Mena opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. Behind Julian were two police officers.
One of the officers pushed past Julian and addressed Michael. “Dr. Marsh, the woman in the hospital room assigned to Priscilla Dumay is actually not Priscilla Dumay. Did you have her moved to a different room?”
Michael shook his head, frowning slightly. “No, Priscilla should still be in her room. What do you mean that’s not her?”
“I’m going to need you to come with me and bring all of your medical records for Priscilla Dumay with you,” the officer said.
“Sure thing,” Michael said, grabbing a tablet from the desk and heading toward the door.
Julian stepped in front of Michael, stopping him from passing. “What the fuck was going on in here? Why were you in here alone with Mena?”
Michael pushed past Julian, then turned and said, “I have every right to be in a room alone with my wife!”
Epilogue
Tension crawled through Julian’s muscles as he grabbed clothes from the chest in the closet and shoved them into the duffel bag. His phone beeped. Julian pulled it from the back pocket of his pants and glanced at the confirmation text from the airline. His flight was on time and would depart in three hours.
Not nearly soon enough.
The walls were closing in, suffocating and oppressive, threatening to crush him. He battled his memories, flashes of that day in the Aerie Islands. His anger hadn’t subsided. In two days, the inferno blazing within him had intensified. He had to get away before he did something he regretted.
Something he wouldn’t be able to take back.
If he decided he wanted to take it back.
Grabbing a couple pair of shoes, he pushed them into the overstuffed bag and wrestled with the zipper.
The scent of sandalwood and oranges wafted into the closet, haunting him. He could feel her watching him. But he couldn’t look at her. Not yet. Every time he stared in Mena’s face now, he saw another man’s wife. A woman who belonged to someone other than him. She’d stood before God, her family and friends, and pledged to love that man until death did them part. And they were still married. Even now. Even when she insisted that he and not that fucker was the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.
“How long will you be gone?” Mena asked, her voice low and soft.
Julian didn’t want to look at her puffy face, swollen from crying through the night. He didn’t want to be reminded that Mena was still the legally and lawfully wedded wife of Dr. Michael Marsh. The motherfucker in the pictures with Mena he’d received when he was in Tiverton. Broman’s doctor. The man who had his best friend’s life in his hands was the same man who had taken Mena away from him.
Buzzed from finishing two bottles of vodka as he slept on the balcony last night, Julian was numb. His heart had been ripped from his chest. He couldn’t remember how it felt to love Mena. How it felt to risk everything, his freedom, his life, for her.
“Don’t know,” Julian muttered, slinging the duffel bag over his shoulder. He turned and faced Mena as she stood in the doorway of the closet, blocking him from leaving. For the first time, she looked like a stranger to him. Too much he hadn’t known about her. Too much she hadn’t trusted him enough to share.
“What about us?” Mena asked.
“What about us,” Julian deadpanned, dropping the duffel bag onto the floor.
“I thought maybe we should talk more about everything,” Mena said, stumbling over her words.
They’d talked enough. He knew every detail about Mena’s marriage to the polygamist, Dr. Michael Marsh. She’d told him every excruciating detail from the moment she’d first met the bastard in Miami to the day his other wife showed up on her doorstep. The shock of finding out Michael had three other wives had destroyed her. She’d thought her marriage was void because of the other women. Coming to St. Basil had been like pushing the reset button on her life, putting everything behind her. But she’d been wrong. It wasn’t behind her.
Julian’s brain processed and understood what happened. But his heart had been decimated. She’d kept so much from him, never trusting him with her deepest and darkest moments. How could she say she loved him, but not truly have shared herself with him? Who the fuck had he fallen in love with? Did he even know?
He’d bared all of his sins, laid them before her so she’d know exactly who he was asking her to take a chance on. To fall in love with.
Mena hadn’t reciprocated. What else was she hiding from him? Things that she hadn’t been forced to admit.
“There’s nothing more to say, Mena. This isn’t a complicated situation. Legally, you’re still …” Julian paused, struck by how hard it was for him to say the words out loud. He took a deep breath and continued, “married to Dr. Michael Marsh. Now, I know why you turned down my marriage proposal.”
“You have to know that I wanted to say yes. There's nothing more that I want in this world than to be your wife.”
“But you can't be my wife. Not when you’re still his wife.”
Mena looked away, waving a hand absently under her running nose.
