Fire In His Eyes (Secrets & Seduction #1)(56)

From just outside the car window, we heard a very angry expletive. “Fuck! What are you going to do! You are going to f*cking talk it out that’s what you’re going to do. Discuss your God darned feelings with each other instead of me or Monica’s sister, and stop pawing at each other like a couple of sexually frustrated teenager’s.” It was Kat’s words that interrupted us. She stood outside the car.

We hastily got dressed and got of the car feeling ashamed.

“I came to check on the both of you. I was worried, and rightfully so, that Victor would be an ass and not just come clean with his feelings,” Kat spoke harshly. “Vic, what the hell is the matter with you? Look at this girl. She’s smart, beautiful, and she loves you more than anything else. So, instead of figuring it out, talking it out, you f*ck her like some teenaged kid in the back of a car. Don’t you respect her?”

“I respect her. I do. I do love her,” he said, clearly shocked by Kat’s outburst.

“I know you love her. You moon around all the f*cking time saying life isn’t fair. The only time you smile is when you talk to her on the phone, or when your daughter is over, and then it’s not even real. It’s wistful and you are thinking about her and putting up all kinds of barriers, making it impossible to be with one another. It is possible God damn it, you just have to make the right choice.” Kat began to get closer as her rant raged. “You have this idea that you have to be like your parents. The perfect marriage. Hardly anyone has what your parents had. They loved each other. Loved EACH other. You’ve got this fairytale idealization of them. It’s a fairytale, and you can’t have a fairytale with the wrong woman.”

“Why did you come out here, Kat?” his voice rose in pitch. “To analyze me? To tell me I don’t know what I’m doing? I thought you were my friend.” His hands clenched at his sides.

“I am your friend, and that is why I am NOT telling you what you want to hear.” Kat was hurt now. “I came out here to check on you, make sure you didn’t do something stupid, hurt yourself, or hurt her.” Kat was pointing at me.

“I wouldn’t hurt, Monica. Ever!” he swore.

Kat laughed sarcastically. “You already have, you big idiot. You’re still hurting her AND yourself, maybe not physically but emotionally. You never listen to your heart, Vic. You’re all about pride, honor, family, country! I love those things too, but don’t you get it? If you don’t Vic, you’re no good to those other things. You can do your duty, oh, you can fight a war, but for what, Vic? ” she questioned. “You do it for the people you love back home, see!” She was pointing at me, and he looked my way, and then down. Kat stepped closer to Victor and using her index finger jabbed him in the chest punctuating each word. “Do you, Victor? Do you? Do you love her enough to make the tough choices?” Tears were in her eyes, and when he didn’t respond, she turned on her heel, and walked back to the courtyard.

For the second time that night, Victor looked completely defeated as he leaned up against his car, shoulders slouched in resignation. “I totally f*cked this all up.”

I stood not knowing what to say. Kat’s words were still sinking in.

His hand went to his face, and he rubbed his eyes pinching the bridge of his nose. “Kat’s way off base here. Well about some of that stuff, anyway.” He looked up to see me backing away towards my car. “Hey, now. What’s going through your mind? Let’s do like Kat suggested and talk this out, baby.” Maybe because of the look on my face, he sensed my chaotic emotions running through me. He reached for me.

I held my hand up. “Wait. I need to think.” I couldn’t think when he was too close. He stopped mere inches from me.

“Think about what? Us?” he said fearfully, “Even after . . .” he indicated his car behind him.

“Us? After what? That?” I indicated the car, too. His words stung me. He came those few inches that separated us and hugged me close. I couldn’t concentrate with his arms around me. Maybe that had been my problem all along. He held me tight, and I hugged back. It just hurt so damned bad. He pulled back and gazed into my eyes.

He saw the tears. “I love you, Monica. You know I do.”

“I know you do,” I said lamely. I just didn’t know what to do. I felt a panic attack coming on. I hadn’t had one in years, since I had gone to counseling. The fear, and the pressure in my chest brought back the pain of the rape, the terror, the guilt. I began to perspire. I couldn’t catch my breath.

“I feel like an ass asking this. But right now it is all I can think of, will you wait for me? Will you give me just four more weeks, baby? Four more weeks to figure this out?” he pleaded.

He couldn’t have said this to me at a worse time. I needed him disparately in that moment. And he wanted time. “Figure what out?” I panted and pushed him back with all my might just so I could breathe. “That you want your wife or me?” I began to pant as a tightness built inside my chest.

“I gotta finish this therapy. It’s not going well. I told you that, Monica. There is hope.” When I didn’t say anything, I was concentrating on breathing, he continued to approach me arms outstretched pleading with me to understand, “She still wants the divorce. It probably will go that way, she’s so stubborn. I know I am an ass for asking, but it’s only a month?”