opportunities in the last few days to fill me in!"
"Well, first of all, I thought that the timing was not ideal, with the mission and all that." His voice trailed off and he looked away.
"And? You said earlier that you would tell me everything I wanted to know."
Roger placed his hands firmly on the table and took a deep breath, as if he was bracing himself. "And I didn't want to open that door."
"What door?"
"Oh, you know what door! The door that leads to you and I getting all entangled in each other's life again. The door that leads to me hurting you."
Holly was speechless for a second. "I don't understand," she blurted out.
Roger got up and started pacing about the room. "If it wasn't so early in the day, I'd have a drink right here and now," he said, glancing yearningly at the bottles lying on the shelves. He stopped and looked at her. "You see, I went through a major life crisis last year. It was possibly the worse time of my entire life, and that's saying something in my case."
"What happened?"
Roger glanced at her, looking miserable. "Oh, simply that my whole belief system crumbled before my very eyes."
"You mean regarding Spaulding?" Holly asked gently.
"Regarding business, yes, and everything that I though was important to me. I sacrificed everything to get to where I was," Roger continued. "I left my home behind, my daughter, her children, just so as to finally have the chance to reign over this damn company. I even sacrificed you, the most precious thing of all."
Holly shook her head. "Don't say that! I was the one who told you to go!"
"I'm not just talking about when I left for California. How many times have I let Spaulding take precedence over our relationship? More times than I can count! So when I left for here, I thought that it probably for the best that you and I were apart. You were with Fletcher, you had that peaceful, reliable love that I could never give you. As for me, I could finally fulfill my life-long dream of running Spaulding."
"But something went wrong."
"Oh, at first it was great. I loved my job, and it was everything that I had hoped for. And it went on like that for a while. Amanda and I tolerated each other. Then, one day, I woke up in a sweat and I just knew, deep in my bones, that I couldn't go on another day living that life. Looking back, I realized that I had been lying to myself for months. I wasn't happy."
"Why is that?"
Roger shrugged. "I thought I wanted Spaulding, and it turned out I didn't."
"It was the chase that you were addicted to," Holly said softly, as if for herself only.
"Yes, there was that, but above everything else, there was the need to prove my worth to everyone around me, especially to those who despised me. And it worked. I became a much respected man. The problem is, I was completely and utterly alone at the top."
He sat back down at the table, looking so dejected that Holly could not resist putting a hand over his. He shivered but did not look up, but he did not remove his hand either.
"I often wished that you didn't have that constant need for approval. I suppose we can thank your father for that one."
Roger's lips curled upward in spite of himself. "My life is such a cliché, isn't it? Anyway, after the debacle at Spaulding and my divorce with Amanda, I didn't know where to turn to."
"Why didn't you come back to Springfield?"
This time, Roger laughed out loud. "Hum, let's see? Was it because I didn't want to admit what a fool I had been, or because the thought of constantly running into you and Fletcher made me want to eat my own heart? Take your pick!"
Holly smiled and joined the banter. "I would have picked your deep and longing desire to be reunited with Ed and Ross, or course. You miss them terribly, just admit it!"
"You got me!" Roger exclaimed while throwing his hands in the air in surrender. His smile faded and he continued: "But seriously, I felt that there was nothing left for me there. I needed to clear my head until I could figure out the next step."
"So that's why you joined the CIA."
Roger nodded. "I ran into Raymond last year in Newport Beach, of all places. I was strolling on the shore, trying to make sense of my life, when we practically bumped into each other. We got to talking and when he heard my story, he said that there was an opening at the agency and that it sounded to him like I was ripe for a comeback. I took our chance encounter as a sign and went back to work. I figured I would keep at it until another sign came up."
He looked down at his folded hands resting on the table while Holly peered at his face. There were new lines on his forehead and around his eyes but even so, he seemed more at peace than when she had last seen him. The storm had passed, and whatever the future held for him, she could see that the decision to go back to the agency had done him good.
Roger looked up and caught her staring at him. "And then a few weeks ago, YOU showed up. Not only that, you showed in a way that I couldn't ignore."
"What do you mean?"
"If I had seen you under any other circumstances, I think I could have find it in me to walk away."
"I still don't get it. You're the one who came to me, at the beach in Santa Monica, not the other way around. And come to think of it, you never told me how you knew that Richard and I were seeing each other."
"I found out the night that you two met. I was there, Holly. I was at the hotel that night."
Holly froze and could not keep the blood from rushing to her cheeks.
"I was tailing Richard, and I saw you two in the elevator. Or rather, I saw your arms around his neck. I didn't know it until then, but it turns out that I could recognized any part of your body, anywhere."
"I don't know what to say."
"You don't have to be embarrassed. But now you know why I couldn't let it slide. I had to protect you."
"And so, in a way, we were destined to meet again."
Roger shrugged. "Maybe this was the next sign that I was waiting for, or maybe not. You see, going back to the CIA was not only a way to heal, it was also a way to atone for my sins, if you will. It's a selfless job, and I feel that I'm giving back to the world a little bit of everything that I tried to take from it over the years. I could keep on doing that until I die, and still it wouldn't be enough to repay my debt."
"What does it have to do with me?"
"Well, my way to make it up to YOU, was to stay away from you. I think that I've proven over the years that I don't deserve you. The only thing that I know how to do is to hurt you, so I decided to stay away."
"Don't you think that you're being a little too hard on yourself?"
"I'm just being realistic. You and I together is not a good idea. You've been saying it for years, only I wouldn't listen."
Holly got up, her throat feeling tight, and started pacing across the room. She had not really thought of what she and Roger would say when they met again, but she had definitely not been expecting THAT. That he would reject the idea of a reconciliation from the back of his hand, without even considering it, seemed unimaginable to her. For years, he had pursued her, and she had always ended up yielding. She had tried every conceivable way to live her life without him, but her path always brought her back to him. If that was not a sign, she did not know what was.
She faced her ex-husband. "So that's it? We're going to do this mission, capture Richard, and then each go back to our own lives, as if nothing had happened?"
"I don't know! Just a few days ago, I thought that you were happily married. Then I thought that you were married but that you cheated on your husband. And now you're here, but we could both lose our lives before this mission is over. You'll excuse me for being confused."
He got up and walked up to her, careful not to come too close. "What about you, anyway? What do YOU want? The last time that I asked you to be with me, you turned me down, remember?"
Holly swallowed hard, fighting to fight the tears that were suddenly threatening to run down her cheeks. That particular memory had always remained raw in her heart, because this was the day that she had thought she had lost Roger forever. "And I regretted it immediately, but it was too late."
"What?"
Holly shook her head, too upset to speak and was about to go up the stairs when Roger grabbed her by the arm. "What do you mean?"
Holly ran a hand through her hair and replied with a shaky voice: "After you kissed me in my living room and I turned you down, I realized that I was lying to myself. I couldn't live without you, Roger. So I ran after you to City Hall, but when I found you, it was already over. You and Amanda had just gotten married."
"So?! You could have told me that you had changed your mind," Roger replied a bit frantically.
"You looked happy, Roger. I couldn't do that to you."
"DO that to me? What are you talking about? I would have been ecstatic!"
He was about to say something else when the door flew open and Raymond appeared, looking concerned. "Sorry guys, my phone call was longer than expected."
Holly took a few steps back and looked away long enough to regain her composure, while Roger immediately switched to his agent mode. "Is everything alright?"
"I'm not sure. Richard and his crackpots have been spotted in the area."
"But they were not supposed to be here until tomorrow night!"
"Exactly, so what it means, I don't know yet, but we'll find out soon enough. Let's go back to the house and call an emergency meeting."
With a last glance toward Holly to make sure that she was following, Roger climbed up the stairs after Raymond.
