He went to her, sitting beside her. It killed him to maintain any distance but he was afraid of her rejection if he so much as touched her.
“Talk to me, baby,” he encouraged softly. “Please. Give me a chance to fix this.”
Her eyes watered and tears gathered rapidly as she finally turned her gaze to meet his.
“I’m not sure itcanbe fixed,” she said, her voice choked with emotion. “I used to think it could be. I was certain everything would be all right. I told myself to just be patient. Let things ride out and everything would go back to normal when you were secure in your business. But I’m tired of waiting, Tate. I’m tired of faking a smile and saying ‘it’s okay’ every time you have to dump me for a client when I’m bleeding on the inside. I’ve pretended for so long that it’s become second nature and I can’t do it anymore. I just can’t.”
The utter despair in her voice flayed open his heart. He caught his breath, unsure of even what to say to her. This wasn’t a simple fix. Not something that could be worked out in one night or even two. Their relationship was in deep trouble, and he was only just now recognizing the magnitude of all he’d done to her over the past years.
“My friends look at me with pity,” she continued on, her gaze falling away from his.
She stared forward, so much pain in her features that it was a physical hurt for him to witness.
“They know I’m terrible at faking happiness. They see through me and they know I’m unhappy. They know the situation with you is bad. Even Dash and Jensen are giving me pep talks, for God’s sake. It’s humiliating. And I don’t know how to fix it. Now I don’t even know if I can.”
“Chessy, baby, don’t say that. Nothing is unfixable. We can overcome this together, I swear it.”
She yanked her head so that her eyes were boring straight into his. “You dumped me for a prospective client on our anniversary. I sat there for an hour over cold food after youpromisedme you’d be there, that you’d only be twenty minutes late, and you lied,” she said accusingly.
Tate reared back with a frown. “What did I lie to you about?”
Her gaze was full of scorn and rising fury.
“You just don’t get it, do you?” she raged. “You call me from work and say you were detained and that you’d be there in twenty minutes. You never said a damn word about meeting a client—a gorgeous female client who was all over you—at the same restaurant where your wife was sitting alone, waiting for her husband. You lied to me. Lies of omission are still lies. You tried to hide from me that you were entertaining a potential client on my goddamn anniversary and you stood there in the bar with her, smiling and laughing, while I was just a few yards away realizing that I’d been stood up by my husband on our anniversary. A day that used to mean something to you. And now? I have no idea where I stand with you, Tate.”
“How long have you felt this way?” he asked softly, cutting to the heart of the matter.
He had to back up, before the debacle of tonight, and figure out where he’d gone wrong.
She sighed, a heavy sigh of weariness and defeat. “Forever? Or at least it seems that way. I can remember the way it used to be and I guess that’s what upsets me the most. I know what we’re capable of, but in the last two years, you’ve drifted further and further away from me, and while I used to be at the top of your list of priorities, I doubt I even rate in the top five at this point. You certainly don’t act as though I haveanypriority in your life.”
She turned to look at him, stark fear in her eyes. Dread, as though she were preparing herself for what she was going to say next.
She huffed out her breath and squared her shoulders before lifting her gaze to lock with his.
“Are you cheating on me, Tate? Is that what all the ‘business calls’ have been about? Is that where you’re spending your time instead of with me?”
He was so flabbergasted by her question that momentarily all he was able to do was stare openmouthed at her. Then, he’d had enough. This could go on no longer. Sitting there while she tortured herself was killing him inch by inch. He was dying on the inside at her pain and agony. Thehellhe’d let her suffer under such misapprehensions any longer.
And then her next words stopped him cold, panic hitting him like a freight train. She lifted her head, all the life gone from her eyes. They were dull, defeated, like she was through fighting a fight he hadn’t realized she was waging. Tears burned hot and jagged at the corners of his eyes, his jaw locked like iron, her words tiny darts right through his heart.
“I want out, Tate. I can’t takethisanymore.”
FOUR
CHESSYclamped her hand over her mouth in horror as she blurted out the damning words and registered the shock and devastation in Tate’s eyes as they hit him with the force of a punch in the face.
Damn it, she hadn’t meant it how it came out! It sounded like she was asking for a divorce. One minute she was focusing on how to fix things—Tatewas focusing on how to fix the problem—and she’d jumped from simply laying out her frustration to telling him she wanted out.
“You want a divorce?” Tate asked hoarsely, his eyes shiny with moisture. “God, Chessy, are you so desperately unhappy that you won’t even give me a chance to fix what’s wrong between us? I fucked up. I readily admit that. But you can’t just quit on us like that. Unless …”
He drifted off, pain intensifying in his expression as though whatever he was thinking was the absolute worst and that he couldn’t bear to put it into words.
He ran a hand raggedly through his hair and then down his face, wiping at his eyes.
“Unless you no longer love me, no longer want me,” he ended in a whisper.
“That wasn’t what I meant,” Chessy said in a desperate voice.
