Page 48 of If I Didn’t Have You

Assuming she was upstairs, I headed over to pour myself a drink, only to find her sitting in the corner with a glass of her own.

“I didn’t think you would come home tonight,” she murmured.

“Just went out to clear my head.”

She nodded, peering down into the glass as if it would give her answers. I’d never seen her like this before, so silent and angry. It filled the room, seeping into my pores, settling deep in my gut. I knew this was bad. Hell, I’d known it the moment I walked out of the house, but there was still a tiny part of me that hoped we could laugh it off and go back to…

Well, go back to the way we used to be.

“Clara—”

“I want you to stay in the mobile home tonight.”

Her words tore through me like a tornado, ripping me to shreds. “Say that again?”

Cold, unfeeling eyes stared back at me, and I sucked in a ragged breath, sure I would die right there on the spot.

“I can’t do this anymore. You’re so…angry all the time.”

Her words were nothing more than a whisper, but I felt every one like a knife slicing me open.

“I don’t know where my husband is, or who replaced him. This…shell of a man you’ve become is just too much.”

Slowly, I lowered myself into the chair, knowing if I didn’t sit, I would fall over. Never, in all my life, did I imagine that these words would leave her lips. Yet, I was sure I heard them.

“I’m not leaving.” The words were solid. True. “I will never leave this house, or you.”

“You already have,” she whispered as tears spilled down her cheeks.

“I’m right here. Right fucking here!”

“No, some stranger is in your place, sleeping next to me at night, and walking in your shoes. The man I married would never accuse me of flirting with someone else or look at me the way you did tonight.” She slammed down her glass and got to her feet. “The man I married would have never hit his own son!”

Shame washed over me, but the anger rose from deep in my gut—that natural instinct to fight back and refuse to take all the blame for what was happening.

“The man I was? What about the woman I married? Since when do you bat your eyes at other men? Or cook them meals to get your way?”

“Since always! That’s how we make deals around here! I do it for you!”

“Yeah? And what’s with all this gym time? Who the fuck are you trying so hard to look good for?”

She flinched back at my tone. Maybe I was crossing a line, but I was already there. I might as well go all the way.

“You know, I didn’t say anything when you wanted to make improvements to the house. It’s your money⁠—”

“It’s our money,” she interjected.

“It was never my fucking money!” I roared. “That money was given to you for the day I failed, when you had to walk away. Well, I guess now’s your chance. You’ve already bought new clothes, started working out… What’s next? Did you already have your eye on someone in town?”

“Go to hell!” she shouted, tears spilling down her cheeks.

“I’m already there, baby. One foot in every fucking day I walk around this place, watching my ranch go down the drain. I proved them all right, huh, baby? They all said I would amount to nothing, and they finally got their reckoning.”

The sarcastic laughter that dripped from my lips was nothing compared to the stabbing pain I felt in my chest, knowing the life I once promised her was gone. Everything we’d worked so hard for was gone, and now she was replacing it bit by bit with the money her grandparents left for her.

“They were wrong,” she whispered. “I knew it then, and I still know it now, but if we have any chance of making this work, something has to change.”

“Well, you’re doing a bang-up job of that.”