“No.” She stood, fists balled at her sides. “No, don’t act like I had anything to do with this decision-making process. I didn’t even know we owned a house in the first place.”
Despite the cold October air, sweat slid down the center of Dominic’s back. “It had to be done. If I’d told you about the house, you wouldn’t have let me sell it.”
“We’ll never know, will we?” She broke off on a sob, looking around. “It’s beautiful. Damn you, Dominic.” He took a step forward, eager to comfort her, but she held up a trembling hand. “How long have we owned it?”
He hardened his jaw and didn’t answer.
“Tell me.”
“A year,” he croaked, unable to look at her. “Maybe a little longer.”
A sound of disbelief from Rosie had him glancing back to find full-fledged betrayal on her beautiful face. She might as well have rammed a screwdriver into his chest.
“Rosie, since we were kids, I’ve only wanted to give you everything, but it wasn’t until I grew up that I realized how . . . impossible that is. I had my hands and my work ethic. And that’s all.” He couldn’t fill his lungs enough. He needed to hold her, but couldn’t. “When I was deployed and I met these men . . . God, Rosie, the plans they made. The places they’d been, places they’d go. Until then, I didn’t realize how simple this life would be. How inadequate for someone as incredible as you.
“I’d only learned one way to cope with those fears and I followed that example. Head down, bust your ass. Earn. It took me four years of setting aside money until I could afford this house, and by then, I’d had my head down so long, I forgot to look up and see you needed something else. The restaurant, yeah. But me, too. You needed me.
“Your love would have been powerful enough to overcome everything if I hadn’t shut you—shut everything out. I’m here now, though. Just forgive me for this. Please.”
For what seemed like an eternity, Dominic stood there while Rosie digested his words. They were coming far too late, that much was obvious. Her eyes were glazed with pain, the heel of her hand pressed to her chest.
“Even if you’d told me about the house this morning . . . I think I would have understood. We could have talked it out. But knowing you were going to keep this from me forever . . .”
“I’m sorry,” he said raggedly, the apology like a last-ditch life preserver. “I just got you back, Rosie. I didn’t want to remind you why you left.”
She took several breaths with her eyes closed. “I need some time—”
Panic clobbered him. “No.”
“You have to let me process this,” Rosie burst out. “Goddammit, I’m so mad at you.”
“I know. Let’s just sit down and talk about this.”
“It feels like the last few weeks are tainted now. All this time, we were supposedly making progress, but we weren’t. Not really.”
Dominic dropped his head into his hands, his thumbs biting into his eye sockets. “I don’t fucking get this. I don’t get how we can love each other this much and not stick.” He banged a fist against his chest. “Look at me. I love you. I’m sorry.”
She turned in a circle and looked up at the house before stumbling away, stopping in front of him, her body language warning him not to touch her. “I love you, too,” she whispered. “I’m sorry you were living with enough insecurities that you kept something so huge from me. That must have been hard.” She opened her mouth and then closed it, her eyes touching on everything but him. “I—I just don’t know if I can get right with this.”
He could only stand paralyzed as his wife walked away. Again.
Rosie sat in the parking lot outside Armie’s office, trying to psych herself up to go inside. Or move. Or think straight. Her mind couldn’t seem to hang on to any single thought for longer than a few seconds before it flew off like a flock of startled birds.
There was a divider straight down the middle of her mind, like a mental pro/con list. On one side, all the bad stuff bumped around. Suffering in silence before she’d left Dominic. Feeling unsupported. Schlepping into the department store every day, her dream moving a little further and further out of reach. The other side of her brain housed all the progress they’d made. Not to mention all the revelations she’d had since she and Dominic had reconnected.
Her husband hadn’t been ignoring her all those years. She’d been his center of gravity, just like always. To a fault.
Yes, she’d found that out today the hard way.
A house.
He’d bought her a secret freaking house.
Who did that?
Rosie reached up to massage the pounding ache in the center of her forehead. There had been a moment back at the secret house when she’d wanted to throw herself into Dominic’s arms and tell him the house was beautiful. That he was a ridiculous, romantic, complicated man and she loved him in spite of it. But as she’d sat there on the porch watching him approach, she’d heard the therapist’s voice.
I’m afraid your marriage isn’t going to make it.
Could they have a successful union if he kept these kinds of things from her? After everything they’d been through over the past few weeks, if he still couldn’t be honest, what hope did they have of him opening up in the future? She’d been so positive they’d laid it all on the line, but it turned out she didn’t even know where the line was.
She just needed to talk to someone. Her friends were an amazing choice, but honestly? Rosie was almost embarrassed to tell them about the secret house. How could she have been kept in the dark so long? So here she was. Not only did she need to vent, but she wanted to know why Armie didn’t think her marriage to Dominic could work. What had he seen?
Anxiety turned over in her stomach as she climbed out of the Honda. She closed the driver’s-side door and idled there for a few seconds, measuring her breathing and fingering the shoulder strap of her purse. Armie was definitely open for business—she could smell the pot wafting from beneath the building door. When she walked inside, she found him in a meditation pose in the center of his waiting-room floor.
She shifted. “Um . . .”
His eyes cracked open. “Mrs. Vega.” A smile lit his face. “Hello.”
“Hello!” Rosie did her best to subdue her too-bright tone. “I know we don’t have any more appointments scheduled, but I was hoping we could speak for a few minutes.”
Armie rose to his feet, not without some effort, and tucked the end of a joint into his shirt pocket, patting it closed. “Dominic isn’t with you?”
“No.”
He studied her expression. “I see,” he said, nodding once and turning. “Come on into my office. Something to drink?”
“Tequila, please.”
His crack of laughter almost made her smile. “You’re not the type to show up for a spontaneous therapy session.” He leaned back against the front edge of his desk. “Why don’t you tell me what’s happened?”
Rosie fell onto the couch and stared at the therapist, although she wasn’t really seeing him. Visions of flower beds and patios and a dock extending into the sound played in front of her eyes like a slideshow. “Last time we were here, you said our marriage wasn’t going to work. That you could tell these things.” She blew out a breath. “Well, I guess we didn’t believe you, because . . . hearing your opinion only seemed to bring us . . . closer. Dominic talked to me about his insecurities and he really came through, supporting my dream of opening the restaurant. He even proposed a second time.”