Everything felt numb except my heart. It hurt.
This happened to other people not me. Ronin loved me. Was love no longer enough?
We carried the kids into the house where we pushed their half-awake little bodies through an abbreviated nighttime routine. After we closed their doors most of the way, I took three steps toward the messy kitchen before pivoting on my heels. Ronin stopped the second I turned toward him.
“How could you?” I whispered on a breath that felt like my very last one.
Ronin deflated with a wince, slowly shaking his head. “Evie …”
“Last night …” I couldn’t even say it. In my heart, I knew it wasn’t me the previous night. Even if I felt a little rejected. But seeing him with that woman left me without any words to express my true feelings.
“Evie, it wasn’t you.”
“It felt like—”
He pressed his finger to his lips as my words gained strength. Before I could risk another word waking the kids, Ronin brushed past me, right out the front door. I followed him. We didn’t fight often, but when we did, it was outside while the kids slept.
“You’re not this stupid.” The second I shut the door behind me, he had my face cradled in his hands. His words sharp. His grip tight. “I’m not cheating on you.”
I clawed at him, trying to free myself. “Let go of me!”
He released me, planting his hands on his hips, head down.
“You said Noah. Dinner with Noah.” I crossed my arms over my chest to protect my heart, but it was too late. Ronin already stabbed it with a guilty look and a dinner date ready to suck his dick.
“I did have dinner with Noah. Just as we finished eating, Adrianne walked past the booth. Noah had to get home. Adrianne sat down, and we just got to talking. Then you showed up with the kids. That’s it.”
I paused my tapping foot. On a laugh I shook my head. “No. That’s not it because you haven’t told me who the hell Adrianne is. All I know is when you looked at me in the restaurant all I could see was this pale, guilt-ridden expression on your face. Then you introduced me to this young, beautiful woman. And I swear … I swear to god, Ronin, she had the same look on her face. You both looked like you got caught! Caught by your wife. Caught by your kids!”
“This is about last night. There’s no way you would jump to cheating had I not had … issues last night. You’re taking it personally. And it wasn’t personal.”
“Stop deflecting! You had the opportunity in the restaurant. You had that opportunity in the car. In the house. And the second we stepped outside here … and you still haven’t told me who the hell that woman was!”
“Evie—”
“Nope.” I returned a sharp headshake before he could say another word. “Try again.”
He sighed. So much pain radiated from every inch of him. Too bad. I hurt more.
“Did you fuck her?”
“I’m not even justifying that with an answer.”
Yes. The answer was yes. I wasn’t sure what hurt the most—the betrayal or his inability to say the words.
“I …” Everything died in my chest.
I love you.
It was too late. I wouldn’t beg.
Wiping the tears that showed up in place of those three words, I shrugged. “You’re wrong. I am stupid. And I’m tired. I’m hurt beyond words. So if you can’t answer me, then five years of marriage and two children clearly don’t mean anything to you.” I reached for the door handle.
“Everything,” he whispered. “Five years with you and our two children mean everything to me.”
I rested my forehead against the door and closed my eyes.
“Yesterday, on my hike, something happened. It felt like someone was strangling me. I couldn’t breathe. My life played before me like this farewell reel. You … Franz and Anya. It just seemed like my luck had ended. Then I realized it must have been Lila. Someone was strangling Lila. But then it just … stopped. And I could breathe again. I called Lila, but she didn’t answer. So I called Graham. He said she was taking a shower. He confirmed she was fine.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I whispered beneath the heavy weight of his confession. My forehead remained pressed to the door. Something in my heart wouldn’t let me turn to look at him. Not yet. Not with the image of that woman still in my head.
“Because it really fucking scared me, which meant I couldn’t tell you with any sort of certainty that everything would be fine. And I refused to put that on you … not when I know damn well you’re still grieving the loss of your mom, when you still look at me with a glitch of distrust in your eyes because I tried to blow up our marriage with a bottle of pills.”
I just … I wanted my mom. I needed my mom.
“The woman in the restaurant.” I squeezed my eyes shut tighter, but her guilty face looking at his guilty face still haunted me. “If you don’t tell me about her, I will go insane thinking only one thing. She is the reason you didn’t want me last night.”
“No!” He grabbed my arms and forced me to face him. “You don’t get to say that. Not ever. It’s not that I didn’t want you. I just couldn’t have you in that way because something happened yesterday, and I don’t know why. I felt broken. Broken. Like nothing in my body worked right. Feelings of despair and hopelessness enveloped me, and I couldn’t shake it. I couldn’t will it away. And it scared me.”
I understood broken. I understood despair and hopelessness. Ronin telling me everything but the one thing I needed to know continued to feed my despair and hopelessness … it continued to break me, break us.
“The woman,” I whispered.
He closed his eyes for a few seconds. “I had dinner with Noah. He had to leave. She walked by my booth and sat down to talk. She is in my support group. Yesterday, I wasn’t myself after the incident on my hike. Adrianne noticed. So when she saw me tonight, she took the opportunity to ask me if I was okay. The guilt you thought you saw on our faces wasn’t guilt. It was nerves. We were nervous you would recognize her.”
“Why would I recognize her?”
“Because she’s Adrianne Craig.”
Blinking several times, I let her name swirl around in my head, looking for recognition. When the switch flipped, I felt no relief, just more despair.
Adrianne Craig was a home-wrecker for hire. She destroyed many marriages by secretly videotaping sex acts with wealthy men. Sometimes angry wives hired her. Sometimes other wealthy men hired her to bring down their business competition. I wouldn’t have recognized her because she consistently changed her appearance to keep her “business” thriving. Supposedly she quit for unknown reasons. Graham told me she tried and failed to scheme his father. He also told me she didn’t just do the job for the money; she did it to prove a point—no man was perfect. She enjoyed ruining marriages the way Graham and I enjoyed betting on sports.
“That’s …” I inched my head side to side, wiping my tear-stained cheeks. “That’s fantastic. I thought you were cheating on me. Instead, you’ve simply befriended a woman who seduces men just to prove she can. I feel much better. What is her addiction? Sex? Sadism?”