Proposing to Preston (The Winslow Brothers, #2)(65)

“I should ask for that back.”

She didn’t flinch and she didn’t run. She just looked back at him with those deep blue eyes. “It’s been a long time since I’ve worn it.”

“Why now?” Just to torture me?

She searched his face, then said softly, “I need to ask for your forgiveness.”

Her multiple apologies on Saturday night had clued him into the fact that she was seeking peace with him. Or rather—in a leaner approach—he didn’t sense that she was interested in making things worse between them. He’d been nasty to her several times before throwing her out of the party and she’d taken it all without retaliating or running. And he might be wrong, but he sensed again, this morning, that she wouldn’t rise to the bait no matter what he said to her, or how much he pushed her. Her mission appeared to be peace between them, though he had no idea why. They didn’t need to be on good terms to dissolve their marriage. Honestly, all things equal, he’d just as soon hold on to his bitterness. It was a protection of sorts. It kept him cold and that made things easier for him.

“Is this a Mennonite thing?” he asked.

“How do you mean?”

“Pacifism and forgiveness?”

“I don’t recall you knowing very much about Mennonites.”

“I learned a little,” he confessed.

After quitting his job in New York and whiling away his days feeling sorry for himself at Westerly as he polished off most the liquor in the mansion, he’d trolled the internet for news about Elise or The Awakening. When there was none to be found, he’d read myriad blogs about life as a Broadway hopeful and about the Mennonite religion and way of life. It was all in an effort to understand her better, to try to understand why she’d pushed him away.

She raised her eyebrows in surprise, but said, “I was raised in a culture of forgiveness, yes, so that mentality is certainly part of who I am. But this isn’t just about my need for forgiveness. It’s about you and me.”

“There is no ‘you and me.’”

Her bottom lip wobbled for the first time since entering his office. “Which is part of the reason I’d like your forgiveness.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Why do I want your forgiveness?” she asked. “Because I left you. Because I didn’t give our marriage a chance. Because I told you that you weren’t a part of my life when you visited me. Because I let you believe I didn’t care for you.”

Did you? Did you care for me?

The words perched precariously on the tip of his tongue, but he forbade himself to ask, to sink to that level of humiliation—begging her for crumbs that were blown away years ago.

Suddenly he felt angry. He didn’t want to hear her apologies or grant her some late-game forgiveness so she could walk away with a clear conscience while he tried to put the pieces of his broken heart back together. It was flaying him open just to be in the same room with her, because the seminal fact remained: she was here to sign divorce papers.

Just get it over with.

“It doesn’t matter anymore.” He opened his drawer and pulled out the stack of papers, laying it on the desk between them, then placing a pen on top of them. “You don’t need to say you’re sorry, Elise. You don’t need my forgiveness. You don’t owe me anything.”

She flicked her glance to the papers, then back to his face. “What I said to you in L.A. wasn’t true. You asked what we were. And the truth is that we were lovely, Pres, but we were so much more than that. We were in love, but we were premature. We happened too fast, too soon. We frightened me.”

“If you had stayed, we could have figured it out together.”

“I don’t think so,” she said, her voice so melancholy it tugged at his heart. “At the time, I felt panicked. I felt lost. I ran toward something safe rather than staying somewhere that scared me.”

He knew this was the truth. He’d known it on their wedding day. He’d known it the morning after. An epic night of sex had obscured it, but not eliminated it. But she’d still left. She’d still placed her fears and career over him, above their marriage.

“Did you love me?” he demanded, the words just as surprising to him as they appeared to be to her.

“Completely,” she said, her voice thready with emotion. “But it wasn’t just about love. It was about our lives, my career, your career. I didn’t know how to weave the two together. I didn’t know how to share my life with someone, how to give up the control I’d fought for. And Pres, when you came out to see me in L.A., I was still exactly where I’d been when I left you in New York. Still confused. Still frightened by us. Still running.”

He flinched when she mentioned L.A., and felt his face harden. “Do you remember what you said to me?”

“I’m so sorr—”

“Do. You. Remember?”

She spoke slowly, tears streaming down her face as she recited the same words she’d said then, owning them all over again, but with regret instead of anger this time. “You’re making me un-unhappy. I can’t be your wife. I don’t ch-choose you. This is my life, and you’re not a part of it.”

She finished in a whisper and Preston realized he’d been holding his breath as he listened, waiting for something—anything—to soften the pain of hearing them again, but the only thing he had ever wanted was her, and the papers between them proved she didn’t want him.