Well Suited (Red Lipstick Coalition #4)(70)

“I don’t either,” he said, his voice low and trembling. “I haven’t asked you for a single thing but this—to love me. And this, I can’t let go.”

This was what he wanted—to break up. I couldn’t say the words he needed to hear, but I could respect this. I could give him this even if it killed me.

Val ran up, smiling and panting and completely unaware. “God, there you are! Come on, they’re leaving! We need to go light sparklers!”

She snagged my hand and ran, pulling me behind her. And when I looked back, there he stood in the moonlight, watching me leave.

And I knew then that our forever wasn’t the one I’d envisioned.

It was one I’d never imagined.

One without him.





Part III





Third Trimester





24





The End of That





Theo

27 weeks, 1 day, 12:01

The cab was silent as a tomb.

Katherine sat close enough to touch, her face turned to the window and her hands clasped in her lap.

She should have been in my arms. She should have been smiling instead of crying. She should have had my ring on her finger.

But none of those things were true. And our reality had shifted into a place I didn’t understand and had no patience for.

A matter of inches separated us. But it was a chasm, a yawning, empty space with nothing but wind and broken dreams.

I’d never been one for frivolous dreams. Tommy was the one with the wild imagination. I was the one who relied on the tangible, the fact. I’d thought Katherine and I were a fact, a solid truth. I’d thought we were on the same page. But what I’d thought was a step, she’d thought was the pinnacle. We’d reached the top for her, and as I looked up that staircase to the future I wanted, I found I couldn’t let it go.

So I had to let her go.

I tried to reject the thought, the impossibility of it staggering. But facts were facts.

I needed her love, and she didn’t love me.

And that was the end of that.

The taxi pulled up to the house, and silently, we exited. Through the front door, into the dark house. Up the stairs and into our living room. My living room.

She stopped, turned to face me, stood in the middle of the room in that beautiful dress, swollen with my child, my heart in her palm and tears in her eyes. “Theo, I’m sorry. I wish I’d known what you needed.”

My chest, my shoulders, rose and fell with a weighted, definitive breath. “I thought it was clear, Katherine. This was never casual for me.”

“It wasn’t for me either,” she said quietly, shining tears on her cheeks. “This was why I didn’t want to see you this way. Because I knew either I would hurt you or you would hurt me. I knew it would fall apart. I knew we would end up here, and now, it’s happened.” She shook her head, her eyes cast down. “I should have stayed away.”

“I’d argue that this was probably inevitable. And I’m not sorry we tried. I’m only sorry I failed.”

“You didn’t fail.”

“Are you sure about that? This was what I wanted. It was what I’ve always wanted from you, from the first second I kissed you.”

“But I can’t give that to you. I-I told you,” she said through a sob.

“I should have listened,” I said, my voice rough. “But I thought I knew better. That’ll teach me.” I turned for my room, more exhausted than I’d ever been.

“What do we do now?”

I glanced back at her over my shoulder. “You don’t have to do anything. It’s me who has to figure out how to stop loving you.”

And I walked away with no hope that I actually could.





25





Impassable





Katherine

28 weeks, 1 day

Pity was written all over Amelia’s face, and misery was written all over mine.

It had been a week since the wedding. Since the end.

Theo and I had barely spoken beyond the bare minimum required to share living space. Meals had been prepared in advance of dinner, but he hadn’t graced the dinner table, citing work. He’d stayed gone, stayed away.

I was miserable. And when he was home, it was unbearable.

Neither of us had brought up us. We hadn’t been in the room together long enough to even try.

Amelia had come up almost the second that she and Tommy came home from their honeymoon, and she’d listened with wide eyes as I recounted the whole horrible happening to her.

“I…I can’t believe he just asked you like that,” she said. “Had you guys ever even talked about marriage?”

“Only on the day I told him I was pregnant. And we joked about it then. Seems neither of us knew the other was serious.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked gently.

“I don’t know,” I answered, casting my gaze to my hands in my lap. “I don’t know that there’s anything we can do. We want different things. For the first time, we’re out of alignment. Or maybe we were out of alignment the whole time and just didn’t know.”

“I can’t believe this. I can’t believe you found each other and want each other and aren’t together.”