“That doesn’t matter.”
“Tell me.” Anger wreaks havoc on my insides—the pumping of my heart growing painful and erratic. “Tell me.”
He hangs his head, his blond hair flopping down across his forehead and I wonder what I ever saw in him. Even though he’s aging gracefully, he’s not handsome to me. Not anymore. He whispers, “My—my assistant, Kayleigh.”
Kayleigh.
My inhale wheezes, my ribcage suddenly as unmovable as steel. “How long?”
His blue eyes flick up to mine and, for a fraction of a second, I detect humanity in his irises. “Since…” He looks away again, the shame too great. “Since she started.”
Six years.
I taste bile. “All the weekends away? All the new branch set ups? Was she with you?”
He doesn’t answer.
A sob escapes as I continue. “All the times you worked through the night. All the extra business expenses. All the travel. Was it all with her?” I stand so fast, I bump my knee against the glass table that was meant to hold our cozy steaming mugs of morning coffee.
He runs his hands through his hair, gripping the top of it.
“Answer me!” I shriek.
“I’m sorry, Hollie.” The weight in his tone answers all my questions—spoken and unspoken. “She has been a big part of my life for a long time. I kept it from you because…I guess I worried you wouldn’t understand.”
“Understand?Whatis there to understand?”
“Well, we worked through it last time. We went to counseling and stayed together.”
I’m stunned into perfect stillness.
“But I don’t want to do that this time. I want a divorce, Hollie.”
My equilibrium dumps the world sideways and my knees go weak, sending me back into my chair, gripping the armrest for dear life as the blood drains out of my face.
He continues, “Of course I’ll still take care of you and the girls. You can have whatever you want—the house, the money—anything.But…it’s important the girls see us happy. And I just can’t be happy with you.”
Withme.
Why?
I want to scream, rage, and throw a chair off my joke of a balcony. I have given everything to make this man happy—my personhood disappeared into achieving his happiness. I willingly laid my heart on his altar.
How is it not enough?
I made a fool of myself trying to gain his affection when he was being satiated on…on…
I can’t even make my brain repeat her name.
Their names.
We’ve been here before.
“Try to be happy for me. I’m finally happy. And, I think you can be happy again, too. We don’t work together and that’s okay.” He smiles, but it’s forced and patronizing. I hate it when he talks to me like I can’t understand big words.
A long silence falls. Uncomfortable, he looks away, off at the trees in the distance.
“I should be going.” He swipes his hands down the front of his work slacks. “I packed a bag.”
