“Nothing.” She slid off the chair at the breakfast nook we sat at and moved to the window.
“You slept with him?” I asked quietly, knowing the answer to the dreaded question. She was glowing.
She nodded before her eyes met mine. “I’m sorry,” she murmured at length.
I gulped down the pain and sipped my coffee to give me the strength to go into a subject I had to tackle. Now. “Don’t be. You did nothing wrong.”
“How can it not be wrong?” she cried out, taking me by surprise. “I cheated on you.”
“Did you?” I asked, forcing her to evaluate our relationship and the boundaries I’d unconsciously placed on it by keeping away from her.
My first fuck-up.
She seemed to contemplate my words then rolled her fingers over her beloved pendant. “We’ve been married a long time, Zayne and I know you feel something for me. Why have you never touched me? Showed me that I mean something to you other than just the friend you married to give a future?”
The walls I’d erected around my heart cracked a little more, threatening to split wide open, warning me to tell her exactly how I felt. But I’d seen a change in her. I could see it in her eyes, hear it in her voice. Trent was bringing out a side to her I never could, no one could. I didn’t want to take that from her. She needed him. I gave her away.
My biggest fuck-up.
She loved me but not in the same way I did her. I hadn’t told Trent any of that—he didn’t need to know until I was certain his intentions were honorable. And so far, he was proving to be an admirable adversary—the perfect man for her, the man after my own heart. Despite those thoughts, I couldn’t ignore the unshakable jealousy that stained every part of me like knots on polished pine.
I sucked in a deep breath, trying to steady my thoughts, the pulse of my heart. This relationship had only one direction. “It’s not you, it’s me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“There’s someone else.”
Hurt flashed on her face like a dagger to my heart. “Who?” Eyes the color of storm clouds searched mine as though she could see right through the lies.
Fuck.My random decision was adrenalin induced. I hadn’t expected to provide a name. “Natasha,” I blurted, silently begging Natasha to forgive me.
“As in your Assistant?” there was an icy snip to Rika’s words.
I blinked. Her reaction was unexpected, given she’d never attempted to pursue anything sexual with me. Was I wrong? Had she wanted more? Had I grown so accustomed to shielding my heart against hurt that I hadn’t notice the way she felt about me? The questions bounced around my head. “I didn’t mean for you to find out this way, baby.”
She stared at me and I couldn’t read her expression. “Is it because I never came to you? Never showed you the interest I secretly hid from you. You put up barriers that would keep a Tsunami at bay, Zayne. I could never get through even if I tried.”
The irony in her statement hit me like a gut punch. How had I been so wrong about her? How had I not seen what she’d wanted? More questions. Yet, I couldn’t allow myself the luxury of asking. It was too late. Against my better judgment, Trent had played his cards well and won. Rather than show my hand, it was time to bow out. “Don’t be angry,” I whispered instead.
“I’m not angry.” She sighed. “Why didn’t you say something? About Natasha.”
I glanced out the window, looking but not seeing. Dead but breathing. Fuck, it hurt. Like the prick of a thousand fucking knives, I didn’t see coming. Squeezing my fucking lungs until I gasped for what little air I could quickly inhale. “Sometimes the beat of the hearts around us is so deafening, we can’t hear the music of our own or the message it’s sending us,” I replied, hoping she’d understand it had always been her my heart wanted, craved.
Her next words told me she didn’t and probably never would. “I’ve been keeping you from the life you deserved, then. Saddled you down when you could’ve had so much more with Natasha.”
“You haven’t.” I ached to take her in my arms and show her just how much I loved her, what she meant to me since that first moment she opened her eyes in the coffee shop. Deep grays staring at me, lost, scared, and insecure. Telling a tale that had no beginning and desperately searching for an ending. I gave her as much of that as I could, only I didn’t give her what she’d wanted. My heart.
I finally looked at her. “Fuck.” Every anguish known to mankind twisted the knot that had become my insides at her wounded expression, more so the tears rimming her eyes. Not the tears.
“What were my shortcomings?” her words so soft, I almost missed them, cut so deep, I took a moment to exhale the crushing pain shooting through my body on its way to my heart.
She’d wanted more and I hadn’t seen it or chose not to. Clenching my fingers until my nails bit into my palms, I hoped it would draw blood. Hadn’t I vowed never to hurt her? What the fuck was I doing to her? I hated myself. “Christ, baby.” It took five steps before I stood over her. Giving no thought to my actions, I wrapped my arms around her and brought her in tight to my body. “Rika,” I sighed against the top of her hair. “Fuck, baby, you think I didn’t want to be with you? God, I’d go to fucking hell for the things I thought of doing to you.” I should’ve mentioned that night she was drunk but I held back. That was my memory to keep seeing as goodbye was now imminent.
“Then why?” she cried into my chest.
I squeezed her tighter. If it were only that simple. “Not every question has an answer.”
She leaned back, confusion masking her wet cheeks. “What are you saying?”
