AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I have a meeting with Hudson today, so this makes sense.”
He accepts my answer barely, but I knew later there’ll be a bombardment of questions and I’m just not ready for them. The drive is quiet but I can tell Eric is unhappy. I don’t get my usual wave when he exits the car or a look back as he enters.
“He’ll be okay, Violet. You both will.”
“I know.” But the truth was I don’t know if we will be. Lincoln had given us both a glimpse of the perfect life and then snatched it away like we were nothing to him and the pain is almost more than I can bear.
29: Linc
I rollover in bed and reach for her and find the bed empty. I open one eye and close it quickly as the drummers in my head begin a new rendition of something awful. I open my mouth and my tongue feels like it will stick to the roof of my mouth, and tastes like something died in there.
Silence in the apartment makes me sit up slowly as I try to piece together the events of the day before. I stagger to the bathroom and I’m greeted by Lottie’s scent, and it sends a pang of pain to my chest.
She was with Hudson.
I look in the mirror and see bloodshot eyes, a two-day scruff, and a ton of regret. My collar is stained with pink lipstick in a shade I know Lottie would never wear and now I’m not sure I want my memories to return. I shed my wrinkled suit and turn the shower to cold. I wince as the freezing water hits my skin but tolerate the abuse as my brain finally begins to clear.
I was drinking at a bar. Ryker was there and then he was gone. I remember a woman with blonde hair and fake boobs. Oh, God, did I fuck her? Did I cheat on my wife to get back at her?
I glance at my limp dick and wish it could give me some answers, but it just hangs there as if he too feels shame for some, as yet, unknown crime. Once I’ve scrubbed my body, I turn off the water and wrap a towel around my hips. I brush my teeth and scrub my tongue to rid myself of the disgusting taste in my mouth. Shaving is a step too far today and I can still feel the stench of booze reeking from my pores.
God, how much did I have to drink?
I sit on the edge of the bed and notice the silence once again. Lottie must be taking Eric to school. The image of her in Hudson’s arms almost makes me roll over and go back to sleep to get rid of the painful image from my brain, but I know it will just follow me into my dreams.
I down some pain relief and fill the glass from the bathroom with water and drink it back. Jumbles of conversation hit me and I begin remembering what happened. Watching it play out behind my eyelids like a car crash I want to stop but can’t.
Me calling Lottie a whore, the woman from the bar kissing my neck in the elevator. Just the thought of another woman’s lips on me has me heaving over the sink. Seeing Lottie had made me want to lash out and hurt her like she had me, but I knew I’d gone way too far when I’d called her hateful names and saw the pain etched on her beautiful lying face. I’d brought that woman home to hurt her, and it seemed I’d managed that. My head hangs as regret and shame fills me. I was an utter asshole. I hadn’t thought about Eric and the possibility he’d witness it all. I thanked God he’d been spared that and selfishly, so had I. That boy means the world to me and I would hate for him to have seen me that way. Not that I deserve being spared that humiliation, but I want him to be proud of me.
I splash my face with more cold water before I sluggishly move to the bedroom. I dress in old jeans and a white tee and shove my feet into an old pair of boots that have seen better days.
Walking through the penthouse, I poke my head into his room and see it’s clean and tidy as always. He’s a good kid and deserves better than what I’d been willing to let him see last night.
I freeze as I hit the kitchen and spot the two rings sitting on the kitchen island.
No!
I rush forward and my stomach roils as I see her wedding rings sitting there. The magnitude of the situation hits me, and I race to our room, yanking open the closet doors, relief hitting me as I see it full of her clothes. Her scent clings to me and it makes me sink to my knees right there in the closet. How could she betray me like this and with him? I see her in my mind asking me why, telling me she loved me, and I wonder if I’m just making it all up in my head to soothe the pain inside me. Doubt burrows inside me like a poison and the heavy feeling that I’ve made the biggest mistake of my life sits on my chest, making it hard to breathe.
I spot an empty space where the bag she arrived with usually sits and I scrabble around looking for her old clothes, but they’re gone. I stagger from the closet and I do the same in Eric’s room, I look for his teddy and it too is gone.
She’s left me. She’s broken the contract we made but that feels irrelevant right now as my world feels like it’s caving in on me.
“What the fuck did you do, Lincoln?”
I spin to see my cousin watching me, her hands on her hips as she takes in the room. “She left me.”
Audrey blows out a breath and shakes her head. “Let’s get some coffee in you and take it to the terrace. I don’t think I can handle the fumes coming off you in a closed space.”
I follow her, every step feels heavy like I’m being led to the gallows and I haven’t got any fight left inside me.
She left me and I don’t blame her.
I look out over the city I love as Audrey hands me a mug and I take a sip and feel my brain start to fire, playing out every word we exchanged last night in technicolored detail. I relive every word we exchanged and all I see in my mind is her hurting and me slinging a horrible diatribe at her.
“The things I said, Audrey. God, I wouldn’t blame her if she never forgives me.”
My cousin looks at me with sympathy in her eyes and I hate it because it shows me that I’m right, what I did was unforgivable. “Ryker found footage of her leaving Hudson’s place of work.”
