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“I filed for divorce two weeks ago.”
She paused again at the top of the stairs, and I saw her shoulders drop.
“I know.” Her voice was soft and depleted of energy and the fiery animosity I had come to know. She turned around briefly and looked at me before she asked, “Why?”
“You know why,” I answered and followed her into the master suite.
“You really like her, don’t you?” she asked as she unzipped her dress.
I leaned against the doorframe, dropped my head, and sighed.
“This isn’t about a woman.”
“Thisisabout a woman. It’s about Dr. Champagne. You think that I’m stupid, Casimir? I see the way that you look at her. I saw your fucking dick grow hard one day when she was wearing that short yellow dress with the white flowers. You know the one. You complimented her on it that day and those cheap-ass heels that she wore.”
I shook my head and smirked. “It’s always that with you, isn’t it? You never take self-responsibility. It always has to be someone else’s fault or problem, never Bethany’s.”
Bethany walked to the fireplace and turned a sad look in my direction. “You’re leaving me for her.” She sobbed.
“I’m not leaving you for anyone, Bethany. I’m leaving you because we don’t love each other. We never did. We were infatuated with each other; we made a good pairing after your family finished making me over, but you never loved me. You didn’t even know me, so how could you love me?”
“Are you saying that you don’t love me?” she asked.
“I’m saying this is about me taking my life back. I’m saying this is about me being the man I was destined to be, not the one your family created. You never gave me a chance to love you, Beth.”
“Then why have you stayed in the marriage this long?” She cried.
“Because once I agreed to be married, I was determined that I wasn’t going to walk away without giving it everything that I had. I tried. You didn’t want this.”
“I did. I do.” Beth sobbed, jumped up, and ran to me.
Beth lowered to her knees and tugged at my hands, begging, “Please don’t leave me.”
My mind was already made up. There wasn’t anything that I could do. Whether Giselle Champagne ever existed or not, I wouldn’t continue with this farce of a marriage. I needed more than what Beth was willing to offer, and she deserved more than what I could offer. She was right; I never loved her. I had love for her. As a person, as a human being, I loved the woman. But I wasn’t in love with her, nor did I desire her anymore.
“Get up, Beth,” I whispered.
“No. You can’t leave me, Cas.”
“I can’t stay either.”
“Please. Oh God, please don’t leave me. I have nothing else. No one in this world who cares about me and will tell me the truth about me but you.”
“And yet, none of that has mattered in the last five years. You didn’t listen. You didn’t give a shit, Beth. Why now?”
“I did. Oh my God, I did. I tried to change my ways, but it’s hard . . . You don’t understand what it’s like growing up in this family with the expectations that I have on me.”
“What do you want from me, Beth? We tried counseling because you said that you wanted to get us the help we needed, but you only wanted me to change.”
“I think we would have done great if we had gone to another counselor. She was never the one we should have gone to. I’ll bet she got her degree online. She was no good. I saw how she watched you, how she wanted you, and how she always made it seem as if everything was my fault. All the questions, the insinuations, the demands were all to point out my flaws!”
I was fed up with Bethany’s theatrics and, I wasn’t in the mood to listen to her blame Giselle for everything that was already wrong in our marriage long before we met Giselle.
“That’s not true. She was trying to—”
“I knew it! You want her. I hate you! I hate you!”
She began to beat me with her fists as she screamed and called me every word in the book. She threatened to have Giselle’s license suspended, and then she threatened to sue her.