Page 74 of Wreckage and Rain

Vivienne's hands are trembling. A tremor so slight I almost miss it. That is who she is to me now. Vivienne.

"You watched it happen. For over a year. You watched Sonny put Cheyenne in my path and you watched me drift and you watched my wife stand alone at every event and sit at the end of every table and you never said a word. You could have stopped it with one conversation. One phone call. One honest sentence."

"Colt..."

"Instead you served cream-colored compliments and told her she was 'brave' for wearing color to a party. You made her feellike a stain on your furniture. And the whole time, you knew what was being done to her. To us.

Vivienne's chin lifts. The aristocratic reflex.

"She's common, Colt." The mask slips. The real Vivienne underneath. "She's a waitress's daughter from a diner. She will never..."

"She's the best person I've ever known." I stand. Button my jacket. The Bennet in me, still buttoning jackets when the conversation is over. "And you treated her like she was beneath you. Every day. For five years."

"Where are you going?"

"Away from here."

"Colt. Please. We can discuss this. We can..."

"There's nothing to discuss."

I walk out through the garden gate. I don't look back at the house. Not at the magnolia. Not at the fountain. Not at the roses Vivienne tends with more care than she's ever given her son.

In the car, I call my lawyer.

"We're moving. Everything we discussed. The SEC filing and the criminal referral against Sonny and Cheyenne."

"And Bennet Ventures?"

"Priority one. The separation documents are ready. I want it legally independent before the investigation goes public. Clean break. My work, my capital, my name."

"Understood."

I hang up. Drive to Dom's. The bridge over the Cooper River is ahead of me and across it, the interstate, and beyond that, Chicago.

Between here and Summer.

I grip the steering wheel and I think about what Dom said. Lead with accountability, not exoneration. The drugging is a fact. The conspiracy is a fact. But my relationship with Cheyenne, the late nights, the cancelled plans, the slow voluntary surrender of myattention to a woman who was using me. That was my failure. Made with a working mind and free will.

When I walk into her apartment in Chicago, I have to present her with two things and not let the drugging overshadow how I treated her and replaced her for months. One does not excuse the other.

I was assaulted.

And I betrayed you.

The second doesn't get erased by the first.

My assault was what they did to me. The betrayal was what I did, what I chose. Each one is mine to carry. The order matters more than the words.

If I lead with what was done to me, I am asking her to mother me through it. She is my wife. The wife I failed before anyone laid a finger on me. I am not going to use the assault as a shield against the betrayal. This is the hardest thing I have ever had to do.

She deserves every piece of it. I'm done being the man who gives her less than she deserves.

Chapter 19: Honest

Summer

I've been in Chicago for two months now. Words are flowing out of me. Three thousand words a day and I'm writing the meanest book of my career. The protagonist burns down everything she loved and walks into the smoke without looking back. I don't know yet if I will let her live.