I jump a mile when I hear the back door slam — the familiar footsteps quickly growing closer to our bedroom. I want to run away and not face the reality that has become my life.
If I had known about this, I’d have packed our bags and moved to our getaway cottage in Hermosa Beach, leaving old wounds behind.
The trouble is, they’d have followed us there.
If Mason is going to box again, I’ll never outrun them no matter where I go.
Chapter Five
Eden
“Eden,” Mason calls down the hall. Panic etched in his tone. Footsteps are cutting quickly across the hardwood floor.
Good, I hope he’s sweltering in terror over the havoc he created in our marriage. The man is about to get into a fight he won’t win — a ring of hot flaming fire.
My pulse starts racing in my ears when he comes into sight. He’s gorgeous and powerful and a liar. It hurts to look at him.
His chest is heaving, eyes big, and full of that panic while he scans over my entire body as if I might be physically hurt.
I should laugh. Tell him the aches and pains are in a place he can’t see — the place he owns.
My heart.
I’m emotionally distraught. It’s an uproar of emotions I never thought I’d feel in my life.
Devastation and destruction and heartbreaking damage.
I move in a flurry and press my palms against his chest, shoving him as hard as I can.
Potent light blue eyes glaze me over as he takes hold of my wrists, and tugs me to him. His eyes are pinning me to my spot, searing right through me. I hope he notices the shattering pain he’s caused. The man has kicked me in my chest, and it hurts so damn bad.
“Let go of me now, or I will drop kick you so fucking fast.”
He pulls me into him tighter — the lying son of a bitch.
“Don’t think I won’t do it, Mason. After all, I learned how to protect myself from the best right? My husband, the man who wants to box again. Funny how his wife didn’t have a clue.” My voice is as calm as it’s going to get. I’m ready to let loose.
He shakes his head, opens his hands, and I back away.
“Unless you’re here to tell me what I overheard isn’t the truth. That you didn’t stand in front of the entire world and speak about something I should have known before anyone else, you can turn around and leave, or you can watch me pack my bags, Mason.”
Of course, he can’t. I heard it with my ears.
His words are still screeching and trying to pierce my eardrums. I wish they would; then, I wouldn’t have to hear more lies when he tries to weasel his way out.
“What the hell are you talking about, Eden? Neither of us is going anywhere. We are staying here and working this out. If you’d have stuck around, you would have heard me tell them I have considered it. There’s a difference between thinking and doing, Eden. I never agreed to a match, but I want too. I want to box again bad. So bad, it’s all I can think about.” He grates, regret filling his eyes. Face twisting in anger.
The fucking nerve of him to think he has any right to be angry. To think that even talking about it and leaving me in the dark is okay. It’s far from it.
“You want it bad? It’s all you can think about? Wow, then I guess there is nothing for us to discuss is there? I mean, what is it exactly we would work out? The fact you’ve been considering something you knew I wouldn’t allow or that you don’t give a shit about yourself or me? I might have left, but I saw you, Mason. I watched it on the cab ride here. I heard every word you said. You deceived me. You lied, you kept a secret. It wasn’t just a little one either. It was massive. One that if you follow through could end your life.” It would mine too.
The fear of the unknown. My mind whirls from it. Turbulence rattling my brain.
“I can’t decide if you love boxing more than you do your own life, more than you do me and the promises we made, and that is sad Mason. I would have never stood in your way if you weren’t hurt. Never.” God, I want to blow a cloud of reality up his ass.
Up until Mason’s diagnosis, I loved boxing too. His love for me and the sport sat on equal ground. I still love it, but not at the expense of what it could do to him.
I will never go through what we did the last time again. Never. It was the hardest thing I’ve done. Having to watch my husband suffer in unbearable physical pain, and there wasn’t a thing I could do to take it away.
It was awful.
Indescribable.
“That’s bullshit; you know it is. I wanted to tell you, Christ, Eden, it’s been eating me from the inside out, but for you to stand there and look at me like I’m a stranger pisses me off.”
“Well, the man standing in front of me isn’t the man I know, so I won’t be looking at you as if you are. The man I know would have told me from the minute he became miserable. Did you suddenly become unhappy in our marriage, and this is the way you came up with to push me away?”
“The hell I’m not. I might be miserable when it comes to not boxing, but I’m nowhere near it when it comes to how I feel about you. You need to get that straight right now. I love you so much that this is gouging at me to see you hurt.”
Love will not be the topic of this conversation. Especially in the direction, it’s heading.
South.
“I don’t need to get anything straight. You do.”
He starts to pace, pushing his hands through his hair and gripping the back of his neck. Mason does that when he’s trying to reign in his temper. I find it funny he thinks he can have one right now.
“How could you question my love for you, Eden? It’s our love, the years we’ve been together; it’s everything that makes up what we have why I kept putting off telling you ever since we walked out of those hospital doors after my last concussion that I’m not ready to give up boxing. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to hurt you. I didn’t know how to tell you that I need to prove to myself I still have what it takes. I had no idea the press knew. I’m sorry you found out this way. Someone fed them lies. Now it’s blown all to hell.”
Good, let it blow up like a bomb in his face. I don’t care because all I heard was how long he'd kept this from me.
“Two years? You’ve been lying and keeping this from me for two years?” Oh, my God. I don’t even know how I feel about that.
Hurt clenches hold of me in a rough grip that leaves me raw.
Our eyes collide. They tangle in this heaping mess that piles sky high with every word flowing out of his mouth. Our solid walls we built come tumbling down, leaving pieces scattered all over the place. Boxing is a sweet, sweet dream that’s turned into a nightmare gone wrong.
“Give or take a few months, but yes.”
I can’t wrap my head around this. It’s pounding so hard.
“You know what, Mason. I don’t care about the press; they can fuck off right along with your apology, and your two years. How or even why they found out doesn’t matter, what matters is you didn’t tell me. What matters is you’ve been lying to me. It makes you as much of a liar as they are. Worse, because you lied to me.” I point at my chest. Just that touch places a crack in my heart.