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“You were never there to talk to, Sly. How could I ask you anything? And, those last two years, it was like you weren’t even there, in here—” she poked her own chest, right above her heart— “anymore. It was like you checked out. Like you never even loved me in the first place.”
And there it was. The truth poured the guilt into his soul like boiling acid into an open body cavity.
He hadn’t loved Loni—not like he should have as her husband. He never had. He never would. Theirs was a marriage based on grief. Pain. Loss. He was a fool to believe that marrying her would appease the sickening sense of self-loathing, the need for punishment, the desperate yearning for forgiveness that would never come. Because the one he wanted forgiveness from was dead.
When he’d started dating her, it was a natural progression from two friends sharing the burden of abject loss into something sexual. They lost themselves in sexual pleasure to hide away from the pain. The more they fucked and forgot, the more it seemed like they could survive without Jake. The more they lied to themselves about what they felt, the more it seemed like the next step into marriage was natural, too. So, he proposed, believing it was the right thing to do. He would be taking care of Loni, Jake’s twin sister, just as he promised a dying man, and he could feel like he was doing what Jake would want him to do. Sly felt as though he owed Jake for killing him. He’d murdered his best friend…the least he could do was give his sister a good, happy life, right?
Wrong.
So wrong.
Too late, he learned that guilt and grief were no basis for a lasting marriage. Between him and Loni, nothing held them together outside their mutual pain and the pleasure of sex. They had nothing in common—not the same interest, the same friends, the same ambitions. They couldn’t even hold a conversation without it devolving into reminiscing about their shared childhoods, where the pain lived, or heading into the bedroom to bang out whatever was bothering them that day. Eventually, they stopped talking to one another altogether. They stopped fucking after four years—not that Sly minded all that much. The sex had been hot but empty. There hadn’t been any true intimacy between them, even in the beginning. It was just a way to satisfy the body while numbing the mind. Sex for the sake of sex. Something he could have gotten anywhere. But he wasn’t that type of man, a man who could break his vows and cheat. So, he learned to deaden the need for a woman’s body by working harder, longer, and driving himself to collapse in the gym. For a year, he killed himself to stay true to a marriage he resented.
And then…she asked for a divorce. He could be free. And once he was free, he fell headlong into Sallina Mendez. He’d never felt more alive, more real, more content than when he was with her. His Sally. His one true love. With her, he felt what he should have felt for Loni. With her, he knew what it really meant to be in love rather than in lust. With her, he experienced pleasure far beyond the physical. It was metaphysical—his heart and soul. Sally was his reason for being.
And she probably hated him now.
“Loni,” he finally found the words to say, though they were inadequate, “you know I love you. I’ve loved you since we were both in wearing braces, skinning our knees in your backyard.”
She sniffed, a single tear sliding down her cheek. She wiped it away angrily.
“That’s not the same, and you know it! Why did you marry me if you weren’t in love with me?”
They both knew the answer to that one…but he couldn’t stomach speaking the answer out loud.
Instead, he steered the conversation to where it needed to go—the end.
“It didn’t help that you spent most of your time over the last year of our marriage traveling the world, telling anyone who would listen that you were unhappy, and basically inviting every man who smiled at you into your bed.”
She gasped, her tears all dried up. “It wasn’t like that.”
He crossed his arms, ready to do battle—anything to get her to out of the house as quickly as possible. He needed to get to Sallina. He needed to make things right with her.
If she’ll even talk to you, asshole. After all he’d put her through…after all she’d already endured, he wouldn’t blame her if she set fire to his house with him inside it.
“What was it like, then, Loni? I know it wasn’t me in your bed that night you called me, drunk, to bitch at me about missing your runway debut for Gucci. Couldn’t help but notice the rustling of sheets and the deep voice speaking Italian in the background.”
“You’re mistaken. I never cheated on you.” The lies spilled from her lips as effortlessly as blood from a head wound. How had he never seen this side of her before?
Because you didn’t want to. You wanted to believe that you’d done right by sweet, beautiful, grieving Loni. You didn’t want to see that you’d married someone you didn’t even know. Didn’t even want to know.
“Oh?” he scoffed, planting his hands on the countertop next to a gathering of ingredients Sally had probably planned to use for dinner. He shook off that thought that she’d never make another meal for him again and continued. “Pretty sure his murmured words were, ‘put down the phone and grab another condom.’” The woman knew he spoke Italian. He couldn’t fathom how delusional she had to be to try and get out of her lie.
She isn’t the only one who’s delusional! You thought you could keep all the deep, dark shit from Sally and still keep her? Look what happened! She obviously thinks you—once again—chose Loni over her. Sally had no idea that he was trying—and failing—to keep the ugliest parts of his past from coming out to bite them both in the ass. But he’d only succeeded in ruining everything they’d been building together the last month.
It can’t be over, though. They were meant to be together, dammit! She’d have to give him a chance to explain.
God, what a fuck up!
Narrowing her brown eyes at him, Loni fell silent. Steam rising from her ears told him she was pissed but couldn’t figure out a way to turn the conversation in her favor. Like she ever could—he wasn’t the one who’d cheated and then asked for a divorce.
“I want to try again.”
What the actual fuck?
“What?” He couldn’t have heard her correctly.
She sighed, moving closer to his tense, strung tight as a bow body to place a thin hand against his chest. He reeled, her touch making him jerk. If she noticed his reaction, she didn’t show it.
