“I’ve felt it for a while, but I didn’t want to put pressure on you.”
“Pressure like trapping me in a marriage I can’t leave without losing my house and my health? That kind of pressure?” Her tongue was barbed, her words slicing through the inches between them, but he didn’t back away.
“Take all of it. I don’t care. My place. Your place. Better yet, let’s sell it all and leave now.”
“What?” She choked on air.
His hands were trembling. He was in fight-or-flight mode, just like she was. But stone walls were erecting around her heart in real time. Brick by brick, mortar slathered in between, just like the hearth in the center of the room. Safe. Controlled. Isolated. Without them, the flames licking up her chest would turn her to ash. Loving with reckless abandon was a luxury she couldn’t afford.
“No,” she replied to his proposal.
“Why not? Because when we were strangers, we didn’t trust each other? After everything with Larry—”
“You’re not seriously comparing the two, are you? I madeonedecision without talking to you. I didn’t knowingly deceive you for months!”
“No, I’m not saying it’s the same.” He grabbed her hands as if to ground himself, and even now, as it was all falling apart, she wanted to be that for him. One last time.
His eyes held hers. “It’s just…now, I trust you. Over and over again, I prove to you that I trust you.”
“No,Itrusted you! I went into thisbelievingyou, and that’s not how I am. I don’t let myself do that. ButItrustedyou.”
“No, you didn’t,” he said quietly, twisting her heart in his hands. “You may have thought you were smarter than me, or more cunning than me, but you didn’t trust me. You’re still making me earn that. And I’ll gladly do it. I’ll spend the rest of my life earning it, but don’t act like you felt differently than I did when we first agreed to this plan.”
“Fine,” she relented. “But since then, you’ve had so many opportunities to tell me. You could’ve drawn up new papers, but you didn’t.”
He leaned in even closer until the corner of his mouth brushed against her cheekbone. “No, I couldn’t have,” he argued, his deep, resonant voice curling down her spine. “Because at some point, the thing I was afraid of losing was no longer the house. It was this. And I couldn’t bring myself to risk it.”
She felt her resolve weakening, pieces of her disappearing. If she let him keep talking, she might give in, but she’d never look at him the same way. No, she couldn’t listen to any more of this. She couldn’t bear it.
“That wasn’t for you to decide.” Tears fell freely down her face. There was no sense wiping them now.
“The only reason I’d ever want a divorce would be to do this all over again and marry you the right way.”
“Elliot, please just get out,” she begged.
“Lainey—”
“This place is still mine, right? Get out of my house.”
She turned her eyes to the hearth, not wanting to watch him go, or worse, expose the traitorous part of her that still hopedhe wouldn’t. The part of her that could forgive the version of him who would fight for what they had.
She listened to the sound of his computer clicking shut, to his footfalls, and to the rumble of his truck reversing out her drive and away from her life.
Chapter 23
Guest Cigarettes
74 Days until the End of Busy Season (or 74 Days until Lainey Goes Broke, on Top of Being Divorced, Homeless, and without Health Insurance)
Two minutes hadpassed since Elliot’s truck left the driveway. She knew because she was watching the second hand tick all the way around the clock. It was all she could bring herself to do, let time pass and simply exist. Existing seemed a challenging-enough task at the moment.
She didn’t hear Bree walk in, but arms wrapped around her from behind. A round belly pressed against her back.
Three minutes.
The clock blurred.
Bree led Lainey back to her car. Lainey hadn’t had the chance to explain that she’d evicted Elliot from her home, but she didn’t want to be physically alone anyway.
