Page 94 of The Unwanted Wife

I’m dreaming. I must be. But it all feels so real. Is it a memory? Did this already happen? Why is my heart racing? Why is my pulse racing? Why is my stomach knotted?

I push down my rising panic, already suspecting there’ll be no waking from this. I know what’s coming, but I can’t stop any of it. Because in the back of my mind, there’s a little voice telling me it’s time to face reality. I don’t want to! But time has run out. And there’s no running from what happened. Images flood my brain, and I can’t stop them. I struggle to breathe.

I watch, as if from a distance. It’s like it’s not me. More like, I don’t want it to be me. And I don’t want to feel what I’m seeing, but I do. I feel every bit of it.

I frown at Nate. "What are you doing here?"

He looks me directly in the eyes. "Can I come in?"

"Nathan?" My heart turns into a heavy anchor, slowly beginning to slide down my body. Pulling me down with it. My chest feels like there’s an entire building collapsed on it. I draw in a breath, and my lungs feel like they’re on fire. "Nate?" I manage to speak around the boiling oil clogging my throat. "What is it?"

"Skylar… Skye." The skin around his eyes tightens. "Please, can we come in?"

I step back, and he moves forward, cupping his hand around my elbow and guiding me to the sofa. The next moment, I’m sitting down, and he’s on his knee in front of me. "Skye, I have to tell you something."

I see it in his eyes then. That mixture of regret and anger and sympathy… And failure. It’s the failure that signals to me that something’s very wrong. That, and the fact that Nate fucking Davenport is taking my hand between his, and he’s on bended knee.

Something I’ve wanted, but not like this.

Not. Like. This.

I tug my hand from his, and he releases me.

I lock my fingers together and shake my head. "No. No. No. No. No."

"Skye, please, let me."

My palm connects with his cheek with such force, his head snaps back. A ripple of pain shoots up my arm. The outline of my fingers stands out on his face. I should feel regretful, but I don’t. Should feel shocked, and I do, but not because I slapped him.

"Skye, please." He takes my hand in his again, and this time, I clasp it tightly.

A tear squeezed out from the corner of my eye. "No—" I swallow. "No, please," I whisper.

"Skye—" His voice cracks. His throat moves as he swallows. His mis-matched eyes are dull, lifeless. The color has leached from his face, except for my fingerprints, which stand out in vivid red mockery. "I’m so sorry, Skye."

I shake my head, and the tears flow freely down my cheeks. "It can’t be true, it can’t."

"Ben, he?—"

"No!" I throw off his hand and jump to my feet, then dart around him. "I won’t hear it." I race toward the doorway. The chaplain steps into my path, but I push past her, out the door, down the flight of stairs, and onto the sidewalk. I don’t stop.

It’s not possible. Nothing has happened to Ben. Nothing. My heart is a shark that bites its way out of my chest, chewing through my ribcage, my flesh, my sinews. Spilling my blood, so it flows down my front.

I’m spinning. My entire world has turned upside down. I can’t be alive without Ben. I can't. I won’t. I notice the motorbike a second before it hit me. There’s a screech of brakes. I’m screaming, flying through the air. Then blackness.

"Starling, are you okay?"

I jolt and see my husband staring at me with a worried expression. And I know it’s true. It really happened. I remember now. I remember how my brother’s best friend came to break the news to me. How he tried to tell me, and I wouldn’t listen.

I clear my throat and meet his mismatched gaze. "You came here… To tell me about Ben."

"What?" The color drains from his face. "What did you say?"

50

Nathan

"Ben," she says in a low voice. "You came here, to my apartment, to tell me about him."

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