Page 20 of Best Kept Vows (Savannah’s Best #6)

Sebastian

I ’d just gotten out of the shower and put on my boxers when Lia entered our bedroom. She silently watched me as I put on joggers and a t-shirt, leaning against the closed door. The quiet was far worse than yelling—her silence filled every corner of the room, suffocating and heavy.

I finished dressing and looked at her. “You know I’m not interested in that woman.”

“Actually, Sebastian, I don’t know.” Her eyes reflected a sadness that wounded me.

“I didn’t?—”

“I know you didn’t sleep with her.” She sat down on our bed, her shoulders slumped. “I know you wouldn’t.”

I sat next to her. She was wearing a peach-colored sheath dress and tan heels. She looked good. Her hair was tied up, and her makeup was subtle.

Oh God, baby, don’t leave me.

“I’m sorry, Lia. You shouldn’t have had to see that. ”

“No,” she said gently, voice tight with controlled emotion. “I shouldn’t have.”

“Lia—”

“You know, I thought we were on track again, we were having sex, and you were home for dinner and…I thought everything was fine, or at least it was going to be.” She played with the hem of her dress as she spoke. It was a nervous habit of hers.

“It is fine,” I assured her.

She looked at me, and there were tears in her eyes. “Is it? Because hearing her ask you to have sex with her…it took me to a bad place.”

“Tell me.”

“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… stuff with 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’re fucking again.”

Lia didn’t swear or use foul language, so hearing her say fucking was 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 things stood , 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?—”

“I need to 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.

“Aurora Rhodes has a furnished apartment,” she said quietly. “She’s offered it to me, and it’s close to work.”

Close to work. Not close to me.

So, she talked to her new colleagues about our problems, and they offered help.

It grated on me that strangers knew our business.

But I curbed that because, all along, I’d been thinking about what I needed and wanted, now, I had to change that mindset and learn to pay attention to what my wife needed and wanted.

She needed a break from us, and as much as that hurt, it was what she wanted.

I nodded, even though my entire body was rejecting the idea. “And what does…what does this mean for us?”

She sighed, wrapping her arms around herself. “It means I need to think. I need to figure out what I want, who I am outside of being your wife and the mother of our kids.”

“You’re Ophelia Boone.” I came to her and cupped her cheeks. “You’re my wife, the woman I love, the only thing that has ever made sense in my life.”

Her eyes searched mine, filled with pain, with doubt, with what looked achingly close to regret. “That’s the problem, Sebastian. I don’t know if I want to be Ophelia Boone anymore.”

My stomach clenched like I’d taken a punch to the gut. “You don’t mean that.”

She shook her head. “I mean, I don’t want to be the old me…I want…I don’t know what I want,” she admitted, despair dripping from her. “I just?—”

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” I wrapped my arms around her and held her to me.

“Baby, it’s going to be okay. I promise. I’m going to fix this.”

I didn’t know how, but I was going to find a way. I had caused my wife pain, and there was no excuse for that, no reprieve.

“I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t know it was this bad.” I rubbed my chin on her hair.

“I didn’t know how miserable I was.” Her voice was muffled with tears, and because she was burrowing into me. “But I was…I am.”

I sucked in a shaky breath. “Do you…want a divorce?”

It damn near killed me to wait for her answer. “No.” She looked at me, her eyes pleading. “I don’t want that, but I don’t want to…Sebastian, I need space.”

For how long, baby? A day? Two days? I don’t think I’ll last too long without you.

Fuck! When we started doing better these past weeks, I knew that it was not going to last because I knew that a few good weeks couldn’t undo years of damage. This wasn’t just Lia being upset; she was deeply wounded, and I had inflicted those wounds.

Lia took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. “I’ll pack some things tomorrow.”

I nodded stiffly. “Stay tonight with me?”

“Yes,” she whispered, tears streaming down her face. I wiped them.

“Come on, baby, let’s get some sleep. Let me hold you.”

Please, God, don’t make this the last time.