Page 42 of Best Kept Vows

“I thought you were having an affair. That was my first instinct. My second was that you’d gotten caught. My third was, no way, my Sebastian would never do that.” Tears streamed down her cheeks. “My fourth”—she sniffled—“was that we’re not okay, we’re not…okay, Seb.”

I put an arm around her, and she leaned into me, her face buried in my chest. Tears filled my eyes, too, and I felt her tremble.

“Baby, why do you feel like that?”

She raised her head. “Because we can’t just paper over years of…stuffwith dinners and sex. I’m afraid every day that I’m going to lose you.”

“You’ll never lose me.” I kissed her forehead. “Never.”

“Only one of us is allowed to cry, not both of us,” she teased, wiping a tear that ran down my face.

“I can’t live without you,” I choked out.

She sniffled. “We need to…we need to heal properly. We can’t just pretend the past three years didn’t happen. I have so much resentment inside of me, so much…anger and insecurities, and seeing you with Jane…God! It all came out.”

I didn’t know what to say. I was trying to do better now and for the future, but I couldn’t go back and change the past.

“Lia, you need to move past…we need to move past the past so we can?—”

“Just like that?” She got up and crossed her arms. “It doesn’t work that way, Sebastian. I’m hurting. Still…because of the things you did. That isn’t going to vanish because we’refuckingagain.”

Lia didn’t swear or use foul language, so hearing her sayfuckingwas an indication of how upset she was. I paid heed to it.

“What can I do? How can I…how can I make this better?”

She lifted her chin almost defiantly. “I don’t know. I can’t do the work for you. I just know that I’m unhappy, and the past weeks were lovely, but it feels like a vacation, not our real life…and the vacation is now over.”

I swallowed, not liking how rigid she was. I wanted to scream at her to get with the program, but I knew that wouldn’t work—she wasn’t just going to become docile and compliant after I’d messed up so much.

“What do you want to do?” I asked, scared shitless of her answer.

“I think I want to move out.”

I was glad I was sitting because my knees would’ve failed me. As thingsstood, I gasped, and my head fell forward, my elbows on my thighs as I tried to get my breathing in order.

I took a minute and then faced her. “Baby, please don’t?—”

“Ineedto move out because my head is not screwed on straight, either. I…I need space to think.”

“I can move into the guest?—”

“I don’t want to be here.” She looked around our bedroom with a look of distaste. “I feel like, in the past three years, this home became a mausoleum where I waited for you to come to me.”

“So, now you want to leave so I can feel like you did?” I asked, my tone sharp, accusatory.

She shook her head. “No, honey. You know I’d never do that.”

I nodded; I knew.

Lia was leaving me. Not storming out in anger, not issuing an ultimatum, but calmly, decisively saying she needed space. It was worse than any screaming fight we’d ever had.

Holy fuck!

I couldn’t breathe.

I ran a hand over my face, trying to force air into my lungs because it felt like a weight had dropped on my chest.

“Where will you go?” My voice sounded strange, hollow.