Valorous(103)

“Yes, I should have. You’re absolutely right—and I was wrong. So very, very wrong. I screwed up. I’ll never deny that. But we can fix this. I know we can. We’ve already endured more than some people do in a lifetime. Please don’t give up on us, Nat. You told me the night we got married that you wouldn’t.” I take a step closer to her and put my hands on her shoulders. “You made promises to me.”

She pushes my hands away. “You lied to me! Don’t talk to me about promises, Flynn. This is why Hayden can’t bear to look at me, because he knew the truth about you—and I didn’t.”

I gather her in close to me, breathing in the scent of her hair. “You can’t leave me, Nat. You’ll ruin me.”

She begins to cry in earnest. “I don’t want to leave you, but I can’t live with someone who lies to me as easily as you did this morning, especially over something so important.”

“It’s not important! That’s what I’m trying to tell you!”

She wiggles out of my embrace, pushing me back. “If it’s not important to you, then why do you have a room full of BDSM equipment in your house? And don’t make it worse by telling me it’s not yours or some other line of bullshit.”

Before I can form a response to that, Fluff begins to bark and snarl at me the way she did when Natalie and I were first together.

“I have to go.”

“You can’t leave without security.”

“I’ll let them drive me to the airport, and then I’ll put my hair up and wear glasses. No one will recognize me.”

“Yes, they will, Natalie. You’re being na?ve.”

“I’ve been na?ve from the beginning where you’re concerned. Why stop now?” She goes into the kitchen to retrieve her purse and then returns to the foyer, where she bends to clip Fluff’s leash to her collar.

“So that’s it? Just like that it’s over?”

After a long, endless pause during which I die a thousand times, she finally looks at me. “I need some time.”

“How much time?”

“I don’t know. I’ll call you when I’m ready to talk to you.”

“I’ll give you a week, and then I’m coming after you.” As I say the words, I wonder how I’ll survive a week without her, the same week we were supposed to spend on our honeymoon.

“Don’t do that. I won’t see you until I’m ready to.”

“I’m sorry, Natalie. I f*cked this up. I freely admit that. Please don’t go. I love you so much. Please.” I have never once, in all my life, begged a woman for anything.

Until now.

“I don’t want to go, but it’s what I need right now. I will call you. When I’m ready.” With Fluff’s leash attached to one hand and her suitcase in the other, she opens the door but turns back once more. “I love you, too. You are the best thing to ever happen to me.”

The door closes with a click that echoes throughout the house like a gunshot.

Through the beveled glass on the side of the door, I watch her approach the security detail. I see one of them open the back door of an SUV for her. I see her and Fluff get in. Right before the door closes, Natalie wipes tears from her face. And then they’re gone. Almost as fast as they entered my life, they’ve exited it.

Motherf*cker.

I pick up a heavy crystal vase that sits on a table next to the door and throw it across the room, shattering one of the plate-glass windows in the back of the house.

I stand there breathing hard and filled with rage, most of it directed at the venomous bitch who is my ex-wife. I want to find her and kill her, except even that wouldn’t be what she deserves.

I’m also f*cking furious at myself for not getting rid of the equipment in the basement before I brought Natalie here, but that’s not exactly something I could ask Addie to take care of for me since she knows nothing about it. And there hasn’t been time, without Natalie here with me, to do it myself.

The rage slowly drains from my system, leaving only pain behind. I’ll give Natalie the time she says she needs, and then I’ll go after her. I’ll get her back or die trying. I will tell her everything I should’ve told her from the beginning, and this time, I’ll hold nothing back.

She’s mine. She will always be mine.

The doorbell rings, and I run for the door, hoping Natalie has come back, that she’s changed her mind about leaving me.