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She didn’t answer, her breath hitching as she came all over my hand, crying to God instead of murmuring my name like normal.
“Please be inside me,” she’d begged, still riding her orgasm out on the heel of my hand, taking what she wanted because I’d given it to her.
“No.” I’d backed up. “I’m going to a hotel.”
“Please don’t leave.” She’d crossed her arms over her breasts—a reminder some fucker had touched her there, too.
“You hurt me.” My voice had been as raw as my emotions. “I can’t even look at you right now. All these years of putting up with . . .” Even then, even fucking then, I hadn’t been able to hurt her in retaliation.
But maybe I should’ve spewed the ugly shit that’d been on the tip of my tongue? Yell at her for all the times I’d sacrificed my wants and needs for the sake of hers, knowing she didn’t give a damn about the consequences of what years of that had done to me.
The control. The manipulation. The gaslighting. All of it.
Fuck, I was burning angry all over thinking about it now.
After she’d recovered her dignity and demanded I stay to work things out, I’d chosen to keep my mouth shut, packed a bag, and left.
The next day, the Agency had called me into work and ordered me to London for a job in coordination with MI6. Then Zoey’s fiancé died and seeing her lose the love of her life made me realize I should give my marriage one more chance before I let it die.
I’d come home from that mission feeling defeated and had forgiven Rebecca. Maybe not in my heart, but I’d said the words. It took me months to share a bed with her again, finally convincing myself she’d made a drunken mistake, and it never would’ve happened otherwise.
“Carter?” Rebecca’s timid voice, which wasn’t the norm for her, brought me back to the room in Hungary. “Did you hear me? You haven’t said anything.”
“No, I didn’t hear you. What’d you say?”
“I said of course there’s no one else.” Her pause gave me fucking pause. “The things I want to talk about can’t be discussed over the phone.”
“Then get on a secure line. We’re doing this tonight. I’m not waiting,” I hissed. When she remained quiet, some dark part of me took over and I whispered, “Sometimes I really fucking hate you.”
I could hear her soft breath of surprise float through the line before she mumbled, “Hold on, someone’s beeping in.”
“Damnit, Rebecca, don’t answer that.” I was pissed all over again. About her unfaithfulness, her brushing me off now, and preemptively angry for whatever she planned to tell me. “We’re in the middle of something. If you care about our marriage, then put me first. Put us first.”
“Oh-okay.” Then the doorbell rang in the background. “Someone’s here.”
“Don’t answer it. Who the hell would come this late?”
“It’s probably Susan Mackenzie. She left me a voicemail earlier saying she wanted to meet up. I forgot with our, um, conversation.”
“The call just now, was that from her, too?”
“Well, no. It was unknown.”
“Something’s not right,” I said on instinct, a bad feeling in my gut. “Go to the safe room and call the police.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” She paused for a second. “Just one?—”
That bloodcurdling scream from my wife was the last thing I heard before my world stopped as I roared out her name.
8
DIANA
WASHINGTON, D.C.
“Will you marry me, Diana Mackenzie?” William was on one knee.
Is the room spinning? I blinked, chills crisscrossing every inch of my body as I stared at my boyfriend, proposing in the living room of my mother’s Georgetown home, knowing damn well she had to have helped him orchestrate the moment. She probably chose the diamond that’d make sinking to the bottom of the ocean happen that much faster. And that was how this moment made me feel right now. Like I was drowning.
