Page 11 of An Inevitable Marriage

After the day I’d had, I should have known luck had no intention of being on my side. I’d barely stepped through the door when Anthony’s voice slithered over my skin.

“I see you’ve finally come to your senses.”

Crinkling my nose, I blew out an irritated sigh.

“Yes, I have—”

Before the next word could leave my mouth, he was right there. Arms stretched wide, he leaned in.

“I knew you’d come back to me.”

He’d said that, but I heard, “I knew you had nowhere else to go.”

With a sweet smile, I leaned into him and curled my hands over his shoulders. Then, just as he made a move to put his filthy lips on me, I rammed my knee straight up into his balls.

It took him only a second to double over and two more after that to screech, “You stupid bitch.”

I couldn’t stop my lips from curling into the widest grin. Hearing him scream like a child as he fell to the floor was, without a doubt, the highlight of my dumpster-fire day.

Too bad my little victory only lasted until I stepped into the bedroom.

It didn’t matter how many times I tried, nothing could erase the image of Anthony and those two women from earlier. Or remove the brutal sting of betrayal.

And standing there in the doorway of the room we used to sleep in together, I felt stupid for the first time in my life.

The signs were there. They always had been. I’d just chosen to ignore them because I was so desperate to have that unbreakable love my parents had.

The love my best friend had.

To have someone love me forme.

My smile vanished, and emotion clawed its way up my throat, filling my eyes with tears. For all my pretending, it was finally time to admit I wasn’t okay. And not because I’d lost the great love of my life.

Anthony was never that for me. We were…comfortable. Maybe even a little familiar. But it wasn’t love. I’d known it from the moment I’d seen the way Natalie’s husband looked at her.

Maybe even before then.

Anthony had never looked at me like that, and to be quite honest, I hadn’t looked at him like that either.

But being with him was much easier than being alone or putting myself out there.

“Ugh.”

Swiping at my tears with my hands, I pulled myself together and emptied my closet.

I was about halfway done when Anthony’s voice sounded from the doorway.

“Where are you gonna go, Evie?”

Without facing him, I muttered, “It doesn’t matter. As long as I am away from you and whatever filth you occupy your time with.”

His derisive snort filled the air. “And that’s the problem, isn’t it?”

I spun around so fast that I almost toppled sideways. “Excuse me?”

Anthony shot me a death glare as he hooked his fingers in the waistband of his cargo pants. “You think it’s filthy to spice up our love life? To make things fun and interesting?”

“Fun and interesting?” Disbelief had me throwing my hands in the air and shaking my head. “You think you’re spicing up ourlove lifeby cheating?”