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The possibility of losing Darla over this was too much to bear. Moving forward, I would be nothing short of an open book. Darla wanted all my secrets? She’d have them.
What my wife wanted, my wife got.
Everything of mine belonged to this woman. The air in my lungs. The blood in my veins. The devotion drenched in the strings of my violently beating heart.
It was all hers.
But she wasn’t having any of me right now, heading for the manoir’s front door. “Please, stay away, Zeno. I need space to breathe.”
“Pardon me?” Stunted words left me in a breathless rush.
She walked past me and entered the foyer like I was invisible. “I’m saying I need space.”
Space.
The word punctured my sternum like a heavy arrow.
My wife wanted space.
From me.
It was a miracle that I found the strength to follow after her as she ascended the grand staircase. “Darla, stop. Just listen to me. You’re running high on emotions and I understand after what took place—”
“You cannot fathom what is going through my mind!” She suddenly pivoted around, face flushed, and yelled, “We were in a drive-by shooting and almost died! If that isn’t bad enough, my family’s entire legacy is crushed, Zeno! By tomorrow morning, the Hills will be laughing stocks!” She palmed her mouth like that could stop her outburst, but it kept tumbling, even muffled. “Our reputation is destroyed and there is no going back from here. I married you to save my family and yet…” She dropped her hands by her sides, balling them into fists. “Look where we are.”
“We can fix this.” If I had to stay up all doing damage control to keep this under wraps, I would.
I would exhaust every option before hearing the wordsI need spacefrom my wife ever again.
“No.” Expression shuttered, I watched with apprehension as a chill overcame her features. “This cannot be fixed.”
Darla continued ascending the staircase and I followed after her, weariness and despair coagulating my chest. “Where are you going?”
My arms reached out for her and she pushed me once again. The thigh-high slit of her dress whooshed and gave a glimpse of the DLC gun tucked into her hostler. Another proof that she belonged right here in our kingdom.
“To our room. I’m going to pack a bag and leave.”
Carving my chest out with a blade would have been less painful. “No.”
“I need to leave the estate and go be with my family so we can weather this storm. They need me right now and I need them.”
Was this what it felt like to have your heart ripped out?
“I am your family.” Even to my ears, the words were hollow. “I…I need you too.”
Excruciating tightness rippled through my core. A sensation I first experienced during our separation. My lungs lacked air and no matter how hard I tried to inhale, the lump in my throat prevented even the most natural action.
“I’m so disappointed in you, Zeno.” Her chin wobbled. “Omission is still lying. You kept a huge secret from me, something that impacted me directly, after promising honesty and no more secrets. I understand that you thought you were protecting me, but it doesn’t change the fact that I feel betrayed.”
I could see it in her eyes.
Physically, she was here.
But mentally, she had already left me.
The Darla in front of me was not the soft, fiery woman I’d discovered over the last few months and come to love. There was no semblance of the wife who glued herself to me at night to keep warm. Or the one who loved to banter with me and drink in my laugh like it was the sole reason for her existence.
The Darla in front of me was the haughty high school principal who acted like she was above everyone else. The cold indifference in her expression made me sick, but I knew it was to mask her pain.
