CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The front door clicks shut just after ten, and I hear his familiar heavy footsteps in the hallway. I've been sitting in our living room for hours, staring at the replaced window pane that still doesn't match the others, my mind churning through every lie, every excuse, every moment I should have questioned but didn't.
Reeves appears in the doorway, and the sight of him makes my chest tighten. He looks exhausted, his shoulders slumped, dark circles under his eyes like he hasn't slept in days. His hair is disheveled, his clothes wrinkled, and there's a defeated quality to the way he carries himself that I've never seen before.
"Hey," he says quietly, not quite meeting my eyes.
I don't waste any time, and I don't mince words. I'm so angry, I can barely breathe. My breath comes in short,sharp bursts, and I can feel my heart hammering against my chest so hard I'm surprised he can't hear it from across the room.
The anger is so intense, so all-consuming, that for a moment I think I might actually pass out from the sheer force of it coursing through my veins. "How can you call me a whore when you've been cheating for two years?"
The words come out steadier than I expected, cutting through the silence like a blade. His face goes completely white, and he stops moving entirely, one hand still gripping the doorframe.
"What?"
"Melissa. Bartender. Two years." Each word drops between us like a stone into still water. "Ring any bells?"
His jaw works silently for a moment, and I watch the denial die in his eyes before it can even form on his lips. His shoulders sag further, and he looks suddenly older, defeated.
"How did you—"
"Does it matter?" Tears start burning behind my eyes, but I blink them back. "Just tell me. Is it true?"
He runs a hand through his hair, a gesture I used to find endearing, now making me sick. "Yeah. It's true."
The admission hits me like a physical blow, even though I was expecting it. Tears spill down my cheeks before I can stop them, and I hate that I'm crying, hate that even now, after everything, this still hurts so much.
"Do you love her?" The question tears out of me before I can stop it. "Do you love her the way I love Caine?"
His eyes snap to mine at that, and something flickers across his face—surprise, maybe, and sorrow. I can see it in the way his shoulders have dropped, in the hollow look that's settled behind his dark eyes.
This isn't shock at being caught—this is the relief of a man who's been carrying a secret so heavy it was crushing him. He knows, just like I know, that we've both been living a lie for months now, maybe even years.
We've been two people going through the motions of a marriage while our hearts wandered elsewhere, and now that the truth is finally out in the open, there's no pretending we can go back to what we were.
"I don't know," he whispers. "I still love you, Jenna."
I think about all those trips to Boston, the weekend conferences that seemed to multiply over the past two years. The way he'd come home with that strange energy, guilty and distant but also somehow lighter, like he'd been living a different life for a few days.
"All those work trips," I say, my voice breaking. "How could I have been so stupid?"
He shakes his head and has no words. He knows he's in the wrong. He knows he's done worse than I have.
"I want you out," I say, matter-of-factly. "As soon as possible."
I wonder where he'll go. He'll probably run straight to his mistress. And at this point, I don't even care.
All I care about is Liam.
"Why should I move out. We're even as far as I'm concerned," he says, straightening up slightly, like he's grasping for some kind of moral high ground. "We both cheated. We both fucked up."
The audacity of it steals my breath. "Even? You think we're even?"
"Aren't we?" His voice carries that defensive edge I know so well, the one that used to make me back down, make me question myself. "You slept with him more than once, and you're apparently in love—if that's not a betrayal, I don't know what is—"
"Don't." I hold up my hand, stopping him mid-sentence. "Don't you dare compare what I did to what you've been doing for two years."
He takes a step closer, and I see something desperate flicker in his dark eyes. "Jenny Bee, come on. We can work through this. People make mistakes—"
