He saw her then for what she was, an emotionally fragile, aging woman who had done the only thing she knew to ensure her own survival. But it was her selfishness that stuck with him. Wasn’t the point of parenthood that you gave up being selfish in order to care for your children? He shook his head in frustration and was dizzy from the conflicting emotions she brought forth.
“I think I’ll be going now,” he said.
“Won’t you stay the night? You can’t drive back to Dublin now.”
Prolonging this reunion like that was the last thing he wanted. Had she presented herself the way he had always hoped, as someone desperate to make amends and to care for him after all these years, he might have felt differently. But the will to dissect their history had left him. All he wanted now was out. He needed time and distance to process all of this.
His instinct was to let her down easy, though, to employ the charm he had become so well-known for.
“I’ll be fine to drive,” he said, and she did not hide her disappointment. “Dublin’s not far, after all. Perhaps we might be friends and have another visit sometime?” he asked gently.
She searched his eyes as if to see whether he was mocking her. When she saw he was serious, she smiled, sniffled, and nodded.
“Oh, Gavin, I’d love it. I’d simply love it,” she told him.
CHAPTER EIGHTY
The two-lane road of N11 felt exceptionally dark as Gavin drove north toward home. His thoughts kept leaving what had just happened and focusing instead on what he had done to Sophie. How he had abandoned her when she was vulnerable and in need. It felt like a sick replica of what his mother had done to him. He meant it when he told her he didn’t want to be like her. Now that all the artifice was torn away from his imaginings of what had propelled his mother to run away, he had to face the facts as they were. He had to take responsibility for his life and his choices in a whole new way, without the safety net of his childhood hurt as an excuse.
Sophie was alone in California, suffering the traumatic effects of a miscarriage and the end of their marriage. He wanted to go to her, to wrap her in his forgiveness and beg for it in return. He wanted to push past this painful part of their lives.
The farther he drove, the more certain he was that he needed to take action and win back his wife. It’s okay. It’s all going to be okay. That’s what she had told him once when he was reeling. She had suffered the weight of his burdens all these years, just as he had begged of her in “You’re My One.” He could do the same for her.
And then the vision of her giving herself to Conor came to him. It wasn’t just fucking. She had been sure to tell him that. His wife had been in love with another man. With the worst possible other man. This overwhelmed everything else he had been thinking. It wasn’t just sex, and that made it far harder to forgive and get past, no matter the ways in which he had pushed her away.
Though his foot was pressed hard on the pedal and the Mercedes was going well over eighty miles an hour, he felt no motion. His gaze was fixed on the few feet ahead where the headlights shone on the road, and the rest of his body was just as paralyzed. So much for the vaunted “fearless” thing he had claimed they possessed. Because the truth was that he was scared. Scared that he didn’t have the strength to move forward and make things right.
More time. That’s what he needed. Just a little more time to sort it all out. And then, somehow, it would all be okay.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lara Ward Cosio is the author of the Rogue Series Novels. When not writing, she can be found chasing her two girls around the house or at the beach,
always with music on in the background.
For more of the Rogue Series, see
Playing At Love: A Rogue Series Novel
To learn more about the Rogue Series, visit:
LaraWardCosio.com
Tangled Up In You: A Rogue Series Novel Page 34