Shaking my head, I open my giant purse and pull the shiny permit out. I drop it on the table and start to leave the office.
“What is that?” he asks my back with way less confidence than he had when he was talking about Jeff.
“That is,” I turn around and point at the paper on the desk, “whatJeffgot for you.” My finger now points at him. “This is how I spend my evenings with Jeff. If you wantedthis marriage to be real, you would have used your brain before making assumptions and see that I’m not the person who cheats when I made a commitment.”
My voice breaks at the end, and I grab the door handle to escape this moment. But I pause. If I don’t say the things I want to say, I’ll be no better than him.
“It honestly feels like you were just looking for a reason for us not to work when it got too real for you.” I descend into a whisper. “I just wish you didn’t drag me along the way with the promises that you could love me back.”
Feeling slightly out of my depth with the unexpected love declaration, I stomp away, silently waving an unpleasantly surprised Martin goodbye. I don’t want anyone to witness the epic end to my short-lived marriage besides me and my unfortunate husband.
For now, I need some time for myself to stir in self-pity in a space where his scent and wide shoulders don’t distract me from thinking clearly. I’ll give him time to think too. If he agrees with my words, he’ll find me. If he doesn’t, then I’ll have to learn how to live without him. Now, when he has his building back, and he needs nothing else from me, our marriage is in his hands. There’s only so much baggage one can pull alone before their back breaks from the weight.
52
Ezra
I sit at my desk and look at the paper in my hands like it’s a snake coiled for a bite. The permit to reopen the building signed by Boris Lebovski. Something I’ve all but given up on getting.
I stare and stare at it.
By the time I’m ready to take a first full breath in, I don’t feel anything other than anger toward myself. Why didn’t I just ask her about Jeff instead of deciding to be an asshole? Am I turning into my father whose own truth was the only one? He’s never listened to anyone, never asked the other part of the story. Never. And I’ve always been a victim of this. Why did I do the same to Maeve?
Noah has always been gentler, more sensitive. Not me. I wasn’t raised to be that way. I was raised to be a soulless leader despite what it might cost. And it’s about to cost me the wife I’ve come to love.
Maybe I’ve loved her for a long time. Maybe it happened the exact moment she narrowed her big, blue eyes at me from behind that counter. Her challenge and defiance. Her strength. Her beautiful face and bite-my-ass attitude. Her hair I’d pay for her to keep forever because it suits her personality so well. Even the damn ring in her brow. I love all of it.
She told me that I couldn’t love her back.Back.Which means that she does. How deep does her love for me run? Will she be able to forgive me for questioning her loyalty? I don’t think I would.
I cover my face with my hands with a loud groan when I hear the door opening quietly. Instantly dropping my hands, I stare at the door, hoping that she’s come back. That she figured out how stupid I really am and decided to give me another chance.
But it’s not her.
Martin pokes his head inside, and my heart drops to the pit of my stomach once again. “Is it safe to come in?”
After my short nod, he carefully walks in and toward my desk.
“Are you okay?”
My first instinct is to lash out at him. To blame him for everything because he’s here, and it’s convenient. If I don’t letitout, I’ll explode.
But I don’t. Because this is the first time I want to face myself as me. As people see me. The hard, unfeeling man. The asshole the world knows. Not Maeve, no. She saw the other one, the one who I thought had died a long time ago. A normal man with normal desires and dreams.
Maybe Martin sees a little bit of that too—after all, he’s stuck around me no matter how many times I bark. Yes, I pay him handsomely, but a person with his skills would be hired before he even exited this building.
“I am not,” I finally reply quietly. He’s been in my house, seen Maeve and I being a family for a short time. He’s the person I can talk to instead of cooping up silently with my misery alone. “I think I’ve really fucked up this time.”
His face turns sad and he takes a seat in a chair across from me. “What happened?”
I take a deep breath and tell him the story namedHow to Lose Your New Wife in a Month. By the time I’m done with the story, I worry he’s chewed his bottom lip into nothing and wiped a hole in his chin with his hand from rubbing it too much.
“Yeah, you’ve done pretty badly this time. Maeve is not the type to creep around like that.”
I don’t know what I wanted to hear. Maybe a few words of encouragement. But Martin’s boldness is one of the things I appreciate the most about him.
After searching his face for answers that I don’t find, I decide to do one thing Ineverdo—ask for help.
“How do I fix it?”
