The Marriage Lie(96)

His words break my heart, and I’m as confused now as I’ve ever been. People are dead. Millions of dollars went missing. What Will did is wrong on so many levels, and I know I should be boiling over with fury. I know I should feel blame and anger and confusion and, yes, hatred, too.

And yet, looking into my husband’s beautiful, wrecked face, I can’t seem to summon up anything other than sorrow. An overwhelming sadness for a man who would rather fake his death than reveal the truth.

A sob elbows up my throat, startling us both. “I should hate you. I want to hate you. I want to be physically ill because I’m sitting in the same room as you, but I’m not. I don’t. I still love you and I despise myself for it.”

Will moves closer. He scoots down the couch until he’s on my side, sitting right here, less than a foot away. “I’ll always love you.”

This is the one thing, the only thing, I know is true. Every person has a redeeming quality. Will’s is that he is capable of love.

“So, now what?” The tears have started up again, because I already know the answer: Now he leaves. Now he disappears.

He loops a finger around mine, running the pad of his thumb over the Cartier he put there, a ring that I should give back, though I know with everything inside of me that I will wear it until the day I die. “Come with me. We’ll live on a hillside overlooking the ocean and sleep under the stars. We can disappear, just you and me.”

I’m shaking my head before the last word is out. I couldn’t leave Dave, could never do that to my parents. I could barely contemplate a move to the other side of the country, much less a disappearance. I know better than anyone what that does to the people left behind.

He smiles, and it’s the saddest thing I’ve ever seen. “It was worth a try.”

He runs his finger down my arm, and I shiver. Will is not playing fair, and he knows it. My skin has always been too sensitive.

“Stop,” I whisper, but I don’t mean it, not even a little bit.

“I can’t stop, and I can’t leave.” His hands wrap around my waist, mine wind around his shoulders. The movement is natural, like there’s nowhere else in the world our hands should be. “Not without saying goodbye to my very favorite person on the planet.”

So this is it. This is goodbye. I remind myself of all the reasons I should be glad to see him go. The money. The lies and deceit. His dying father and his dead mother. Corban and the two dead kids. Especially the kids. He is not the man I married. I want to hate him for what he’s done.

But then I look into his eyes, and he looks like my husband again, the man who slow-danced with me at the top of Stone Mountain with a dozen tourists watching, who slid rings up my fingers and thanked me when I said “I do,” who, the last time I saw him, asked me for a little girl who looked just like me. I see him, and I remember the way he used to be, the way we used to be, and my heart breaks all over again.

He kisses me and I let him. No—it’s more than that. He kisses me, and I put thirty-three days of heartache and confusion and relief into the way I kiss him back. It’s like a first kiss and last kiss and all the kisses in between, and suddenly, I can’t come up with a single reason for fighting it, this last goodbye between me and Will. I can’t muster even the tiniest pang from this gnarled and painful past month. He wants me. I want him back. I have no fight left.

I take him by the hand, pull him off the couch and lead him upstairs. We lose our clothing on the way, dropping piles of cotton and denim on the stairs, the landing runner, the floor by the bed—our bed.

When we’re both naked, he lays me down on the mattress, taking me in with tenderness, with reverence, with love. He runs the back of a finger over the ring—his ring—on a chain on my chest. “Beautiful girl.”

I hold up my arms in answer, in invitation.

We make love, and it feels like the most natural thing in the world, and also the most heartbreaking. How many times have we lain here just like this, sweet and salty and familiar? A couple thousand, at least.

And yet this time will be our last.

His mouth is on the move, traveling over my skin. Pressing kisses onto my neck, my breasts, loving every inch of me. I feel the orgasm building, swirling, circling just out of reach, and I close my eyes, fist the sheets in both hands and wait for it.

Maybe it’s about revenge, about me wanting to hurt Will in the same way he hurt me, about repaying his betrayal with a betrayal of my own. Maybe it’s about justice, plain and simple, about holding Will accountable for the fire and the money and the innocent lives shattered. Or maybe it’s a combination of both. My reasons may be muddled, but my next move is crystal clear. I don’t for a second doubt that it’s the right one.

I open my eyes, and my husband is moving above me. His head is tipped back, his cheeks slack and eyes squeezed shut with pleasure, and I know from all the times before that this is a critical moment. His critical moment. It will last another handful of breaths, at least.

I reach around to the back of my nightstand, push the panic button and hold it.

Three seconds, that’s all it takes.

*

Keep reading for an excerpt from THE ONES WE TRUST by Kimberly Belle.





Acknowledgments

Writing is a solitary venture, but this book wouldn’t exist without the following folks.

My literary agent, Nikki Terpilowski, who never sugarcoats what needs to be fixed in the manuscript but says it in words that make me smile. Thank you for always being in my corner.