He nods slowly, swallowing.
The silence in the car is loud. I let out a broken laugh. “I don’t even understand why you’re here. You made everything very clear with your distance and Richard,” I continue. “And Simone.”
He tries to interrupt, but I don’t let him.
“If you wanted to be with her, why marry me? Why do any of this? Was it some kind of game?”
He moves closer, hands framing my face. “No. Lucy, no. I know you don't want to discuss it all now, so I will wait until you are ready. But I did not and do not want Simone. I want you. You are it for me."
I pull away, tears burning. “I don’t believe you.”
“I lo...,” he starts.
“Don’t,” I snap. “Don’t you dare say that to me right now. Those words... what they mean... It is not a band-aid; it is not something you throw around like that... especially after what you did.”
I turn to the window. Rain streaks the glass. "I haven't had a chance to talk to my lawyer but seeing as some of the..."I choke down the tears, and it comes out like a strangled laugh, "Most of the conditions for ending this sham of a marriage were violated. I don't expect it to take long for the divorce paperwork to be put together."
Julian growls, "No"
I whip my head back to look at him, "No? Are you kidding me? You don't want me and my baggage, you made that clear, as soon as I said I love you, you bolted and reminded me exactly what and who I was to you... And then you broke your own contract with the shit you did with Simone. I will not stay in this arrangement; I am done."
“You don’t get to decide this alone,” he says fiercely.
“You wrote the contract,” I shoot back. “You broke it. You broke us.”
He tries to pull me to him, a look of desperation on his face, but I pull out of his arms. His hands come up to cup my face and tilt my face so I have to look in his eyes.
Julian says, "Nothing happened with Simone. I can explain it all, and I will. I know I made mistakes before all of thefilth Richard spewed at you. I know how bad this looks, but if you believe anything I say, believe I never betrayed you or our marriage. I would never. I haven't looked at another woman like that since I met you. And I haveneverlooked at another woman the way I look at you, the way I see you. We are not getting a divorce, Lucy. This is not over."
I feel tears threatening to spill, so I pull away again, feeling like he is being honest, not sensing a lie, but he's a lawyer, so maybe he's better at lying. Looking back out the window, I whisper, "That's not up to you, Julian."
That's when I realize we are headed to the penthouse and not my old apartment.
"I am not going to the penthouse with you, Julian; it is no longer my home, if it ever was."
“You are, and it is,” he insists. “You’re coming with me. I need to see you, be close to you, Lucy... I... You can shower and rest. I will have some of your favourite foods delivered. I will support you with whatever you need for your mom. I’ll take care of everything. When you’re ready to talk, I’ll explain... Everything.”
I don’t have the energy to fight.
I lean my forehead against the cold glass and close my eyes.
And against my better judgment, against everything I know I should protect myself from, I hope, quietly, that he’s telling the truth.
Chapter 49 - Julian
I don’t sleep, not really. I close my eyes for an hour here, two hours there, and my body takes what it can get, but it’s not rest. It’s survival. It’s my brain going dark from exhaustion and snapping back online the second it remembers what I did.
What I lost.
Lucy is in the penthouse again, and the fact that she is under my roof doesn’t mean she’s mine. It doesn’t mean she’s staying.
It means she’s tired. It means she has a specialist in town. It means her mother’s life is still a fire she’s trying to hold with bare hands.
And it means that for the first time in a month, I have my eyes on her.
That should feel like relief.
Instead, it feels like standing at the edge of a cliff, knowing the ground is gone and I’m the one who cut it out from under us.
