Guilty Needs(41)
“Goodbye, Colby.”
On legs that shook, she walked away from him. With hands that shook, she just barely managed to open the door to the house, the car. Climbing inside, she sat there, trembling all over. Tears burned her eyes, blinded her. Harsh sobs escaped her and the rush of blood pounding in her ears left her deaf to anything and everything else.
What had just happened?
What had just happened?
Maybe it was the temporary lack of oxygen flowing to his brain, he didn’t know. But he sat there on the floor, confused and sick inside. He rubbed his throat, swallowed against the pain there and sat on the floor with his back to his desk, mired in a pit of self-disgust.
What the hell had he almost done?
How could he have done that? Thought it? Anger, hurt, betrayal, none of it mattered, none of it was any excuse. Regardless of what had set him off, he’d just tried to force himself on Bree—a woman he’d fallen in love with.
He’d come this close to raping her—this close to crossing a line he hadn’t thought he was capable of crossing. That he wouldn’t have hurt her didn’t matter because she’d told him to stop.
He hadn’t been able to make himself do it. For a few minutes, he’d been incapable of it.
Even in the still-sane part of his brain, where he had watched what he was doing in disgust, completely appalled, he hadn’t been able to find the strength to stop what he was doing.
She had done it.
He heard the deep rumble of the engine as she started the truck just outside his window. Clarity struck and he managed, just barely, to shove himself to his feet, out into the hall. His legs were stiff, not wanting to work for him. He knew she wouldn’t want to see him, knew she wouldn’t want to talk him. But he couldn’t just let her drive off. He needed to tell her he was sorry—f*ck, what a lousy word. Needed to make sure she was okay.
But before he even managed to get to the door, she had pulled off.
He watched through the glass pane as she drove away. What little strength he had drained out of him and he sank to the floor.
What the hell had he done?
Chapter Nine
She wouldn’t return his phone calls.
She wouldn’t talk to him.
She wouldn’t answer the door the one time he made himself go over there.
Colby couldn’t blame her, but even knowing she didn’t want to see him, he wouldn’t let himself take the coward’s way out. He needed to face her and apologize—regardless of why she had been with him, he had no excuse, no reason for what he’d almost done.
The weight of the guilt returned in full force, but this time it had nothing to do with dreaming about a woman while his wife lay dead under six feet of earth. It had to do with the fact that he’d attacked the woman he loved and almost done something that would have scarred them both. Hell, he was scarred from it.
Never in his life had he ever lost control like that—never felt the threads of his temper unravel and drive him to do something unthinkable. Whatever mental punishment he could heap on himself, he deserved it.
That and so much worse.
But Bree… She didn’t deserve what he’d almost done and he couldn’t get her to look at him long enough for him to make some sort of apology. He’d even tried tracking her down at work but it was as though the guys who made up her crew had some kind of radar because they drew around her and the only way he was going to get to her to apologize would be if he fought his way through.
He was even tempted to do it. A couple of her crew were big-ass bastards who could probably lay him flat on the concrete, and getting his ass kicked was the least he deserved. But what he needed to say to her needed to be done in private. He just wished he could catch her alone for five minutes so he could crawl to her and tell her how f*cking sorry he was.
“You have no idea how damn sorry you should be.”
Colby closed his eyes. After four nights of sleeplessness, four days of hell on earth as he worried about Bree and relived every last moment of that night, the last thing he needed was a self-induced hallucination.
“I’m not a hallucination, you bastard. Look at me.”
He opened his eyes and stared at his wife’s face. She was livid. She was also a lot more transparent than normal. “It’s because I’m livid, sugar. It takes concentration to make myself be seen and I’m so damn pissed off at you, it’s taken this long just be able to focus enough to tell you how f*cking pissed off I am.”
“I don’t need this,” he rasped, shoving out of the chair in his office and lurching past her.
She had no intention of letting him escape so quickly, though.
“No, you either need to get your head examined or your eyes checked. Colby, are you blind? Do you really think Bree did a damn thing she didn’t want?”
She appeared before him, just flat, outright appeared—no walking past him, circling around—just blink and there she was, hovering in front of him and looking a lot less substantial than she had before. Her eyes narrowed and she snapped, “Would you stop thinking like a fricking writer and just pay attention to me? Yeah, I’m less substantial because I’m not supposed to be here anymore. All I wanted, the only thing that kept me here, was needing to see you happy. Happy with her because you’re the only damn person who will make her happy. I thought I’d done it, thought I was done here but then you had to go read that damn journal.”