"Go back to your mother's house, Simon," Audrey commanded, her tone shifting from furious to completely, agonizingly detached. She turned her back on him, walking up the concrete path toward the porch steps. "Do not come here unannounced again."
"Audrey, please," he rasped, a pathetic, broken sound.
She didn't stop. She walked through the heavy oak door and slammed it shut behind her. The mechanical, heavy click of the deadbolt echoed through the quiet suburban street like a gunshot.
Simon was left entirely alone in the dark.
His legs suddenly gave out. He stumbled backward, his back hitting the wet metal of his car door, and he slid slowly down to the asphalt. He pulled his knees to his chest, burying his bruised, bleeding face in his hands.
The adrenaline crash was violent and absolute. His ribs throbbed fiercely where Nathaniel had planted his knee. His jawburned. But the physical injuries were nothing compared to the loop playing relentlessly in his mind's eye.
Her hands in his dark hair. The sheer, breathless abandon on her face. The way she had touched the other man's chest to protect him from Simon's rage.
He let out a choked, agonizing sob, the sound muffled by his wet hands. He had believed, with the arrogant, blind optimism of a man used to winning, that the ninety-day stipulation would be his salvation. He thought he just needed time to wear down her defenses, to show her he was changed.
But sitting on the wet street, the brutal reality finally shattered his ego completely. She wasn't just angry. She wasn't just hurt.
She was looking at another man the way she used to look at him.
Simon forced himself up off the pavement, his body moving with the heavy, sluggish stiffness of a corpse. He opened his car door and collapsed into the driver’s seat. He didn't bother to wipe the blood from his chin or the water from the leather upholstery. He put the car in drive and pulled away from the curb, leaving the house he had paid for, the family he had built, and the wife he had entirely, irreversibly lost.
As he drove blindly into the night, the silence of the car was absolute, leaving him entirely alone with the ghost of the life he had destroyed.
Chapter 27
Simon
The drive to his mother’s house was a hollow, mechanical blur. Simon didn't remember navigating the winding roads of the affluent neighborhood or pulling into the long, circular driveway. He only registered the blinding stab of the security floodlights as he shifted his car into park.
He sat in the driver's seat for a long time, the engine ticking as it cooled. His clothes were soaked through, clinging to his shivering frame, and the right side of his face throbbed with a dull, rhythmic agony.
Finally, dragging himself out of the leather seat, he walked up the stone steps to the heavy mahogany front door. He didn't use his key. His hands were shaking too violently to manage the lock. Instead, he pressed the glowing doorbell and leaned heavily against the doorframe, leaving a wet handprint on the wood.
A minute later, the lock clicked. The door swung open to reveal Kathryn, wrapped in a thick cashmere robe, her reading glasses perched on the bridge of her nose.
Her sharp expression immediately morphed into pure, maternal shock.
"Simon?" Kathryn gasped, her hand flying to her chest. She took in the dripping, ruined suit, the split lip, the swelling purple bruise blooming across his cheekbone, and the absolute, dead-eyed devastation on his face. "My God, what happened? Were you in an accident?"
"No," Simon rasped, his voice barely more than a jagged whisper. He stumbled over the threshold, the warmth of the foyer hitting his freezing skin like a physical blow. "No accident."
Kathryn didn't waste time interrogating him in the doorway. She shut the door quickly, locked it, and hooked her arm under his, guiding his heavy, sluggish frame into the expansive kitchen. She pushed him gently down onto one of the barstools at the island.
"Don't move," she commanded, her voice tightening with a mix of fear and authority.
She disappeared down the hall and returned a moment later with a stack of thick white towels and a first-aid kit. She draped a towel over his soaking shoulders, then wet a washcloth with warm water at the sink. Standing in front of him, she gently tilted his chin up, carefully dabbing the dried blood away from his split lip.
Simon winced, squeezing his eyes shut. The tender, motherly gesture completely broke the dam he had been desperately trying to hold together. A heavy, choked sob tore from his throat.
"Talk to me, Simon," Kathryn said softly, pausing her ministrations. "Who did this to you?"
"I went to the house," Simon choked out, opening his eyes to look at his mother. The tears flowed freely now, mixing withthe water dripping from his hair. "I followed her home after therapy. I just wanted to talk to her."
Kathryn’s brow furrowed, a warning edge slipping into her tone. "Simon, you know you aren't supposed to be there. We discussed giving her space."
"I know. I know," he wept, burying his face in the towel she had wrapped around him. "But when I got there... she wasn't alone, Mom."
Kathryn went perfectly still. She set the bloody washcloth down on the marble counter. "What do you mean?"
