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“It wasn’t you. It was me.”
That has her freezing, brows shooting up nearly to her hairline. “It wasn’t you. It was me? Seriously?” She shoves me away, picks up the wine glass again. “You’re using that fucking line right now.”
“It’s n-not a line,” I stammer, heart filling with ice. This isn’t my friend, my wife, my lover. This is Brit Plantain, the fearsome hockey player who will let nothing stand in her way.
Even me.
“Bullshit,” she snaps. “Do you know how long I wrestled with all of that—the pressure of mom and wife, of doing my fucking job, of being woman enough for a man like you? And thinking all this time that I failed, that I wasn’tgood enough or pretty enough or attractive enough or feminine enough. Thinking that I was fucking up every single aspect of my life, and now—” She throws a hand out, sloshing wine over the rim of the glass. “Now you’re telling me you made a mistake. A mistake!”
I snag the glass from her again, setting it on the table before reaching for her.
Only, she bats my hands away. “Don’t touch me.”
Normally, I wouldn’t push this, but the pain in her eyes, the fragile way she’s holding herself…I know I can’t let that distance remain, not when I’ve let it grow and burn and fester inside her.
So, I ignore her and draw her close, pinning her arms down at her sides, tucking her against me. “It’s not bullshit when I say that I haven’t so much as looked at another woman since you’ve been in my life. You’re it for me, baby.”
“Then why—” Her voice breaks. “Why did you do this to us?”
I still, stomach knotting, bile burning the back of my throat.
And I know…I know I have to tell her.
All of it.
Not the half-truths and easy explanations.
The last card I’ve been holding close.
The one that’s?—
Well, the one that was the sole reason I ever considered leaving the woman I loved.
I open my mouth. “Baby, I?—”
And the doorbell rings.
Thirty
Brit
Finally.
Finally, I felt like we were getting somewhere.
And the fucking doorbell rings.
“Ignore it,” I whisper.
Stefan is so far from the confident, self-assured man I know as he stumbles through his next words. “I—sweetheart, it’s not what you think—or not all that you think?—”
The doorbell goes again, paired with a knock this time.
And…fuck.
I sigh.
Because we live in a gated community. Because it’s eight-thirty at night, and if someone is knocking on my door, it’s not because they’re selling vacuums. It’s likely important.
