Conviction (Consolation Duet #2)(7)

“I know you want to give it a few days. I don’t think we can. How are we supposed to sit here and have all this just hanging? It’s putting us both on edge.”

Aaron shifts forward so that his forearms rest on his knees. “I don’t know. I’m in agony, Lee. It feels like you wish I’d stayed gone, and I don’t know how to feel about that. I’m your husband.”

“You were dead. You were gone. I had to live.”

“I f*cking know that.” Aaron stands while his eyes focus on flag sitting on the mantle. “I see it in your eyes though, baby.”

“Don’t,” I warn. “You told me to move on, you made me promise. You can’t hate me or blame me for doing what you asked.”

My heartbeat falters as he kneels while gripping my hands. “I can’t. I’ve loved you my whole life. I can’t look at you right now and think of my f*cking best friend touching you.”

I pull my hands back. He’s suffered and I know this. I can’t begin to imagine what the last year has brought him, and then to add insult to injury, I wasn’t here waiting for him. “You ruined me. I trusted you, and then to find out you had an affair . . .”

Aaron’s gaze drops, and he sucks in a breath. “I know. It was never like that.”

“No?”

He looks back up as I search for the man I once loved. Not because I want to be with him, but because I need to know he’s there. I implore him to tell me the truth. If he lies, there will never be a way for us to move forward.

“I was the broken one. I needed you so much, and all you cared about was getting pregnant. We didn’t talk if it wasn’t surrounding infertility. We didn’t touch if it wasn’t a part of your schedule. I couldn’t have sex with you because it would diminish my counts. I hated coming home. I volunteered to go on missions just because I needed a f*cking break.”

His words cut me deeper than I ever imagined. They tear through any whole part of me that remained. He and he alone made these decisions for our family. My emotions and my needs were secondary in every way. I had to go through hell because he was too much of a chickenshit to fight. “You volunteered when I was already pregnant?”

“No, the ones before. When I would go on those trips, it reminded me of how it felt to be in charge of something. I failed at every f*cking turn. Being your husband was exhausting.”

“So she was just some way to escape the horrors of being my husband?” I ask with disparagement dripping from my tongue.

“Natalie, it was a way to escape the horrors of not being man enough. It wasn’t about you. Don’t you get that?” He waits, but I don’t say a word. “It was me who wasn’t able to give you, my wife, the woman I would’ve laid my own life down for, a baby. I was inadequate on every level. She didn’t see that in me. She saw the strong, virile male who wasn’t a failure. I needed her to take the pain away.”

“Was she worth it?”

“It wasn’t about her.”

“Would you go back and do it again?” I ask with raw pain drowning my words.

Aaron looks away and then back again. “She gave me something you weren’t willing to give anymore. She looked at me like a man. She looked at me like a hero. In her eyes, I was someone worth loving. I needed that. I deserved that.”

“Would you do it again?” I ask again.

“I don’t know!”

I look at him, and he knows me well enough to see the hurt, anger, and despair in my eyes. He knows that was the end of any chance he had.

He just lost me.

Completely.





“Fuck!” I scream and throw the glass against the wall. It’s been forty-eight hours since I last saw her face. Two f*cking days. I haven’t slept. I can’t eat. I want to rush back to her house and take her and Aarabelle. I need her like I need air.

But I have to stay away.

He’s my best friend.

He’s her husband.

I’m a piece of shit.

“Dempsey, open the f*cking door!” I hear someone, but I’m not moving.

“Suck my dick!” I yell back and reach for my glass. Oh, yeah, I broke it. The bottle will be just fine. I grip the neck of the bottle as the vodka pours down my throat. I need the numbness that won’t come.

“I’ll knock it off the goddamn hinges. Don’t think I won’t,” I hear Quinn on the other side threatening me. He’s the last person I want to see. Like I need a talk about why loving her was a bad idea.

“Go away,” I reply, taking another swig of what I’m hoping will give me a break from the hell I’m living.

I hear the wood splinter as Quinn kicks the door in. Asshole.

“You’re going to pay for that,” I inform him.

“If you’d have opened the damn door, I wouldn’t have kicked it in.” He looks around the room, and I sink into the couch.

“Good to see you’re taking it well.”

I open my eyes then flip him off. “If you’ve come here to gloat, you can see yourself out the door. I don’t need anyone’s shit.”

Quinn pushes my leg and sits next to me. He grabs the bottle from my hand and puts it on the table. “No one could’ve seen this coming, man. You didn’t know.”