“Because when I...when I said that, it meant you’d take care of it on your own, like alone—”
He looked at her.
She looked at him.
Her cheeks were flushed. Her eyes were red-rimmed and slightly wild. And she was refusing to meet his gaze now, staring instead at some point past his shoulder.
“Alone, you say?”
“I thought that was what you meant.” Lexy pressed her hands to her cheeks, and they felt awfully hot. As in...as awful as how defensive her tone sounded.
“W-Why are you making it seem like I forced you to do anything? Youchoseto say yes—”
“Because I did not think it was possible for someone to be so—”
Stupid.
Naïve.
Brainless.
Those were just some of the words that went through his mind, but Leonidas, having seen the way his wife was still gazing at him with red-rimmed eyes, her lower lip trembling slightly—
“Innocent,” he said finally. “Only someone so...innocent would have seriously believed that it was healthy—”
Lexy could barely keep herself from squirming. Why couldn’t this conversation just...end?
“—for any man to take care of his needs on his own for the duration of his lifetime.”
Lexy could no longer understand herself. When did she go from heartbroken to embarrassed?
“And that is why I can stand by what I’ve said earlier.”
It still hurt to hear her husband’s voice, but the pain was not like before.
“I never lied to you, Lexina. I simply never spoke of it because to do so with my own wife would be in...bad taste.”
She tried...she tried to think what this all meant. But her mind simply refused to work. The embarrassment was too overwhelming, the relief too sudden, the confusion too thick.
“Lexina—”
She knew he would reach for her again.
And this time...she let him.
His fingers once again circling her wrist, but softer now. Almost careful.
Tawny eyes taking hers captive, searching for something she couldn’t name.
And that was when she realized...
“I still want a divorce.“
Nothing had changed.
