I had to pry myself from her, force myself to walk out her diner door when it was the last thing I wanted to do, fucking agony clamoring along behind me the whole way.

She’d promised me.

I stalked out into the blazing day, squeezing my eyes against the harsh reality, wondering if this was what it felt like to be eaten alive. If you could feel every part of yourself being devoured and destroyed, helpless to do anything but accept that you were getting ready to die a slow, painful death.

Bit by bit.

Because I was. I was fucking dying inside, all those pieces I’d offered into Rynna’s hands shriveling into nothing.

It just left more room for the bitterness.

More room for the anger and hate and questions to flood and inundate.

In a daze, I climbed into the cab of my truck, slammed the door, and turned over the ignition. The engine roared. I pulled out onto the road.

Torn.

Wanting to turn right back around and beg Rynna, when instead I headed in the direction of my house.

I still couldn’t believe my wife had shown up at my door.

Fuck.

My wife.

I scrubbed a hand over my face like it might give me some kind of clarity when nothing had ever looked hazier.

She was back and she wanted Frankie and me and I had no idea what to do with that.

Reject it was what I wanted to do. Send her fucking packing so Rynna and I could get right back to where we’d been last night. Tangled and bound. Perfectly tied.

Memories of the pledge I’d made pressed in, taunting me in the periphery of my mind, that vow I’d stood and taken.

Could I just disregard it? Shun it? The commitment I’d made? And why did I feel even an ounce of it when she’d been the one to up and disappear?

Motherfucking loyalty.

She was the one who’d broken the vows we’d made. Betrayed and abandoned and deceived. I mean, fuck, I had no clue where she’d even been for the last three years. What she’d been doing. Most sickening was realizing I really didn’t care.

But it didn’t matter anyway, did it? Rynna had made her decision. Pushed me aside just like I deserved for her to.

God. What had I been thinking would happen when I didn’t tell her? Those words locked on my tongue like some dirty secret. Rynna had been right. I’d waited. I’d waited for years for Janel to come back. But the part Rynna was missing was she’d changed everything. Once she’d shown up, the hole Janel had left behind was no longer vacant. Not when Rynna had inhabited every inch.

Now that space was a pit again—deeper, darker, suffocating. Nothing but a hollow chasm, sucking me down where I’d be forever falling in an endless black hole.

I made a left onto my street. I drove passed the rows of happy houses shaded by towering trees, the perfect family neighborhood.

Slowing, I eased into my drive, flinching at the sight of the same beat-up car Janel had taken off in three years before still sitting there. Grim and foreboding beneath the cheerful rays of summer light.

Everything that should have been right was nothing but a contradiction.

Because Janel returning was a prayer I wished would have remained unanswered.

Dropping my forehead to the steering wheel, I exhaled a heavy breath before I forced myself to man up and climb out. That didn’t mean I didn’t hate every step that brought me closer, my footfalls slackened with dread.

I slid the key in the lock and cracked open the door. There wasn’t a whole lot left but resignation when I stepped inside.

Janel was in the kitchen, and she whirled around, wringing her hands together and looking at me expectantly.

I tossed my keys to the small table by the door. “You can stay,” I told her, voice hard.

She exhaled a relieved breath and started for me. Repulsed, I gave a harsh shake of my head and took a step back. She stumbled to a quick stop. Was she actually so clueless she didn’t get why I’d push her away? Did she not grasp what she’d done?

“You can sleep in my room, and I’ll sleep on the couch.” Might as well have spit the words at her. But I couldn’t help it. That anger was slipping and sliding, sinking in deeper, the freedom I’d found in Rynna binding me in chains.

Disappointment flashed across her face, and she went back to twisting her fingers. I kept on, giving her what I could, feeling like I didn’t have another choice. “I don’t want you alone with Frankie.”

“But—”

“You don’t get a say in this, Janel. You left, and if you want to see Frankie, then it’s gonna be on my terms. Or else you can walk right back out that door.” I pointed at it, hoping she’d take it as an invitation.

She gulped, nodding for me to continue. “Okay. I told you I’d do anything.”

“She’s going to be confused, so you need to be respectful of that. Let her get used to you. And you’re going to have to prove to me that you actually want to be here. That you’ve changed before I can trust you with her.”

Her blue eyes widened in sincerity, her blonde ponytail swishing as she took a surging step forward. “I will. I’ll do whatever it takes. Maybe . . . maybe I can go to work for you in the office. Do something with my hands. Show you I’m responsible. I’ve changed, Rex. I’ve changed.”

Mine widened in disbelief. “I think you’re getting ahead of yourself, don’t you?”

“I just want to make things right. What . . . what about us?”

“There’s no us, Janel.”

She stumbled over a whimper. “Because of Rynna?”

Pain pierced me, a straight shot right through the center of my heart. I tried to hide it, but I knew Janel saw it. “It’s none of your business what I’ve got going on with Rynna.”

“You’re my husband, Rex.”

I stalked passed her and into the kitchen. I grabbed a beer from the refrigerator, doing everything I could to keep myself in check. “Who you left.”

“And now I’m back. I came back to you because I missed you so much. Every single day,” she begged.

I cringed. Didn’t want to hear it. It didn’t matter what she had to say. “It’s too late.”

Her voice was a plea behind me. “It’s never too late.”