Page 33 of Seasons of Sin

Saphire rolled her eyes. It was so like Anita to make this debacle about her, and yet Saphire had never realized how naturally selfish she was until then.

Darling, your husband says you’re not well. I’m worried. Call me. Mum.

I told your parents you’ve got a stomach bug and that you’re too sick to talk.. They don’t deserve to be put through hell with worry because you’re pissed at me.

Saffy, I married you because I love you. You are the woman I want by my side. You are the woman I want to have children with. You are the woman I want to grow old with. So I slept with someone else. Are you really going to let that ruin everything we’ve got??

I AM SORRY, OKAY????

He was sorry.

She got it.

But sorry for what? For cheating? For having her catch him?

How long had it been going on? How many times had they been together? Had Saphire climbed into bed, weary after a long day, and curled up on the same pillow Anita had buried her face into to soften her passion-fuelled screams?

There could be no forgiveness. Not without more information. And even then … could she be foolish enough to trust him enough? Or was she willing to accept that theirs was far from a perfect marriage but that she could make it work anyway?

Could she face the prospect of divorce, knowing that her parents would be proven right and their friends would be forced to choose between them? Could she divorce him and face life as what that made her? A divorcee at twenty-six, no job, no prospects of a job, living off alimony from a rich husband and money from her parents?

And could she leave Thaddeus?

It made her feel sick.

In that moment, Saphire despised herself, and her life. It yawned before, a chasm of boredom and pointlessness, a future she dreaded the very idea of stepping into.

“Nice view, Mrs Arana?”

She startled and spun around, her eyes showing a deep inner turmoil. He saw, he cared, but he didn’t visibly soften.

“I told you,” she said, turning back to the ocean. “Don’t call me that.”

He stayed where he was, reclined against the door with the appearance of nonchalance. “It is who you are.”

She gripped her phone in her hand, and the gesture called his attention to the device. He narrowed his eyes, prowling towards her. “Are you speaking with him?”

She lifted sad eyes to his face. He had been right about something. He shouldn’t have been dragged into the middle of her marriage. She was pouring misery onto him; and she had no business to do so.

“No,” she said simply. She held her phone out, silently inviting him to check for himself. She had no concerns about privacy; she didn’t want to keep any of the mess a secret from him. But Thaddeus brushed the gesture aside.

“I am not going to read your communications,” he said coldly, his tone making it obvious how beneath him such an invasive gesture would be. “What you and I were was founded on a lie, yet I believe you now. I have to believe you. I cannot continue if I think you capable of deceiving me with your every breath.”

“I’m not,” she promised desperately. “I’m so messed up though, MK. I don’t know what I should do. I don’t even know who I am anymore.” She sipped her tea again, for something to do, and lifted her knees to her chest. She rested her chin on them and sighed. “Jordan — that’s my husband — is one of these people who just radiates confidence.”

He stiffened. Did he want to hear about this bastard? No, and yet, morbid curiosity kept him fixed to the spot.

“There can only be one person like that in a relationship. He shone and I admired.” She shook her head. “I adored. He led, I followed. And now? I don’t know how to be that woman anymore.”

Thad turned his back on her. His chest was heaving with the effort of his harsh breaths. “You shouldneverhave been that woman,” he commented with acidity a minute later. “You are no wallflower. And someone who loved you would have pushed you to follow your own dreams without feeling any success of yours would diminish theirs.”

“He didn’t make me like this,” she defended out of habit.

“That’s naïve. Of course he did. You don’t think it suited him to have a beautiful, obedient, loving girlfriend and wife? You don’t think he got off on knowing that you were sitting at home waiting for him while he screwed his receptionist, his accountant, your best friend and God knows who else?” She physically recoiled from his hateful words. “You do not believe it suited him to have you with no job of your own to distract you and engulf you, no friends he did not know?”

“You make it sound like he was abusive,” she snapped, her teeth chattering despite the warmth of the night.

“It is abuse,” he agreed grimly. “He married you knowing he would never uphold his end of the bargain.”