CHAPTER 61
harley
Guilt had a way of settling into the very fiber of your being long after the inciting moment passed. It was patient and quiet, building inside you, and just waiting for the right time to rear its ugly face.
That moment was the seventeenth phone call from my wife before breakfast.
I sat at the kitchen island—the same one Maverick had sucked my dick against—and stared at her name.Vivienne Lowell. Thestark reminder that I was lying to Maverick. I should’ve told him I was married the minute he told me to kiss him, but I didn’t.
I didn’t tell him before starting in the kitchen.
I didn’t tell him before we fell into bed together.
I didn’t tell him after or even before the second time.
And I didn’t tell him when he left in the middle of the night to go home.
Fuck, I should’ve told him.He deserved to know the kind of awful person I was. He deserved to know that I’d signed away my life—the same life I could’ve given him. And yet, some sick and twisted part of me wanted to believe I could make this work. I wanted to believe that we’d found our way to each other for a reason—that fate was responsible for bringing him to my door. That had to matter, right?
I needed it to matter.
When Vivienne’s name lit up my phone for an eighteenth time, I sighed and made myself answer. It was the part I had to play.
“Hello—”
“Where the hell have you been?” Vivienne demanded, practically screaming into the phone. I cringed at the volume and put it on speaker. I carefully set it on the counter so I didn’t have her angry voice right in my ear. “I have been calling and texting you, and nothing! What do I have to do? Email my own husband to get him to reply? What the fuck are you doing, Lee?”
God, I hated that she called me Lee.
“My mother destroyed the house—”
“Then you tear down the goddamn house!”
“I’m not tearing down the house, Vivienne,” I said. If I opted to tear down the house, I’d have to go back to the city. Going back meant leaving Maverick and going back to all the things slowly killing me. I couldn’t do it. “I’m working on clearing out the house. I got the first floor and the basement done. I’m working on the second and third floors.”
I didn’t even mention the garage or the attic.
“God, you are pathetic,” she snapped. Yeah, I knew I was. “It’s just a goddamn house, Lee! End it and come home.”
“No,” I replied, trying to sound firm about the issues. “It’s my childhood home. I have a lot invested in this house.”
“You and your fucking feelings.” I could feel her disdain from here. “Need I remind you that you have responsibilities here? That you have people who rely on you? Do you need a reminder of the life we built here?”
“Like your golf instructor?” I said the words before I could stop myself.
“You listen to me, Harley Lowell,” she began, and her dangerous tone made me flinch, “I don’t give a fuck about your feelings and your ridiculous need for emotional closure. I didn’t sign up to support you and your feelings. You belong here. End of story.”
“Vivienne—”
“Get it done and get your ass back here, or I’ll come burn the damn thing down myself.” A part of me believed she’d do it too. She was just crazy enough. “If you don’t get your head out of your ass and get back here soon, I will make sure you regret it.”
The line went dead before I could say anything. The abrupt silence was almost louder than her anger. It left me sitting there, stewing in the ugly feelings rising inside me. Every conversation with Vivienne was suffocating and made me feel smaller than I wanted to think I was. I’d chosen this, and I kept trying to remind myself of that.
And I had to go back to that at some point.
That truth was inevitable. It sat painfully in my chest, not just physically, but emotionally in a way that made the guilt of my choices sting harder. Not a single moment with Maverick felt wrong. It was the only thing that felt right.
And that was the problem.
