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“You’re telling me,” she snapped, baring her teeth, “that while I was cutting your niece’s umbilical cord, while I was laundering your dirty money”—she began to flit around the living room, chaotic and wild—“you were fucking someone else?”
As she paced, the sun rose above the skyscrapers of the Upper East Side. It was bright and hot, outlining her willowy silhouette underneath my shirt. She was ethereal, her hands balled into fists at her sides. Her long legs forged a path, searing betrayal into the white rug. I snapped my eyes shut, making sure this was the last memory I had of her. It was tragic, but beautiful in its own way. Tiny, furious Emma and the view of the awakening city behind her.
“Yes,” I confirmed, the lie burning a hole in my tongue. “It was a lapse in judgment.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Jack!” She whirled, throwing her hands in the air. “Why not tell me when you got back? Why pretend to be in this relationship when you clearly checked out months ago?”
I couldn’t hear my own voice over the pounding of my pulse. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“You son of a bitch!” She stalked in my direction, pointing her finger at my chest. “I trusted you. I closed myself off from everything and everyone after Nate’s suicide. Three years I grieved, then you came along and pried my chest open with a fucking crowbar. And for what? So you could turn around and stomp on it?”
“I’m sorry, baby, I—”
“No!” she shrieked, angrier than I’d ever seen. She no longer looked like the adorable tiger cub with its fur puffed up. I wouldn’t be surprised if steam started rising from her skin. “You don’t have the right to call me that anymore. I was yours, Jack. I stood by your side through everything. All your controlling bullshit and half-answers and secretive past.”
I bit the inside of my cheek, drawing blood while she continued her attack.
“God, and you were so upset about Jamie making a move on me when you’ve been seven inches inside another woman!”
Emma crossed the living room. I hadn’t seen the pair of dark jeans hanging from the couch, but she slid into them quickly. She shoved her cell into her back pocket, coming to a halt in front of my steel form.
“If I mean so little to you, why did you even get that tattoo?”
I was blocking her path to the elevator. Despite my resolve and what I’d just told her, I didn’t want to let her go. I wanted to take it all back. Tell her I was lying. That I was an asshole for even trying to push her away.
But I didn’t.
“Because I love you,” I said, but she was having none of it.
“Fuck you, Jack!” Her anger rolled off her in waves, and it smelled like apples and lavender. “You don’t cheat on someone you love.”
Taking my silence as an answer, she scoffed and pushed me aside, her hand landing on the dove tattoo. My skin blazed with heat where she touched. I reached out involuntarily, catching her as she brushed past.
She stopped, looking down at my hand on her wrist, her teeth peeled back in disgust.
“Don’t ever touch me again,” she growled, ripping herself from my grip.
I let go, my lips pinned shut. I was going to lose it any second. I could already feel the separation snapping my heart in two. I was a cancer in Emma’s life. I’d latched on and sucked everything good from her—her energy, her innocence, her softness. I was changing her and I didn’t know if it was a good thing. I had to end this before she had nothing left. I’d cut myself off from her, even if it killed me.
“I love you,” I whispered as she got into the lift.
She faced me, pushing the button for the doors to close. Her bottom lip trembled as she took a deep, shaky breath. “I hate you, Jack.”
Once I was sure she’d descended a few floors, I fell to my knees, pressing my bruised knuckles into the marble ground. My soul was being torn in two, half of it plummeting to street level with Emma. She’d always carry the best pieces of me, the parts I hadn’t known existed until I met her.
Emma had kept me sane over the past couple of months. I wanted to be a better man for her. I’d been holding onto her by my fingernails, but I had to let her go. It was time to shut it off, to give in to the monster I truly was.
I pounded my fist into the floor, releasing an exhausted groan. “Goddamn it!”
I would give myself an hour to grieve.
Then I would find the bogeyman and finish what I had started.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Emma
My legs buckled. I landed in a heap on the elevator’s cool floor, huddled in the corner. I bit down on my kneecap, letting out a violent scream.
