The night I left.
The many nights when I wondered if he’d leave me because I was barren.
The many, many nights when he did leave me, forgot about me.
“You destroyed me,” I whisper through the sobs, my voice shaking, and sharp with grief. “You didn’t just cheat on me. You erased me. Like I was nothing. And I tried—God, I tried—to be everything for you. To smile through the insults, to be patient when your family treated me like dirt.”
He closes his eyes as if the heaviness of my pain is crushing him. But I don’t stop. I can’t. The words are bubbling out of me.
“I thought if I loved youenough…if I was goodenoughfor your family…it would matter.” I gasp through the tears. “You let them push me aside. You made me feel like I wasn’t a woman. Like I wasn’tenough—because I couldn’t give you a child.”
His head jerks up, his eyes wide with disbelief. “Mia—no. No, baby?—”
“Every time I looked in the mirror, I wondered if I was someone you didn’t want anymore.” The heartfelt words tumble out. “I wondered if you’d leave me because I failed at the one thing a woman is supposed to be able to do.”
He reaches for my face, gently now, reverently. His thumb brushes beneath my eyes, wiping the tears that are faster than his fingers.
“I wasn’t jealous of Diana’s job or her confidence,” I tell him, looking into his eyes, letting him see inside of me. “I was jealous because she could give you something I couldn’t. She could give you a baby. She fit in with your family and at work, while I was just your quiet, boring wife, who taught finger painting and didn’t belong in your shiny world.”
He swallows hard, his voice raw when he speaks. “You’re my heart. You’re my home. You’re the shine in my world.”
“Then why didn’t you choose me before you lost me?” I whisper.
His eyes shimmer with tears he’s not trying to hide. He rests his forehead against mine. I let him because I want to be comforted. Because I want to comfort him. Because I love him.
“I was a fool,” he murmurs. “But I’m here now. And I swear, Mia, I will never let you feel unloved, alone, ever again.”
I close my eyes. “I can’t forgive you.”
“You will,” he says it with confidence, with an arrogance that is so Aiden Winter that I giveout a watery laugh. “You will because I will do everything humanly possible, and then some, Mia, to win back your trust, to win your forgiveness.”
“I don’t believe you,” I breathe.
He kisses my forehead. “I will make you believe me.”
CHAPTER 20
Aiden
Ihate being at home.
Hate it entirely too much.
Mia’s not here. Nothing makes sense.
So, I’ve been spending time at Huxley’s place, which smells like Chanel Bleu and self-importance, which sums up my friend appropriately.
He has a slick bachelor pad in downtown Burlington with a sweeping view of Lake Champlain, exposed brick walls, leather couches, a record player spinning Miles Davis, and a bottle of Macallan, open on the counter, like it’s always waiting to be poured.
“You look like hell.” Huxley hands me a glass.
I take it.
Sip.
It burns through me in just the right way.
“I feel worse.”
