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But one tiny mistake on his part—more of a misstep, really—and Delphi had bailed on him, on their marriage. Just packed her bags and left. Exactly as her mother had done to Dan.
Only instead of taking fourteen years, it had taken her just shy of nine months.
Eyes narrowing, he stared at the Delphi-free queue of people waiting to be picked up.
At first, he’d thought she just needed time to cool off, and he’d assumed that she would go home to Bedford—to the ranch. But she hadn’t. As he’d found out when Dan had called the next day and it had become obvious that Delphi was not with her family and nor had she told them about the row.
He felt a flicker of exasperation. That was all he’d thought it was then. A row. Although ‘row’ made it sound as if they had shouted at each other, when in reality Delphi had said so little it hardly constituted a conversation, let alone an argument.
It hadn’t occurred to him that he was witnessing the last gasp of their marriage.
His mouth twisted. For most of their relationship Delphi had made him feel as if he was cross-examining her in the witness box. Everything had to be coaxed out of her, and even then she held things back. But she had been ruthless about ending things between them. Having made her decision unilaterally, she had left.
Walking into their empty apartment, he had felt stricken, shocked, and her absence had been made all the more devastating by the sudden rush of memories it had provoked of coming home as a child to find his father gone.
But as the days had passed and it had become clear that Delphi was gone for good, his shock and misery had been consumed by a black, all-consuming rage that she could just walk away and move on with her life without him.
Not that he would have had her back. He was done with it. With her. With her stubborn refusal to talk, to share herself with him. What was the point of being married to someone who felt like that?
No, divorce was the only option. His one regret was that he couldn’t serve her with the papers first.
But he was not done with his errant wife just yet.
Glancing again at the queue of people, he felt his stomach twist. It was pure coincidence that he had been so close geographically when that cowboy had called him and told him Delphi was in hospital. Pure chance he had even picked up the call.
It had been an unknown number. Ordinarily he would have let it ring out, go to messages, but something—some sixth sense, maybe—had moved him to answer.
The knot in his stomach tightened painfully. It was impossible to give a name to the tangle of emotions he’d felt as he’d walked into the hospital just under an hour ago and seen Delphi sitting on the bed talking to some doctor. Exasperation. Disbelief. Relief that he had finally found her and that her injuries were minor.
Only now she was gone again. And his relief was long gone too, swallowed up by a hot, pulsing fury that she had done it again. She had walked out of his life. Sneaked off when his back was turned.
His jaw clenched.
But surely someone must have seen something? he thought irritably, glancing over to where a man on crutches was now joining the end of the queue. In that dress and those heels Delphi was hardly invisible. Remembering how the fabric had flared over the curves of her bottom, he felt heat pulse across his skin, accompanied by a little drumroll of jealousy.
She never wore dresses or heels. So why was she now? And where was her wedding ring?
The pale indentation on her finger had taunted him. Had she already found someone else? Was running away from the promises she’d made not the only thing she had in common with her mother?
He pictured a man holding Delphi’s ringless hand, wrapping his arm around her waist as he pulled her closer. Had she replaced him already?
A rush of fury—male, possessive, visceral—pushed everything else from his mind, so all that remained was a savage, mindless urge to find whoever he was and batter him into the ground.
Was that why she was so eager to get a divorce?
Back inside the hospital, he had lied to Delphi. He had, of course, seen the papers sent by her lawyers, but even just thinking about them made the pounding inside his skull ramp up a notch. And not just because it stung, imagining himself being so easily and swiftly replaced.
Being the first person in his family to get divorced was not what he’d had in mind when he’d dreamed of doing something unique...something that would grab his father’s attention. But he was done with trying to make his marriage work. He couldn’t—not on his own. And he was on his own. It had just taken her leaving for him to realise that.
He wanted this divorce as much as she did—maybe even more. But right now, she was still his wife, and she had one more task to perform before he dismissed her, and she became nothing more than a faint crease pressed into a single page of his life.
Jaw clenching, he walked to the beginning of the meandering queue.
‘Excuse me...’ He smiled stiffly at a woman with her foot in a cast. ‘I’m looking for my wife. I was supposed to meet her out here. I don’t suppose you’ve seen her. She’s about so high.’ He raised his hand to just below his shoulder. ‘Short pinkish blonde hair. Wearing a white dress.’
The woman nodded. ‘She went that way,’ she said, pointing over Omar’s shoulder, and then she frowned. ‘But she didn’t look like she was waiting for nobody. In fact, she seemed in kind of a hurry.’
Of course she was, Omar thought, striding swiftly away from the hospital.
