Before she’d ever called me.
Before she’d given me her rings and said I was losing her.
I worked my jaw, head nodding sharply as I stalked out of the room and headed for the stairs. My long steps eating up the space quickly as I went through the kitchen and grabbed a cup, filling it with water and then turning for the fridge. My eyes narrowing on a container with half a sandwich and some fruit right up front.
I reached for it and popped the lid as I walked over to grab a plate at the same moment Savannah stepped into the kitchen.
“How old is this?”
“It’s from this afternoon,” she said as I set the plate on one of the islands and began transferring the contents. “You can have it.”
“I’m not hungry.” I couldn’t eat if I tried. It’d been like that a lot lately.
I felt sick from the constant unknown with her. From all the pain and fear. Half the days over the past few weeks, I don’t remember from lack of sleep. The others, I’d spent hours in the gym, trying to push myself past the point of being able to feel.
Not that it’d worked.
I pushed the cup and plate toward her as she walked back from placing the empty container in the dishwasher. “Eat before you go to sleep.”
“I could’ve done this.”
“I know you could’ve, but you just passed out and you won’t tell me what you need. And until you give me a stack of papers and ask for my signature, you’re still my wife. Even after that? That baby’s mine. So, let me take care of you.”
Her honey eyes searched mine for a long while before her head lowered in the faintest nod. “You’re leaving?” she asked when I walked over to grab my keys off the counter, her voice hitching.
Curling my hand around the keys, my shoulders sagged with a heavy sigh. “I’m sure there’s no way my heart can break more than it has,” I began, voice soft. “But then you tell me I’m losing you and give me your wedding rings. You say things like you think I should stay here until we know where this is headed and there’s nothing I can do.”
I turned to face her, studying the way she was trying so damn hard to control her expression. To mask her pain.
Stepping toward her, I moved slowly until I had her pressed against the island with my hands on either side, giving her every chance to stop me. “Savannah, my heart’s been breaking for a long damn time because it was agony knowing what I did to you. But this?” My throat worked fiercely when my eyes began burning. “I would do anything to make up for what I’ve done, and I will do anything to save us. Our marriage . . . our family.”
My body shuddered as every part of my being rebelled against the words before they came out. “I know you don’t owe me anything, but if you really have no intention of even letting me try to fix this, then please just . . . just stop dragging this out. End this.”
“I don’t want a divorce,” she said, her voice dipping in all the wrong ways.
Fear grabbed hold of my throat and slowly tightened its grip. “But?”
“But I don’t know how to let you do what you’re asking. I told you, I don’t know how to get past this.”
I didn’t know how to survive this agony. I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
I pushed away from the counter as the first tears fell and reached for my wedding band, feeling like my soul shattered as soon as my fingers grasped it.
“Oh my God, stop,” she cried out, gripping my wrists.
“Savannah.” Her name wrenched from the depths of my ruined soul as my eyes shut. “I can’t keep wondering if the next time I see you is gonna be the time you decide to tell me we’re done. I can’t keep wondering why Quinn is repeatedly informing me that you and I are getting a divorce. All while you’re saying things that confirm we will be.”
“I don’t . . . I don’t want—” Her fingers curled tighter against me. “I’ve never said anything to Quinn or any of the kids. I’ve been trying so hard to keep all of this from them. She came up with that on her own, and the only time it was said in front of me, I told her she was wrong because that’s the last thing I want, I just . . .”
I looked at her in time to see her face crumple with grief, her body sagging and shuddering as her breaths started coming too fast and too rough.
Her head shook quickly as she released me and slipped out from where I’d had her pinned against the island, her sharp inhales echoing in the kitchen as she quickly walked away.
“Can’t get past it,” I finished for her, swallowing thickly as I pressed my hands to the counter again and let my head hang between my shoulders.
“Do you know why I can’t?” she asked.
I hadn’t realized until she spoke that she hadn’t made it out of the kitchen. I looked over and found her standing in the archway, holding herself up against it and facing away from me. Back and shoulders still moving in these great heaves as she struggled to catch her breath.
“Because I hurt you,” I said softly. “I broke your trust and did exactly what I’ve promised not to.”
Her head moved in a bouncing sort of nod as she turned to look at me, one of her hands resting on her stomach. “That . . . yes, but it’s so much more than that. You explained things tonight, and they made sense. Like, of course you’d been trying to bring Madi back—that time now makes more sense because you were absolutely furious when she left. And why wouldn’t you try to stop Hunter or fight back? It’s you. I’ve always known who you are. I never wanted to change you, Beau, I just wanted a life with you. And the path you’d been going down led to you in prison or fighting the wrong person and ending up dead.”
Blurs of fights and hours and nights in holding cells flashed through my mind as she continued.
“But the thing is, I made that decision. I made that choice for us, and you agreed to it. And even though this fight with Hunter makes sense, do I let it go? Because almost all of your fights when we were younger made sense. So, what happens the next time, and the next?”
“There won’t be a next time,” I said gravely.
“And I believe you because you’re saying it,” she shouted. “Everything you said tonight, I believed—and that’s just it. That’s why I’m struggling with this. I have felt so stupid and naïve these past weeks because I believed you when everything happened back then.” She shrugged, her jaw wavering as she struggled to hold it together. “And I kept telling myself I would never be able to believe you again, but the problem is, I do.” A soggy laugh fell from her lips. “And that scares me, and it hurts, and I am so afraid of finding out there is more you’ve hidden from me and lied about. Or that you really are having an affair with Stephanie Webb.”
“I’m not,” I said on a heaving breath.
“I know. I knew when you told me.” Another one of those laughs left her, sounding like it wrecked her. The hand on her stomach lifted to her chest. “I am so afraid of losing you, but I am also afraid of being hurt by you and having my world ripped apart all over again. That’s why I can’t get past this . . . because I am absolutely terrified to.”
I waited to see if she would go on and tried to absorb what she’d said.