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“Right,” she scoffs. “No, you needed someone to use as your pawn. I’m just the best person for the job.” She shrugs. “It’s my own fault anyway. I did start off trying to deceive you. I was such a fucking fool to believe maybe we were building something real.”
“This is real,” I insist.
“Is it? Or is it just for whatever you can get? Until you get promoted to COO. Now that Dean and his family’s scheming are out of the way, that’s all that’s left between us, right? Your fucking promotion.”
“Chastain was fucking lying on you!” I yell.
“So what? I don’t give a damn what he says about me.”
“I do,” I growl. “He needs to keep your name out of his mouth.”
“Why? Because you don’t want it to ruin your reputation, right?”
I shake my head in disbelief. She’s got everything all wrong. I don’t give a damn about anyone else. This is about her … my wife. Mine.
“I mean, then what good am I to you?” She scoffs again and folds her arms.
“Stop fucking saying that!”
“Why?” she screams. “It’s the truth. Hell, you must think I’m a damn fool. I’ve gone and fallen in love with you when you’ve never even shown me the inside of your house.”
“My house? What does that have to do with anything?”
“It means that time and time again, I’ve given you my truth, but you’ve never given me yours!” Riley shouts.
By now, tears are streaming down her face. Each one rips another hole in my heart.
“Get off of me,” she growls and squirms when I encircle her in my arms.
“Riley,” I say, still trying to hold onto her.
“No!” she yells, now pounding my chest and arms with her fists. “Let go of me. I don’t want you to touch me. You used my heart like every other fucking man I trusted. Get off of me.”
“Riley, I lo—”
“Don’t!” she screams while landing a loud smack across my face.
I don’t feel the pain from her hit because the pain in my heart consumes my entire body. Seeing her standing in front of me with tears in her eyes, knowing it’s all my fault, is an all-encompassing pain that no physical wound could ever match.
I let her go, even though everything in me screams for me not to.
She takes a step away from me, her chest heaving up and down. “You got what you wanted. In two weeks, you’ll be crowned Townsend’s permanent COO.” Her bottom lip quivers. “And we’ll annul this marriage. Our relationship is done.”
She spins on her heels and storms into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.
There’s no way I’m letting it end there. I can barely breathe as I pound on the door.
“Riley, open this fucking door!” I demand. I try the doorknob over and over again, knowing it’s useless. She’s locked me out. Out of the door and out of her heart. But I don’t give up because that would break me.
“Open the goddamn door, Riley!” My knuckles bruise as I pound on the door but I don’t give a shit. I know if I keep it up, I’m going to break the door down, but that doesn’t matter. My wife is on the other side. And she’s hurting. Because of me.
“Riley!”
She doesn’t answer.
“What’s wrong?”
A small voice jolts me out of my panic. I turn to see Eve and Stasi standing at the front door, staring at me with wide-eyed expressions.
