I shoved at Rob’s shoulders, wanting him off me, out of me, away. Far, far away.

“Miss—” he began.

I shook my head, squirming harder, shoving more fiercely. “Off,” I gasped. “Off now.”

“Am I hurting—?”

“Get off me!” I screamed.

Rob’s face hardened, but he sat back. I scrambled up, sliding to the side of the bed and swinging my legs to hang off the mattress.

It was only the pull of my stitches that stopped me from standing and running away.

I dropped my head into my hands, hot tears leaking from the corners of my eyes. What had I just done?

A warm palm landed on my shoulder, making me tense up.

“Why are you running?” he asked, as though genuinely perplexed why I might be pulling back from my cheating husband. One whom I’d known was cheating and still slept with.

Real freaking smart, Melissa.

“You’re kidding right?” I snapped and yanked at the comforter, wrapping it tightly around my body. “Why would I be disgusted for fucking you? Why?”

“Disgust—” He snorted in disbelief, shoved to his feet. “That’s a really shitty thing to say.”

I laughed coldly. “No. A really shitty thing to do was to fuck your coworker and then disappear from our lives. To throw me and our kids away like we didn’t fucking matter. That was the shitty thing to do.”

Rob began pacing, his footsteps pounding even through the thick carpeting. “I’ve been on a case and couldn’t contact you much, but I sent texts for you and the kids every morning and night. You were the one who never responded back.”

I wasn’t proud of what I did next, but I was a woman at her wit’s end.

My fingers wrapped around the heavy protective case surrounding my phone, and I chucked it at my husband’s head.

“Then where—” I watched the phone fly and collide with Rob’s chest after which it plunked to the carpet. I know, I know, my aim sucked. “Where the fuck are they? Because I never saw a single one.”

He bent and scooped the phone up, unlocking the screen before presumably scrolling through my texts.

Then he crossed to his nightstand where there were two phones. He snatched the non-cheater one that we’d picked out at the store together, leaving the other on the polished wood.

He pulled something up on the screen and shoved the phone in my face. “Look.”

My eyes flicked down.

I read.

And my stomach twisted into knots.

I scrolled up, read another text.

“It was pie,” I murmured before shaking my head at myself.

Not the point.

My finger swiped as my eyes rapidly devoured the texts, seeing the words and not understanding. He’d sent them every day, every single day and night. But I’d never received them. Not one.

“I don’t understand,” I said when I’d gotten to the top of the list. “I didn’t get any of these.”

Rob was scrolling through my phone, reading the texts I’d sent him over the last few weeks. Texts I hadn’t received responses to.

“I didn’t get any of these either,” he said gruffly.

We glanced at each other. What the hell was going on?

Suddenly, he cursed and came around to sit on my side of the bed, snatching the phone from my fingers.

“What—?”

“I just remembered something.” He tapped several times on his phone screen, cursed, then tapped a few more times. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck me. She did it. She did it to me.”

“Who did what?” I asked softly. My heart was starting to pound, hope an unstoppable bubble in my chest. Could it be a misunderstanding? Was it all just technology gone wrong or—

“Celeste fucked with my phone,” Rob growled. “She put you on the blocked caller’s list and then changed your contact information. Look.”

My eyes flicked down, and I frowned at seeing my cell under the blocked numbers list. It was there, sure as my kids never managed to turn off the lights in their bedrooms. Or bathrooms, or pretty much any room in the house.

But who was to say Rob hadn’t put it there?

He sighed at the expression on my face. “I didn’t block you, Miss.”

“Okay.” I nodded even though I didn’t feel one hundred percent confident. He’d been so distant these last few months, and this was almost too easy an explanation.

“Want proof?”

I shrugged.

He tapped at the screen again, pulling up the contacts section and scrolling down. When he stopped at W my heart caught.

Because there were two listings for wife.

One was “Wife.” The other was “wife.”

“Capital Wife” was the blocked listing. Rob flicked backed to the messages screen and sure enough “lowercase wife” was the number he was texting. It should have been my number, but when he clicked on the little circle near the top of the message chain, I saw that it didn’t match my cell phone.

“I know this number,” he said pointing at the screen, “because it’s Celeste’s work cell.”

“And you just know Celeste’s work number?”

Rob raised a brow. “We’ve worked closely together these last few months.”

I snorted. “Yeah. I know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Only that it’s obvious to everyone in this town that you’ve mixed duty with a slice of on-the-job-pleasure and that Celeste was your favorite version of it.”

“That’s bullshit.”

I stopped and glared at him. “Oh, so you haven’t kissed her? Had your hands on her and her hands on you? You haven’t touched or fantasized or fucked her?”

“What?” Rob jumped to his feet. “Of course I haven’t.”

“Rob.” I sighed and stared up at him. “Aside from the lipstick on your collar that you came home to me with, you were seen.”

His shoulders hunched up, protective and defensive at once, and that churning disgust made a comeback, twisting my gut, raising my blood pressure.

“I haven’t slept with her,” he muttered. “And any touching or kissing was strictly for the case.”

“That according to you? How does she feel about it?” He froze and so did my heart. “Yeah,” I murmured. “That’s what I thought.”

“Celeste can be a little persistent, but she knew I was married. That everything had to be on the level. We only pretended to be a couple when it was necessary to further the case.”

The case. The God damned case.

My fingers clenched on the comforter. “Was the case so important that it was worth ruining us?”

Rob sank onto the bed next to me and took my hand. “It didn’t ruin us. We’re in a rough patch is all.”

“My husband has been accusing me of cheating on him with our vet, when he’s been pretending to sleep around with his beautiful coworker. Further, he—you—” I glared fiercely at him. “You deprioritized me and our kids until we had to either stop missing you or learn to live without you. And none of that goes into the lack of clarity you have about what the kids and I have been going through or addresses the jealousy or justifies the fact that you tried to stifle my dream.” I flopped back and stared up at the ceiling. “What am I supposed to say, Rob? Oh, there was a cell phone snafu, everything’s fine now?”

“I—”

“Because none of it is fine.” I plunked my hands over my face. “It all sucks. I’m lonely and hurt and disgusted that I still want you. The kids miss you. They miss their dad who used to come to sporting events and school plays. I miss the man who didn’t freeze me out and shut me down at every turn.”

“I had to,” Rob said. “I couldn’t risk bringing our family into the case.”

I propped my elbows beneath me. “Why not?”

His face closed down, and I knew that I would never get the answer that I might hope for, never get the explanation or understand if it was all truly worth it.

“Never mind,” I said. “I get it. I’ll never be worthy enough to confide in. I understand that I’m not part of”—I made air quotes—“the sheriff club and couldn’t possibly understand all the idiosyncrasies of police work, but I was here, waiting and willing to be by your side.” My voice broke. “If only you hadn’t thrown me away.”

“I didn’t—”

“I don’t understand why you’re still here.” I spread my legs and pointed between them. “Are you that desperate for another lay? Have another itch for me to scratch since Celeste isn’t here?”

“Miss. I haven’t—”

“Fuck off, Rob. Just fuck the hell off.”

I interrupted him because it was easier to do that than allow his slick, charm-filled lies to fill my heart. It was easier to pull back and have distance rather than face the truth.

My family was imploding.