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God, the more time she had to process it, the more massive and unforgivable his lie became.
“Lilah, I know how this looks but Cyrus, he begged me not to tell you.”
“How long have you known, Ben? Since the beginning?”
“He told me just after he stopped chemo.”
Lilah’s hand flew to her mouth as her nausea resurfaced.
“Oh, God. And right after that you started ‘dating’ me. That’s the real reason you married me, isn’t it? Granting a dying man his wish.”
“He never explicitly asked me to marry you.” That wasn’t a denial.
“Why did you do it? To secure your place in the will? In the company?”
“You know that’s not true,” he growled, now starting to look pissed off as well. Good, because Lilah was spoiling for a fight. “I don’t know what the fuck would have happened to me after my parents died, if not for Cyrus. I told you before; I owed him everything. Marrying you seemed a small price to pay.”
The phrasing was designed to hurt her, she could see it in his eyes. He was angry too and wanted to land his own barbs. But Lilah’s anger shielded her from the worst of it, even though she knew she would feel the bruises later.
“God, I must have seemed like such a gullible idiot to you. Falling for lie after lie after lie.”
“I have many faults, cupcake, but I never lied to you!”
“What the hell would you call this then? If not a great, big, staggering lie of omission? And all that other so-called honesty? That was just subterfuge, you might not have lied to me Ben, but you’ve been deceiving me, Every step of the way.”
“You’re being so fucking irrational. You can’t blame me for—”
“Then who the hell am I supposed to blame?” She practically roared the question at him, so furious by now that she was unable to contain it anymore. She wanted to be loud, aggressive, she wanted to break things and throw things.
She wanted to punish him.
“Am I supposed to blame Gramps? In case it’s escaped your notice, Ben, Gramps isn’t here! All I have left is you. You, who could—should—have told me about my sick grandfather. He would have understood and forgiven you for that. Me? I don’t understand and I will never forgive you.
“And then tonight,” she shook her head wildly. “All that absolute crap about starting fresh from a place of honesty? Are you shitting me? A place of honesty, when you’ve been keeping this huge secret from me? If Gramps hadn’t mentioned it in his letter, would you ever have told me?”
The swiftly concealed guilt in his expression answered the question before he even spoke. “With Cyrus already gone there was no point in telling you. I knew it would only upset and hurt you. And I was right.”
The last emerged on a grim tone of validation and defensiveness and it merely served to infuriate Lilah even more.
She chose not to respond to that and pushed past him rudely, exiting the en-suite and heading straight into the walk-in closet.
“What are you doing?” he asked when she dragged a small duffel bag from the top shelf of her side of the closet.
“I’m leaving.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, it’s after midnight.”
“One of the security guys can escort me back home.”
“Fuck it, Lilah, this is your home.”
“No it’s not. And you continually repeating it won’t make it so.” She started dragging clothes into the bag, shoving in silk tops and cashmere sweaters with equal amounts of indifference.
“I’m not letting you leave in this state.”
“You can’t stop me. I c-can’t even express—” She paused, breathing so hard it made her cough until her eyes watered. But she managed to get the rest of what she wanted to say out, in a small tight voice. “I can’t express how m-much I truly hate you right now.”
He reeled, paling, looking like someone had just punched him in the gut.
“You don’t mean that.”
“But I do,” she sobbed, still fighting for each breath, knowing that she needed to calm down, but was unable to do so. Not with him standing right there, with his highly punchable, beautiful face so temptingly within reach. “I fucking do. I hate you. I loathe you. I despise you. I never want to see you again.”
He shook his head in denial, still looking dazed.
“Lilah, please, just try and slow down your respiratory rate, okay?” he said, his voice quiet and shaky. “You’re practically hyperventilating.”
She detested his rational tone of voice, hated when he managed her. It set her teeth on edge and made her feel about ten. She glared at him, bag still clutched in her hand, her clothes spewing out over the top of it.
But he was right. That was the worst of it, Ben was always right! She was struggling now. Fighting to catch her breath while her chest closed up. It felt like someone had their fists wrapped around her lungs and was painfully squeezing every drop of air from her body. She heard the betraying high-pitched wheeze that warned of an imminent attack creeping into each shallow exhalation.
