My face falls, letting him see I didn't mean to hurt him—but it's too late for that.
I clutch my head, as if sense could be squeezed out of my temples. "How long have you known?"
His head tilts, cool as a scalpel. "Why does it matter?"
"It matters!" I burst, slumping on the barstool. "Because we sat here a month ago, and you knew, and said nothing—just played me for a fool."
He gives me a short disdainful laugh. "I played you for a fool? Don't insult me. You won't like me when I flip."
Instinctively, I pull back, even though I don't think Richard would hurt me.
"You scare me when you talk like that," I admit.
"Good," he says coolly. "Fear keeps people honest."
My face flattens. "And what you did is also not okay in a marriage. That's surveillance."
His brow cocks. "So that justifies spreading your legs for someone else? Sleeping around with 'an old friend that wasn't really an old friend, and you guys have nothing in common now?'"
The blow lands dead center as humiliation detonates, crawling up my chest in red guilty blotches.
"No," I choke. "Nothing justifies that."
"Here’s what’s happening," he says, lowering himself onto the stool beside me and pinning me with a measured gaze. "We're going back to Seattle. We're starting a family."
"What?" The word rips out of me because what?! "You want a family with me after I—after this?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because we're having a family. It's about time and we need to work on our marriage." Just that. Like authority itself.
I cross my arms. "No. I want a divorce." Equally resolute.
The second I drop the word divorce, his eyes flare, his composure cracking.
He gets up and pivots to the sink, then leans into the counter, elbows braced.
"You think your old boyfriend's going to stay?"
I pull back, caught off guard. "My old what?"
"He makes you feel alive, I get it. You want to run off, be with him, fine... But give it a month, a year, or five years and two kids and he'll leave. And this time?" He shrugs sharply. "There won't be me waiting to pick up your pieces."
I blink hard, frowning at him. "What are you even talking about?"
He's talking about Ben as if he knows about our past, but there's no way he could know any of that. I archived our photos and wiped everything out of frustration before I went to Seattle.
Richard drops his head and looks up at me with that dark-glinted look. "Did you really think I'd marry someone without knowing every, single, thing about them?"
I recoil so hard I think I might land on the ground, and the floor would vanish too.
For a beat, I watch him not move an inch, studying me for my response.
"You read files on me?!" I fire out then.
When he sees my fuming face, he doesn't say anything, but that's an answer enough for my whole body to tense.
