His face crumpled, guilt written in every line of his expression. Maybe I was overreacting. Maybe this wasn’t as big a deal as I was making it. Or maybe it was exactly as big a deal as it felt, and I had every right to be furious. I didn’t know anymore. The only thing I knew for certain was that I felt betrayed, and I didn’t like it one bit.
“You’re sleeping on the couch tonight,” I said flatly. “I don’t want you in this room. I don’t want to see your face.”
“Lina, please-”
“Just go.” My voice broke on the words, the first crack in my armor. “Go, Knox. Because I fucking can’t.”
That last part came out bitter and sharp. Because I couldn’t leave. I was trapped in this house, on his orders, while he gotto come and go as he pleased. While he got to keep secrets and make decisions and treat me like a child who needed to be managed instead of a Luna who deserved the truth.
Knox stood there for a long moment, staring at me with those gray eyes that usually made my heart melt. Right now they just made me angrier.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I love you, Lina. Everything I did was because I love you.”
“That doesn’t make it okay.”
“I know.”
He turned and walked to the door, pausing with his hand on the handle. “If you need anything...”
“I won’t.”
He flinched at that. Then he was gone, the door closing softly behind him.
I stood in the middle of our bedroom, surrounded by the life we’d built together, and felt the anger slowly start to drain away. It left behind an emptiness so vast I didn’t know how to fill it.
Beneath the rage, there was sadness. A deep, massive pool of grief that I’d been desperately trying to ignore. The moment I let myself feel it, really feel it, I knew it would swallow me whole. I wouldn’t be able to come up for air. It would consume me entirely.
Because I loved my mate. I loved him with everything I had. I’d chosen him, fought for him, built a family with him. I’d given him my whole heart and trusted him to take care of it.
And he’d broken that trust. Not with another woman. Not with violence or cruelty. He’d broken it with silence and secrets and the arrogant belief that he knew what was best for me.
How were we supposed to come back from this? How was I supposed to look at him and not wonder what else he was hiding? How was I supposed to trust him with my fears, my worries, my vulnerabilities when he’d proven he didn’t trust me with the same?
The tears came then. Slow at first, rolling down my cheeks in silent streams. Then faster, harder, until I was sobbing so hard my whole body shook with it.
I made it to the bed before my legs gave out. Curled up on my side, one hand pressed to my belly where our baby kicked and squirmed, completely unaware of the chaos surrounding its existence.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered to the baby. “I’m sorry you have to feel this. I’m trying to stay calm. I’m trying to be okay.”
But I wasn’t okay. I wasn’t anywhere close to okay.
I cried until my eyes burned and my throat ached and my pillow was soaked through. I cried for the trust that had been broken. For the partnership I’d thought we had. For the future I wasn’t sure we could salvage.
I knew Knox could feel everything through the bond. I wasn’t trying to hide it. Part of me wanted him to feel this. Wanted him to experience every ounce of pain and betrayal that was ripping me apart. Wanted him to understand exactly what his secrets had cost us.
But he kept his emotions locked. The bond was there but muted, his feelings carefully contained so I couldn’t sense what he was going through. Maybe he thought he was giving me space. Maybe he was trying to protect me from his guilt.
All it did was make me feel more alone.
The distance between us grew with every passing minute. Not physical distance, though that was there too. Emotional distance. The kind that couldn’t be bridged with apologies or explanations.
I didn’t know how we were going to fix this. I didn’t know if we could fix this. All I knew was that right now, in this moment, I couldn’t forgive him.
Eventually the tears ran out. I lay there in the dark, staring at the ceiling, feeling hollow and exhausted. The baby had finally settled, probably tired out by all the stress hormones flooding my system.
Sleep came slowly, reluctantly, dragging me under despite my best efforts to stay awake. I didn’t want to sleep. Didn’t want to face the nightmares I knew would come. But my body was done. My mind was done. Everything was done.
10
