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He didn’t look at her. “I am walking out the door in three minutes unless I hear something that –miraculously- explains why you’ve been staying in a hotel with a man you went to school with. Why you’ve been on trips together. Why you’ve been wining and dining your way around London with a man other than me.”
Bianca squeezed her eyes shut. She’d been so happy just a minute earlier, but in the back of her mind, she’d always known this conversation was inevitable. The burning pain of finally having the axe drop was accompanied by a strange sense of relief. Lying to the man she adored had been agony. At least that was over.
“I…” she began, then opened her eyes, to stare straight into Niko’s furious face. This was the man who had taught her what love meant. Whose arms had made her feel safe. His body commanded hers in a way she didn’t know possible. And now he was looking at her as though she was some stranger he didn’t understand. Her courage, thin as it was, deserted her completely.
“All you’ve wanted for the last year is a baby and now I find out you’ve been whoring yourself out to ex-boyfriends in my absence? Mio Dio, I’ve never felt so furious.” Only he sounded calm. And contained rage was far, far worse than the yelling, screaming, angsting kind.
Her stomach flipped over at the mention of the baby they both wanted with all their hearts, and guilt, so real she could taste it, ran through her. There was no explanation for what she’d done. All she could do was apologize and hope he loved her enough to forgive her. Because believing she’d had an affair was actually preferable to the truth.
With angst and pain in her eyes, she stood and put her hands on his shoulders. When he would have pulled away, she shook her head. “I love you, Niko. You are my heart and soul, as you have always been. Isn’t that enough?”
He recoiled, physically rejecting her. “You don’t know the meaning of love. Please don’t insult us both by pretending we are some great romance.” He shook out of her hands and paced the room. “I’ve seen our credit card statements. The first time you stayed at Claridge’s was only one month after we got back from our honeymoon.” He dragged long hands through his mop of dark curls, his expression tense, and watchful.
“It’s really not like that,” she said with a shake of her head.
“Oh, I got one of my security team to ask around. I’ve seen the surveillance footage. And fancy that! There you are, checking in with one Simon Cave.”
Bile rose in her chest. She remembered that day. She’d gone there to end it. To tell Simon she couldn’t do it anymore, but he hadn’t let her.
And now, finally, Niko raised his voice, cutting off when she tried to formulate an explanation. “Don’t! There is nothing you can say to make this acceptable. I appreciate you didn’t intend to get caught, but you have been. Red handed.” He strode across and stared bitterly down at her. “How could you do it? I never thought you capable of such bald-faced disloyalty.”
One silent tear trickled down her cheek and he dashed it away impatiently. “You don’t get to cry,” he said harshly, his eyes flecked with anger. “You don’t get to regret. You made your bed, and now you have to lie in it.”
He was so close that his firmly muscled chest was almost touching her breasts. Both were breathing raggedly, fiercely, passionately, and as always that current of electricity arced between them, hot and all-consuming. Even now, in the midst of the only real argument they’d ever had, he longed to pull her to him, and kiss all of this away. His weakness for this woman was not acceptable.
“I want a divorce, cara. And when I get back tonight, I want every trace of you out of this house.”
“You can’t be serious?” She said, her limbs feeling oddly tingly, her head clouded with confusion. It was a surreal, out of body sort of conversation to be having.
“I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life. Marrying you was a mistake. The whole time!” He spoke loudly now, and she knew that he was barely controlling his temper. With a monumental effort, he lowered his voice. “You’ve been lying to me this whole time. I could never love you after this, Bianca. I could never live with you. You know enough of who I am, and what matters most to me, to know that this is the end.”
“I don’t want a divorce.” She sobbed, grabbing the lapels of his shirt with both hands. “I can’t explain about Simon,” she said honestly, “I promise, it isn’t what you think.”
Niko’s laugh was harsh. “Do you take me for a complete idiot, Bianca?” He expelled an angry breath. “Fine. I’ll humor you. Tell me why you were checking into a hotel with another man.”
The truth burned at the tip of her tongue. Bianca had never told anyone, except Simon, what she had done, and he’d held it over her ever since. What if Niko didn’t understand?
“I promise, I didn’t cheat on you,” she repeated weakly.
Slowly, Niko unpeeled her fingers from his shirt, and ostentatiously padded down the creases her grip had made. When he stared at her in the face, his expression was one of disdain, and worse, disgust.
“Get a lawyer, Bianca. We’re getting divorced.”
She jumped as she heard the front door slam behind him.
Bianca stood in the middle of their ground floor lounge room, completely immobile, for at least half an hour. She simply stood and concentrated on breathing, because certainly, without effort, she might actually have fallen to the floor in a swoon.
She was s
haking from head to toe, and yet, as if possessed in some way, or possibly in denial, she returned to the Christmas tree and methodically unhooked each decoration, placing them back in their separate cases. It was a soothing job, and she did it without paying any real attention. The whole time she worked, her mind ticked over their conversation.
She had two choices. She could stay, and force him to listen to her. But that would involve telling him the truth. That she’d selfishly given up a pregnancy, many years earlier, because the circumstances were totally wrong for her. She had never forgiven herself for that decision, and she couldn’t expect him to either. And even if he could forgive the termination, how would he handle the knowledge that the father had been blackmailing her for three years, and she’d never confided in her own husband? No, Niko was too proud. He would deem her secrecy over the bribery as almost more offensive to his male pride than an actual affair.
Her second option was to walk away from him. Knowing there could be no future, even if she confided the truth in him, she realized it wasn’t a second option at all, but rather the only option.
Like making a really great stock, she threw all her thoughts together, into one big confused pot of boiling emotion. She simmered and simmered as slowly she removed the evidence of the happy Christmas they’d just shared. And she tried to ignore the memories but with every decoration she removed, they haunted her. It had been a beautiful Christmas. The stockings brimming with silly gifts, the Panettone they’d feasted on until they were queasy, the matching pajamas she’d bought that Niko had surprised her by wearing. But as her mind simmered and stewed, only the bare bones of comprehension remained. Bianca had never believed she deserved Niko. When she chose to end her pregnancy, all those years ago, she’d cast a fateful die. One that meant good things shouldn’t happen to her. She’d been living on borrowed time, and finally, destiny had come to collect, by ripping Niko and their marriage away from her.
She stacked the Christmas decorations in the attic, then slipped her wedding band off her ring finger and placed it on Niko’s bedside table. It was such a beautiful piece of jewelry, but she had no regrets in leaving it. It was just a thing. It was nothing compared to the man who had set her soul on fire.
