Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 65116 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 326(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65116 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 326(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
That was when I noticed she still wore her wedding ring. My eyes flicked back to hers. “This is a bad idea, Arwen. You’re living in a hole with no one to protect you. My father is still the same psychopath he’s always been—”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“I made a promise to your father—”
“And you have no problem breaking promises. Maverick, get out of my face and don’t come back. Sign those papers and drop them, or give them straight to your lawyer. I want to change my name back to Chatel as soon as possible. I don’t want to be your wife anymore.” She kept up a hard expression and stood her ground even though she was upset. Taking a break for a couple of days hadn’t calmed her down at all.
“I didn’t break any promises. We’ve always had an open marriage—”
“Fuck. You.” She held her hand in front of my face to shut me up. “It was different, and you knew it was. You could have handed me over to Kamikaze and spared yourself so much grief, but you didn’t.”
“Because I promised your father I wouldn’t.”
“You didn’t have to pick me over Caspian.”
“Yes, I did.”
“You didn’t have to make love to me like it was all you ever wanted. You didn’t have to take me to your bed every night for months. Our relationship was different. It turned into something else, and the second things got real, you turned into a damn coward.”
I heard all the insults, but I also heard the pain in between her words. “I assumed there would be times when it was just the two of us. Then we would go back to other people. Then we would go back to each other—”
She slapped me across the face.
I turned with the hit, my cheek immediately reddening because she’d hit me so hard. I slowly turned back to her, surprised she had the nerve.
There wasn’t a single regret in her eyes. “I told you I loved you, and your response was to pick up some stupid girls and fuck them. Is that how you treat your wife when she puts her heart out there like that? Your friend? The person you trust? You think that’s okay?”
“You didn’t tell me. You told the whole fucking room.”
“With a romantic song I wrote just for you. I’m so sorry for being such an ass. At least I would respect you if you were honest about what happened. But this chickenshit act isn’t sexy at all. We both know you ran scared because you felt what I felt. You’re incapable of accepting love because you’re so screwed up in the head, so you backstab the one person who’s on your side, the one person who actually gives a damn about you. If that’s your choice, then fine. But I don’t want to be married to a prick like that.”
My blood was boiling under the skin because of the insults and the slap to the face. But I didn’t have a comeback to anything she said. I stood on the threshold while my nerves continued to fire off in distress.
“I don’t want your protection. I don’t want your money. All I want from you is a divorce.” She pushed me in the chest so I would back up from her front door. “Then I never want to see you again.”
3
Arwen
The small apartment didn’t feel like home.
Not because it wasn’t enormous and luxurious like Maverick’s estate.
But because he wasn’t there.
I lay in bed alone, the covers wrapped around me to keep me warm. My diamond ring still sat on my left hand because I didn’t have the strength to take it off yet. He’d come to my door and delivered my dress like there was a chance I’d forgotten it by mistake.
No, I just didn’t want it.
Then he tried to justify his behavior.
There was no justification for what he did. I’d laid my heart at his feet, and he stomped it into pieces. He rejected my love and fucked someone else…two someones. It was such a cold response after everything we’d been through together.
I still hadn’t gotten over it.
Like it had just happened, I was still crying and cradling the pieces of my broken heart. I lay in the small bed and wished he were there with me. Without his deep breathing as my lullaby, I was stuck in my own thoughts. Every sound outside the window made me jolt. No matter how I tugged the sheets, I didn’t get warmer.
I still missed him…despite what he’d done.
Tears burned in my eyes as I stared at my wedding ring. A princess cut center stone with diamonds in the band, it was such a beautiful ring. I became attached to it instantly…and then I became attached to the man who gave it to me.
I’d fallen in love with my husband.