Fire In His Eyes (Secrets & Seduction #1)(57)
“Probably, Victor? Probably!” I was shaking my head breathing in through my nose and exhaling through my mouth trying to focus on my breathing. “I know I am an ass, you say. Then why are you asking me?” The tears streamed down my face. I was hurt. Hurt deeply. This man was willing to wait a month, keep me hanging on the off chance, that his wife changed her mind and wanted to keep him! Even though she didn’t want him, didn’t love him!
I took another calm steadying breath. I took another step back.
“Monica, don’t back away from me. From us. Please. Friends for a month, and then the possibilities,” he begged.
The possibilities? I was done with chances, and done with friendship. I blew. “Victor, friends? Really! You want to try that again. We have been playing at friendship here. This past month has been the sweetest kind of torture for both of us, and you know it. We have just been fooling ourselves just so we could hear the sound of each other’s voices, be near each other again. Friends don’t do this to each other. Hurt each other. Torture each other. My sister was right. We are like fire and ice. We melt, and then we get burned. You want to know how I feel? How I truly feel? The truth is I didn’t want to be an excuse to end your marriage, so I kept quiet. The truth is I have been hoping you would say you loved me more, and you choose me. I have been dreaming that you would realize that being divorced doesn’t make you a bad parent. My parents are fantastic, and they are divorced. They are better parents apart than they ever were together because all they did was hurt each other, and we felt that. I have been wishing that you would admit you made a mistake in your marriage, that she was not the one, and that I am. When we first got together, and you said no promises, well I lied too, I wanted promises. And when I knew and heard the circumstances, I felt bad, but still I hoped you would realize it is not a fault in your character that made your wife fall out of love with you, but that the two of you were not meant to be in the first place. You made a mistake. Yes, you made a beautiful daughter together that you can share and love and raise, but you don’t have to be together to do that. But, you are so fixated on being perfect. Kat’s right about that. You want to be the perfect husband, the perfect father, the perfect provider, the perfect soldier, the perfect lover, but no one is perfect. There is no one right way. Families come in all shapes and sizes Victor, and combinations. I was hoping I could be part of yours. Praying for it. Pleading to God on my knees for it! But you don’t see that. You just see black and white, a wife you married at twenty two, who isn’t the same girl she was in high school, your daughter, and you. And you, what are you hoping for? You have been hoping I would wait in the wings if things don’t work out the way you planned with your wife. You’ve been hoping I don’t meet anybody else if you can’t have me. Well, where does that leave me, Victor? It leaves me alone. It leaves me all f*cking alone.” I paused for breath. He remained stock still, in shock trying to absorb my words. I continued with the tears streaming down my face, “What if she does decide to stick it out for Stacey’s sake until she is eighteen, or forever? Am I second best, waiting one month, seven years, forever, having no one to love me, to make love to me? To make me feel the way only you can when I am in your arms. To be alone, loving you for the rest of my life, maybe seeing you every other Thursday night or coming home to a call on my answering machine once a month. Is that fair? You say it is only a month, and that it probably won’t work out, and you imply you will probably come back to me and fool that I am, I’d take you back, but in that month, AND for the rest of my life, I am going to wonder who you loved more, the mother of your child and your image of the perfect family, or the girl you liked to f*ck. God damn you for making me say those words!” I was crying hysterically by the time I finished my rave, and I was trying to hit him to make him feel the pain that I had been experiencing, but it was no use; he just grabbed my wrists and pulled them down, and then to the side. He dragged me close enough to let go but grabbed me around the waist before I could get away and pulled me in to his chest.
“Oh, Monica. I’m sorry, baby. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Mi Cara, I love you. I love you, please stop crying.” It took me twenty minutes to stop crying and struggling, I was a mess.
“Please, Victor,” I whispered, “just let me go.”
He released me, but croaked oat, “I don’t want to.”
Not meeting his gaze, I told him, “I going to go, Victor. I should go.” I began to back away. “It’s okay. You do your thinking, and you can call me if you choose me. I’ll pick up the phone, but in a month it will be too late.” The look of shock on his face would stay with me forever. He let me walk out of his arms.
The drive home was one of the longest of my life. Between bouts of crying, pulling over on to the side of the road, and trying to get myself under control so I could make it home safely, what normally would have taken me one hour, took three. But, make it home, I did. I had a message on my answering machine when I got home and it was from Victor. He just wanted to be sure I made it home okay he said. Let Kat know and here was her number.
I called her because if I didn’t I wouldn’t have put it past him to drive up and see me to check on me. When she answered, I could hear him in the background, “Is it her?”
“Yes, it’s her,” Kat snapped. “Now be quiet so I can talk to her a second. We were really worried about you, Monica, especially Victor. I am glad you called. He was planning on driving up there if you didn’t call in the next ten minutes.”