The end result was the same.
Because if he loved me as much as I loved him, he could never do this to me.
Thirty-Four
Jared
Icouldn’t stop shaking.
As I strode back into the farmhouse, Allegra’s wedding band burning in my palm, it felt like every muscle in my body was tremoring.
The house echoed as I walked aimlessly through it.
All day I’d felt certain about what I needed to do. That I needed to suggest some time apart so we could know for sure that marriage was what we wanted. Fuck, what Allegra wanted. I already knewIwanted it.
But I should have known with her history that she’d see it as an excuse for me to end things. And I didn’t do a good enough job of explaining because I was afraid she’d just insist she wanted me without thinking it through.
Like I knew her mind better than she did. Fuck. I’d made the decision without actually talking it through with her. No wonder she’d just ended it entirely.
I felt sick.
Because while an hour ago I was so certain suggesting a break was the right thing to do, now I felt like I just self-sabotaged.
Gripping my head, I stumbled into a kitchen chair.
Why couldn’t I tell her I loved her?
Because you’re a chickenshit. You’re terrified.
People you loved either disappointed you or they left you.
“Fuck.” I was so fucked in the head.
Allegra’s tear-streaked face appeared behind my eyes every time I closed them. I’d hurt her. I’d devastated her. Why hadn’t I thought about how this would seem to her? To a woman who had been abandoned and used … I’d done this all wrong.
Dread swamped me.
My phone blared from the kitchen table, making me jump.
Reluctantly, I pulled it toward me and saw it was Sarah calling. The woman had a sixth sense.
I answered, putting the phone on speaker. “Sarah.”
There was a beat of silence, then, “What’s wrong?”
“I fucked up.” I exhaled shakily. “Sarah, I really fucked up. I’m fucked up, I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Talk to me,” she said in that calm, gentle voice. “Tell me what’s going on.”
Thirty-Five
Allegra
By the time I arrived at my parents’ beach house, I’d had time to think. Clearly, my parents said something to Jared last night that targeted all his insecurities. Enough so that it had obliterated months of evidence that proved I was all in and not going anywhere.
And then I’d just proven them right by throwing my ring at him and driving off all snotty and butt hurt, my mother’s Italian fire flaring to the fore. Instead of thinking rationally and trying to understand why Jared had suggested the break in the first place, I’d done him a disservice by immediately assuming he wanted the break for him, not for me.
A man didn’t look at you the way he looked at me if he was faking it.
