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“The fuck it is.”
“Saying I love you doesn’t just make everything better. It doesn’t erase the betrayal, Bennett.”
“I know there’s still something between us, Olivia.”
“Sex?” I snort. “Yeah, no shit. You can still make me come, congratulations.” I know I’m lashing out, but I’m angry that he thinks that a few orgasms and telling me he loves me makes everything better. That he doesn’t understand that lies and betrayal and infidelity are tied up in our marriage, and although he doesn’t remember that, I still do.
I remember crying myself to sleep night after night. Drinking myself almost comatose more than once. I remember Alyssa coming over and forcing me into the shower. My mother forcing food down my throat. I remember the fleeting thoughts that maybe things would be easier if I could just not feel anymore. I remember the sleeping pills and the Xanax I’d essentially prescribed myself after stealing one of Alyssa’s prescription sheets.
The thing about this heartbreak is it consumed my life. Sometimes all I could do was focus on my breathing from one second to the next. And the time between those seconds where I was forced to take another breath felt like an eternity.
I’d been broken in the wake of his betrayal and only in the past month had I started feeling like myself only to potentially be thrust back into our relationship again.
“I’m scared you’ll do it to me again. What happens the next time I shut down, or shut you out, or hell, what if I can’t ever have children? I take responsibility for my shitty communication skills, but we can’t know what the future holds and I can’t be panicking that you’re going to stick your dick into someone else the second you can’t handle your marriage.”
“You want to talk about not being fair…?”
I put up my hand, stopping him. “The only reason you say it’s not fair is because you can’t remember. It doesn’t mean shit, Bennett. It was still you. You’re not a different person. You’re still the man that broke my heart.”
His shoulders sag and his head lowers in defeat. “So, that’s it? I thought…”
“I didn’t say no to…” I swallow. “But you backing me into a corner when I’m still trying to get an understanding of my feelings isn’t helping.”
“I would never cheat on you. I don’t…I swear it will never happen again; I know it doesn’t mean much. But the idea that I even did in the first place makes me sick.” He’s in my space, running his hands up my arms. “I love you…so fucking much.”
“I know you do.”
“Will you ever love me again?” he asks and my heart pounds in my chest as I think about what I should say.
“I do love you,” I tell him, and his eyes light up at my words. “But…I love me too, and you don’t even want to know what the last six months have been like. I wouldn’t survive losing you a second time.”
I drop to my chair after perhaps the most mind-numbingly boring meeting of my life. And after the interaction with Bennett earlier, my head feels like it’s about to explode. I became mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted the second my body came down from the high brought on by Bennett’s mouth.
Sex is easy. It’s everything else that’s complicated.
I’m about to call Alyssa and vent and eventually confess to the fact that Bennett has spent more time between my legs the last twelve hours than not, when my assistant peeks her head in my office. “Hey,” she whispers.
Holly is a recent college graduate with a penchant for fashion but also for sleeping with married men, so naturally, I side eye her.
“I’m not here.” I groan.
“You sure? Because your sex on a stick boyfriend sure is.” My head jerks up, slightly irritated that she referred to Bennett as one, my boyfriend when no one in the office had any idea what had been going on obviously, and two, sex on a stick. I can feel the green blaring in my gaze as I narrow my eyes.
What is Bennett even doing here anyways?
Apologize?
Kiss and makeup?
Fuck and makeup?
No, Liv. No sex!
“Fine, send him back.”
I’m instantly reminded of all the times Bennett showed up at my office for an afternoon fuck.
My door opens and shuts, and before I can tell my intruder that now really isn’t the time, a familiar cologne surrounds me.
