“I know,” I answered with a smug smile.
“Of course you do. My smart girl. It was your hot brains that I fell in love with, the minute I saw you.” He dropped his arm and stuffed both his hands in his pockets. “But this isn’t what you came to tell me. And if you didn’t come to have sex on my desk, then…”
God, it already hurt. And I hadn’t even gotten to the part where I slashed us both open yet.
I walked back to my seat and sat down so I could lean over and dig into my purse on the floor. Weston followed, strolling back to his side, then sinking slowly into his chair.
I can do this. I can do this, I told myself.
“I called Darrell today,” I said out loud, still bent over. “Finally. I told him that I hadn’t known about your child before we got married.” When my fingers closed around the paper I’d carefully folded into thirds earlier, I pulled it out, sat up, and set it on the desk between us. “I explained to him that it was a big blow, naturally—”
“Elizabeth,” Weston warned, sensing where I was headed. Trying to head it off.
I raised my voice, undeterred. “And that I couldn’t continue to be in a relationship, let alone a marriage, with a man who had lied about something so important. Which he understood.”
“No. No, no,” Weston said quietly, shaking his head.
He continued repeating the same word, over and over, as I went on. “I went to my lawyer’s office next, and filed for an annulment. Marriage based on fraud.”
There. I’d said it.
This part I’d rehearsed, though, so it was supposed to be the easy part, and it wasn’t easy at all. It was the hardest thing I’d ever told a person in my life.
Now I had to stay strong while the man I loved tried to change my mind.
“Here.” I pushed the folded paper across the table toward him.
“I said no.” He didn’t look at it. He didn’t have to. I’d just told him what it was—the proof that I’d begun the process to end our marriage. “Did you hear me?”
I let out a breath. “You can’t just say no. That’s not how annulments work.”
“I don’t care how annulments work. We’re not getting one.” He shoved the paper back toward me. “We’ve discussed this. This was not an option. You can’t get one anyway without losing your inheritance,” he added with smug relief.
I had an answer for that. “I worried that was true as well. But my lawyer feels that since the dissolution has occurred through no fault of my own, we have a leg to stand on. He’s sure there’s enough precedent for me to take charge of the company for the time being, and if it goes to court, we’ll likely be nearing my twenty-ninth birthday by settlement anyway.”
“That’s an awful lot of maybes. What happened to doing everything so carefully, being on guard every minute, taking no chances, so there was no way in hell you’d lose your company? There are possible holes in this route, Lizzie.”
I didn’t want to say it, but he left me no choice. “The holes are unlikely, but if it comes to that, I’ll have to remarry. The court battle will buy me time.”
He looked as though I’d slapped him. “You won’t do that. You won’t marry someone you don’t love. Not after us.”
“I’ll do what I have to, Weston. For both of us.”
“I don’t accept this.”
“Don’t make this harder than it has to be.” My voice was thinner than usual.
“Elizabeth, don’t do this.” He gave a pleading smile, just enough to show his dimple.
The sight increased the tightness in my chest. Made me feel like clawing at the air in frustration. Made me feel like shouting from the rooftops that I wasn’t doing this because I wanted to.
I picked up the damn paper and held it toward him, my hands shaking. “It’s already done. See? Look.” He didn’t move. “Look!” When he didn’t take it I threw it back into my purse. “Whether you look at it or not, it doesn’t change the fact that I filed it. It’s done.”
He leaned forward, putting all his weight on his forearms on the desk. “Then we’ll get remarried. The first ceremony was for show anyway. This time we’ll do it for real. We’ll do the first dance, and we’ll cut the cake.”
Jesus, he was breaking my heart. “Don’t,” I said. It was all I could manage. “Please, don’t.”
Showing him my hurt was the wrong move. He clung to my pain. “You want that, don’t you? You can’t tell me you don’t want that. I can see it in your face. Marry me again. I’ll even pick out the ring this time. Just marry me.”
I couldn’t help myself. “I loved this ring,” I said softly.
“Then marry me.”
I closed my eyes. Shut them tight against the threatening tears and focused on why I was doing this—for him. For Sebastian. I couldn’t let that out of my sight.
When I opened my eyes again, I felt stronger. “I wouldn’t need another wedding, Weston. The one we had was perfect, and I’ll cherish it forever. Now it’s time to move on.” I wasn’t sure how I’d gotten through that statement without my voice cracking when my insides were shattered.
He pushed his lips together in a straight line while he processed.
Then he was done processing and back to refuting. His gaze flew around the room, as though looking for another angle to come at me, then zoomed back to land on me when he’d found one.
“What about the company?” he asked, a spiteful glint in his eyes. “You’ve learned a lot, but you need someone to help advise you. You’re not ready to lead.”
“Fuck you,” I said, despite knowing his words came from a hurt place. “And I’ve already thought of that. I’ve asked Clarence to come to France with me. As an advisor—”
“Clarence Sheridan?” His face puffed up and went red.
“Yes, and he agreed. It’s a paid position, of course, a really good opportunity—”
“A really good opportunity to get in your pants.” He was mad, and I couldn’t blame him.
But I couldn’t help defending myself, anyway. “That’s assuming I can’t take care of myself. That I’d let him into my bed. And if I do let him into my bed, that won’t be your business anymore. We have to be over, Weston. I’m leaving tomorrow. Clarence will meet me later. You need to be here for your son. And I need to put all of my focus into my company.”
He slammed his hand on the desk. “Dammit, we can do both!”
“Maybe we could.” I was purposefully quieter in comparison. “But odds are that we can’t. And we could do a lot of damage to a lot of innocent people while we’re trying.”
“So you’re just going to give up?” He spit the words at me.
“I’m not giving up. I’m giving us both a better chance.” I met his eyes and held his stare for long seconds. They were cold and hard like ice, but I could glimpse the sea underneath and it was rocked with turbulent waves.
I was rocking his ocean. I was the storm on his main.
Fuck, I hated this. Hated this. Hated hurting him and me. But mostly him.
Storms pass. He’s going to have a better life because of this. With his child. Now was his chance to do right by his son, and I couldn’t stand in the way.
“You are going to be an amazing father. You already are. And I want you to know that in an alternate world where my dad was still alive and his company wasn’t up for grabs, I know I would have found a way to you anyway. And I would have married you and had a hundred of your babies, and we’d be happy together.” Yeah, I was definitely crying now. “I know you’d make me happy forever. I know you would. In a timeline where there isn’t this other thing pulling at me. This other obligation. This other responsibility. I’m sorry that we can’t be in that world, but it helps for me to believe that somewhere it might exist.”
“An alternate timeline, Elizabeth? Let’s talk about this fucking timeline, okay?”
I cowered at his volume.
“In this timeline, we work best when you’re my wife, when I’m beside you. You say I’m goin
g to be a good dad? That’s only when you’re there. You’re my home, remember? You’re my queen. I don’t work without you next to me.”
I shook my head. “Now you’re not giving yourself enough credit.”
“Elizabeth, don’t do this.” He got up from his chair and came around to me. “You’re reacting too quickly. We haven’t even tried anything out yet. You don’t know what it’s going to be like.” He crouched down next to me, but I refused to turn toward him, keeping my body angled forward.
“I do know what it’s going to be like,” I said. “You’d try to make it work for everyone. You’re going to try to fix things for me and for Sebastian and you’re going to end up sacrificing yourself. Just the same way that you don’t want to watch me stay here and give up the things that I want, I can’t watch you tear yourself into pieces trying to be everything to everyone.”
“I won’t. I can do it. I’m stronger than you know.”
He tried to swivel me toward him, so I stood up and walked out of the chair the opposite way. “You’re strong now. But it will break you down. Give yourself the best shot at fatherhood, Weston. Think about Sebastian. We have to do this for him.”
Of course he followed me. “How can I be a good father when I’m a miserable wreck because you’ve left me?”
He was just a few steps away from me.
I put my hand out to stop him. “I’ve made up my mind, Weston.”
He stopped and stared at me, pleading with his eyes. I could feel his body aching to reach me, just as mine was aching for him.
I couldn’t let him get to me. It would undo everything.
It would undo me.
I forced myself to look away, forced myself to go on, finish up. Cut the cord and get out. “I’m not going to pretend this is easy. I’m not going to say that I don’t love you. Because of course I do. You know that I do. It’s because I do that I’m doing this. It’s because I love you that I have to let you go.”
He took another step toward me, and he was close enough to pull me into his arms.
I took a step back, out of his reach. “Let me go, Weston. If you love me, let me go.”
And because I couldn’t stand to be there anymore, because I couldn’t take the way his eyes felt on me, and the weight of his love pressing, pressing, pressing on me, I rushed over to grab my bag, then hurried out before he could say anything else. Before he could stop me.
Before he could truly see me break down.
18
Weston
I watched her walk out the door.
I stood there, dumbfounded, frozen in place while rage and pain and disbelief swirled through my veins, a wild tempest within me. I heard the muted sound of her voice as she spoke to Roxie, and then it was quiet. Too quiet.
I should have known.
Everything had been too perfect. And she had felt distant. Closed off. And I blamed it on the chaos and the circumstances because I hadn’t wanted to believe it was something else. Because I was determined to believe she couldn’t be considering this. Never this.
I let the rage and fury have free rein as I swept my arm across the desk, throwing everything on top of it to the floor.
That crash, that explosion breaking through the silence—that was what it felt like was going on inside me. Like noise and thunder and wreckage.
Roxie ran in through the door. “Are you all right?”
I didn’t answer her. I just pushed her aside and ran out of the office, hoping I wasn’t too late.
I ran down the halls, but when I reached the elevator, the doors were already shutting. I pressed the call button, I pounded on the steel, but she was gone. Unlike that first day I had run after her, this time I didn’t catch her.
I turned and leaned against the closed elevator door. I could try to run down the stairs, but that was a long shot. She was gone. I had let her go.
I trod back down the hall, ignoring the looks from the staff, but instead of heading toward my office, I went straight for the lounge. There was a liquor cart there, and I poured myself a drink. I swigged it back in one gulp, then poured another. I snatched my glass and started to leave, had second thoughts and went back for the bottle, taking it with me to my office. If she was gone, I was going to be drunk. There was no way in hell I was going to deal with it sober.
Back in my office, I found Roxie on the floor trying to clean up my mess. “I won’t ask what happened, but do you really need to take it out on the office equipment?”
She lifted up the computer monitor and set it on the desk.
“Go home,” I growled. And that was an attempt to be friendly.
“I’ll finish cleaning this mess up first.” Roxie was never afraid of my moods.
She’d never seen this mood though. I shook my head, my whole body moving with the action, and this time I roared. “Go home!”
I’d hired Roxie because she was smart. She proved it when she didn’t say another word, just stood up and silently left, shutting the door behind her.
Alone, I sank into my chair and took a big gulp of my drink.
Fuck her.
Not Roxie. Elizabeth.
And not really. I didn’t really mean fuck her, I meant fuck her decision. Fuck the idea that she could choose this without me having any say in it.
If she could plan our lives out without my input, then why couldn’t I? Why couldn’t I choose what happened between us, what our future looked like? I took another swallow, finishing off my glass and then refilled it.
I could. I could choose. Why not?
I could stick with the plan I had before. Move to France. Travel back and forth. What was she going to do if I showed up there anyway? Refuse to see me? If I was living in France three weeks out of the month anyway, would she just refuse to acknowledge my existence?
Not a chance.
I was going, and that’s all there was to it.
I marched out of my office toward Roxie’s desk. She’d gone now—it was almost closing time anyway, and, like I’d said, she was smart. I was pretty certain she stored unused boxes in the closet behind where she sat.
Turned out, she did.
I grabbed a couple, then returned to my office and began packing things up. I started with my books, the business-related ones. I wanted to have those, especially for Elizabeth, in case she needed to look up some professional information. She could use them in her resource library.
Then I moved on to my desk drawers, cleaning out files and binders. When I’d filled the two boxes, I went and got two more.
I kept packing and drinking until the office was quiet, and I was sure most everyone had gone home. I’d made it to my graphic novels by then, my collectibles. My first edition of The Walking Dead was missing. I tried to remember if I’d loaned it to anyone.
I hadn’t. That left one person to blame—Donovan. He was the only one who would mess with my shit.
Speaking of Donovan—I needed to tell him I was leaving.
I tramped out of my office and started toward his, but the dark hallway said he wasn’t there. I was desperate to tell him anyway, eager to make it known, so I shouted it out. “I’m moving to France.”
“You are?”
I looked to my side and found Nate was still here. I’d missed his light on.
“No,” I said, sullenly, feeling the loss of my wife all over again. Then I remembered I was going to move to France anyway. “Yes. I mean yes.”
Moving to France. It was laughable. I was laughable. She didn’t want me, and I was chasing after her.
What the fuck was I even doing?
Except she did want me. She’d just decided we were better apart.
Lies.
Lies, lies, lies.
I needed to find her. Needed to tell her she was wrong about her decision. Convince her we belonged together.
“I have to go,” I said, heading back for my coat.
“To France?” Nate called.
“God, I hope so.” I put my coat on as I walke
d toward the elevator, wondering if I should call for an Uber or if there’d be a cab.
I looked at my phone, meaning to pull up the Uber app, but got distracted when I saw my wallpaper—a picture of Sebastian that I’d taken the day before. “Did I tell you I’m a dad?” I called back to Nate.
I didn’t even know if he could hear me anymore; I was almost at the elevator, and I couldn’t see him past the dark sections of the hallway.
“That sounds about right,” he yelled back.
It did sound right. But it didn’t feel right without Elizabeth. I had to make her see that, too.
I used my key to get into her apartment, then shut the door and pressed my back against it while I let my eyes adjust to the dark.
It was only a little after eight o’clock. Fuck, was she even here?
I didn’t want to turn on the light and announce my presence in case she was. Not yet, anyway.
I started through the foyer into the interior of the apartment and bumped into the end table, knocking into the boxes stacked on top of it. “Shh,” I told them as they rattled, afraid they would crash to the floor. “Shh.” Fumbling, I managed to steady them just as the light flicked on.
“What are you doing here, Weston?”
Well, at least now I knew she was home.
I ran a hand through my hair and straightened my jacket, which was rumpled from packing, a general day’s wear, and my drunken state. I’d lost my tie hours ago, probably left behind at the office.
A quick once-over of my soon-to-be ex said she’d taken a bath. The bottom half of her hair was limp and damp. She was wearing one of those nighties that always drove me crazy in the early days because of how sexy she looked in them.
They still drove me crazy.
Her eyes were swollen and puffy, and maybe should have been a comfort to know that she was also miserable, but if she was really miserable, then why the fuck was she doing this?
I stormed past her into the living room, pulling the string of another lamp. Everything was gone. The walls were empty, her knickknacks missing. All that was left were a few pieces of furniture and some miscellaneous boxes.
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