VALOROUS (A Quantum Novel)(85)

“Flynn?”

“No, I’m not into it. That’s his thing, not mine. I’m into you. You’re all I need, Natalie.” I lean in to kiss her forehead. “Can we go back to bed now?”

“You go ahead. I’m going to take a shower.”

“Let me get you dirty first.” I turn my attention to her neck, but she slides out from under me, her face set in an unreadable expression, which is all new. I can always read her. “Nat? What’s going on?”

“Nothing. I just want a shower.”

“Okay, then…” She leaves the room, and I sit there for a minute, confused by her behavior. What the hell just happened here? I return to the bedroom and get back into bed to wait for her. She comes out of the bathroom thirty minutes later, fully dressed for much colder weather than what we’re experiencing in Southern California.

Then I see the suitcase she’s pulling behind her. I get out of bed. “What’re you doing?”

“I’m going home to New York. I’m returning to school and my apartment with Leah.”

I feel like I’ve been knifed in the heart. “What the f*ck, Natalie? You’re leaving me?”

Her eyes fill and her jaw sets before she nods.

“Why?”

“Because you’re a liar, and I won’t be married to a man who lies to me about who and what he really is.”

That’s when I realize two things—one, she’s seriously leaving me, and two, she knows the truth about me. How in the f*ck did she find out?

“Natalie, wait. Let’s talk about this.”

“We did talk, and I gave you the opportunity to tell me the truth. Instead, you looked me in the eye and lied.”

“How do you know that?”

“We both know you lied.”

“And that’s a deal breaker? After everything we’ve been through, you’re actually going to walk away from me? I thought you loved me.”

“I do love you. I love you with my whole heart and soul. I’ve shared every part of myself with you, even the most painful parts. I’ve been closer to you in the last month than I’ve been to anyone else in my life. I’ve kept nothing secret. Can you say the same?”

“Natalie… You don’t understand.”

“I understand perfectly. You didn’t think I could handle it, so you kept it from me.”

“Yes! That! Exactly.”

“Except, when I gave you the chance to fix it, you continued to lie. That’s the part I can’t live with. How will I ever know what else you’re keeping from me? How will I ever know if you’re satisfied with me when you obviously want more than you think I can give?”

The ground is shifting under me, and I can’t find my footing in this situation. A sense of desperation unlike anything I’ve ever experienced overtakes me. I want the last hour to do over again more than I’ve ever wanted anything, ever.

“If you leave, there’s no chance we’ll ever find our way through this.”

“If I stay, there’s no way I’ll ever know that I truly have all of you. I’ve lived half a life for long enough, Flynn.” Her voice catches, but she recovers her composure. “I’ve loved every minute we’ve spent together. You’ve been so extraordinarily generous and tender toward me from the beginning, and you’ll never know how much I appreciate that.”

“I don’t want your goddamn appreciation.”


“And I don’t want your goddamn lies. Come on, Fluff. Let’s go home.”

Fluff launches off the bed and follows Natalie and her suitcase out of the bedroom.

“Natalie, wait. This is insane. You can’t go back to who you were before. The press will be all over you. You won’t be safe.”

“I’ll be fine. After a while, they’ll lose interest in the boring schoolteacher from New York who was briefly married to the movie star.”

Hearing her describe our marriage in the past tense fills me with panic. “You’re just going to give up on us that quickly? Without even giving me a chance?”

“I’ve given you every chance. You’ve had more than enough time to tell me the truth, and you didn’t. And this morning, you lied to my face.”

“How do you know? Who told you?”

“Valerie.”

Hearing that, I want to roar from the rage that surges through me like a tidal wave, sucking me under and making me see red. I’ll f*cking kill her for this. I somehow manage to find the words to ask the one question that has to be asked. “When did you see Valerie?”

“The other night in the ladies’ room at the SAGs. She gave me quite the earful, but I didn’t believe her. The Flynn I know and love bears no resemblance whatsoever to the man she described to me, so I blew it off as meaningless jealousy. Then when she called me last night, after you were asleep, to tell me about your room downstairs and where I could find the key, I had a feeling she wasn’t making it up after all.”

I feel like I’ve been shot straight through the heart. I never got around to getting rid of the stuff in the basement, and now she’s seen it. This can’t be happening.

“After I saw what you have down there, you know what occurred to me?”