Chapter Forty-Four

Katy

I sit alone in our hotel room, waiting anxiously for Gavin as I roll the bottle of Xanax in my hand. The drug offers a temporary numbness, a little bit of indifference, a small relief from the present, an escape. Its effects are equivalent to taking three long tugs of vodka. The pills are a powerful reminder that after months of trying, I’m still not her, and it’s clear I never will be. But the woman I am still knows the worth of family and the promise of forever that I made to a man who deserves it.

I love my husband.

The key card sounds as I stash the bottle. I don’t want to see any more judgment in his eyes than what I know is already coming. Dread fills me as three strides have him into the room.

He’s removed his jacket and is loosening his tie when I try to catch his eyes. His golden hair is disheveled from him running his fingers through it. It’s a telltale sign of his frustration. Then I notice the way he’s standing, stock-still, clenching and unclenching his fingers.

He stares at me, and I stare back. Growing increasingly uncomfortable, I lean back, resting on the post of the bed frame. And he just…stares.

“I’m a fool,” he says, so quietly I almost miss it. His right hand makes another pass through his hair. “You’ve turned me into a fucking fool!” he shouts, before lifting the lamp from the desk and throwing it at the wall.

I jerk back in shock. In the months that I’ve been home, he’s never shouted at me.

“Don’t you dare look at me like that. Don’t give me that deer in headlights look, and don’t you dare fucking act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“I’m not, but you’re painting a picture you haven’t even seen,” I say softly.

“Give me some credit here, Katy. Anyone with a fucking pulse could see how crazy you are for him. How in love he is with you…” He steps forward, towering above me as I sit helpless on the bed. “My wife.”

“That’s right. Your wife. Not his.”

“Don’t bring promises you aren’t keeping into this. Did you fuck him?”

I jerk back at his question, even though it’s warranted. “No.”

“Kiss him?”

“Yes, once,” I say with ease. That confession was always going to be the hardest, and it falls so easily from my lips as the guilt swaddles me in a familiar blanket.

“Goddamn you,” he says through gritted teeth, seething. “I’ve been wracking my fucking brain for five months trying to figure out what I can do, what more I can do to get you back, and this is what you’ve been hiding?”

My lips tremble with the weight of the words coming out. “What we feel, it’s not natural. I mean it didn’t come naturally…I don’t know how to explain it.”

His eyes are blazing, an inferno burning me alive and I can smell the whiskey on his breath, as he spews his venom. “Were you attracted to him before you were captured?”

I drop my chin to my chest. I refuse to lie to him. “I never encouraged it, and I defended our marriage.”

“So, let me get this straight,” he says, pacing in front of me. “He was after you, knowing you were a happily married woman, and I mean fucking happily, Katy, because we were happy, whether or not you’ve forgotten it.”

“No, he respected those boundaries, and he looked out for me. We were friends. It was never going to happen.”

“But it did.”

“Only when we—” Shared breaths that kept us alive, survived unimaginable horrors, smiled at each other through sheer desperation. “I’ll never see him again,” I promise. “I was never supposed to see him again.”

“I can’t do this!” he yells before he grabs the desk chair, tossing it across the room. It crashes into the TV stand, the screen wobbling so hard it threatens to tip. It’s a moving image of our marriage.

“What?” he grits out with accusatory eyes that cut me deep. “What is it about him? What is so fucking special about him?”

I’m on my feet before I can think it through. “He doesn’t look at me like I’m someone that needs to be fixed!” I shout at the top of my lungs.

Gavin takes a step back, his jaw slack.

“Well, he’s not the one watching his wife fall apart, is he? But lucky us, we both get the luxury of loving you from afar.”

“I’m sorry,” I say uselessly.

“Sorry you’re in love with him?”

“Stop it!”

“Wow, look who’s fighting now,” he spits sarcastically, “I can’t even credit myself for getting you this far, though, can I?”

“Jesus,” I whisper. Sobs wrack my body as I watch my beautiful man cripple any defense I have with his anger. I’ll take his wrath over indifference. It means he still loves me, and I’ll do anything to keep him loving me. I’ve known all along my family’s worth, the feel of Gavin’s love. It’s embedded.

He breaks, and I watch as he rips at his hair, and the first of his tears fall. His hoarse voice shatters me as he speaks.

“Katy,” he says, gripping his hair as his eyes fill, “from the moment we met, you were mine. I’m not sharing a single piece of you with him—with anyone. I could handle anything you threw at me as long as that’s a fact, but it’s not anymore.”

“I choose you. I choose Noah. I choose this life, over and over,” I hear myself say.

He shakes his head. “But you aren’t living it.”

“I’m trying.”

“You’re drowning, baby,” his cries are guttural, “and I’m watching it, and it’s fucking killing me.”

Everything inside me knows this isn’t us, this kind of confrontation would have never been us, never, before.

Rushing to him, I throw my arms around his neck and press my lips to his, kissing him with everything I have. His mouth crushes mine as he clutches me tightly to him before opening my mouth with his tongue and sweeping me away in a possessive kiss. Hunger rushes through, and my panties flood as I claw his chest to soothe the ache and offer myself to him. For the first time since I got home, I welcome the rush, the response to his need. Tongues tangled, he pushes me against the wall, his erection straining against my waist as I grip the back of his hair, raking my nails on the skin of his neck. Moaning into his mouth, I move to press closer when I’m pushed away to arm’s length. Gavin pants in front of me, his eyes dark with a mix of lust and returning anger.

“So, you want to fuck me now out of obligation? No thanks,” he says, letting me go abruptly before I sink against the wall and tears begin to pour out of me. Staring up at him, I know nothing I can say will convince him of the truth. Defenseless and unable to fight any longer, I let him see the guilty tears, the longing in my eyes, the love I still feel.

He stares down at me with confusion, and for a moment, I think he sees the truth. That I love him, that I know I’m torn, and I’m trying to correct it, that I’m still fighting to get back to him. It’s in this moment I know what I have to do; what I’ve always had to do.

Gavin straightens his clothes, putting himself back together as I sit exposed. It isn’t enough and hasn’t been enough, since the day I set foot back into her home.

Gavin grabs his packed suitcase from the two that sit on the luggage rack, his decision in his hand as his eyes sweep me for a reaction. I turn my head away from the anger they hold because I can’t handle another second.

Licking my salty lips, I nod.

“Just so you know…” I say as he reaches the door and glances back at me. Pulling myself to stand, I face him head-on. “That was me. That was me kissing you, and you know it. I’ve been fighting every single damned day to get her back to you, but this is who I am, and who I am now just kissed you. That was me you rejected. I want our family. I choose our family, I choose you, and I always will. Please don’t do this.”

He closes the space between us in two determined strides.

“Prove it.”

And then he’s gone.