Page 144 of The Wrong Husband

“After the accident… When Drew was killed, word got out. About his affair with one of the residents. About me.”

His expression shifts—shock giving way to fury.

“Fuck, Fever… That’s soul destroying.”

I press my forehead into his chest. I can’t bear the weight in his gaze.

“Maybe. But it doesn’t excuse the fact that I never asked for help. I blamed myself for the accident. Still do. He’d just proposed, and I’d turned him down. He was upset. Distracted. And on his bike when he met with the accident…” I exhale shakily. “I told myself it was my fault he didn’t see the car coming.”

“You can’t do that,” he says, his voice rough. “You didn’t kill him, Phe.”

“Logically, I know that. But logic doesn’t stop the guilt. I’ve replayed it so many times—telling him earlier, ending it cleanly, not letting it drag on. If I’d been braver, maybe none of it would’ve happened.”

I look up at him, my eyes burning.

“I couldn’t let go. Not of the guilt. Not of him.” My voice cracks.

“His clothes are still in the closet—exactly where he left them. His toothbrush is in the holder. His books are still lined up beside mine, like nothing ever happened.”

I swallow hard, but the knot in my throat won’t budge.

“I kept it all. Every damn thing. As if I deserved to live inside the wreckage. Like Ineededto suffer through the reminders—needed to feel the weight of what I did. What Ididn’tdo.”

My chest tightens.

“I barely sleep here. I can’t stand this house. Every corner echoes with the choices I didn’t make. Every drawer’s a coffin stuffed with everything I buried—grief, shame, regret. Me.”

"God, baby, it’s making me so fucking angry that you didn’t ask me for help."

"I wasn’t…in a position to ask anyone. I subconsciously was punishing myself." When he stiffens, I hug him closer. "Not that you’re just anyone. You’re very important to me, Connor. I knew if I told you, you’d understand, that you’d get me the help I needed… But I had to work my way up to it. But meeting you started me on the path of coming to grips with what had happened and moving on with my life…"

I search his beloved features.

"I wanted to move on with you. I knew you were my salvation. That your touch was what I needed to help me get over what had happened. That how you took charge was what I needed to give myself up completely to you. To find a pocket of not having to think or make decisions and leave it up to you. I knew allowing you to dominate me was the only way to heal myself and find myself again."

He cups my face with such tenderness, the calluses of his fingers rubbing up against my skin and igniting little sparks of heat in their wake.

His eye color deepens until it’s almost black, except for the flashes of silver in them. Incredible. I feel like I’m drowning in them, like I can give myself up to him completely, and find myself again… And I want to do that. I need to do that. As if he senses that yearning in me, he wraps my hair around his fingers and tugs.

He exerts enough force that I gasp. That I have to lean my head back and bare my throat to him. He’s my husband, the man who knows how to play my body with expertise, so he can make me give him the exact response he wants.

Tendrils of pain spark at my hair follicles, then radiate down my spine, and straight to my pussy. "Connor, I?—"

There’s a knock on the main door. “Connor, Phoenix, you guys, okay?”

I startle and begin to pull away, but Connor doesn’t let me. “That’s Brody. When I found out you’d left without telling me… I knew something was wrong. It probably showed on my face; Brody insisted on driving me here."

"We’re good," Connor calls out.

"Right, I’ll make myself scarce,” he replies.

That Connor—the man who has biotech discoveries which literally save lives to his credit; the undercover agent who’s undertaken missions for his country—was blindsided, enough to not be in any state to drive—wow! It makes me realize how much my actions upset him.

"I am so sorry." I reach up to cup his firm jaw. "Sorry I didn’t tell you everything about Drew. Sorry I didn’t tell you how I needed help to get over what happened between us. Sorry I left without telling you. Sorry that?—"

"Hush." He lowers his head and brushes his lips over mine, effectively shutting me up. "You don’t need to apologize to me. You were coming to terms with your own ghosts."

"Literally,” a tear squeezes out the corner of my eye.