Page 26 of The Regrettable Mistake

“That’s a low blow, Ollie.”

“Not meant to be. It’s just the truth.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“You good keeping Den with you until things calm down?”

“Of course.”

“Okay. I think it’s safer. I will need to be able to come visit my boy, though.”

“We’ll schedule it.”

“Right. I don’t want to upset you more than I already have, but you need to know that I’m not giving up on us.”

“You should. We were over the day you slept with someone else. I could have gotten over your other lies eventually. Cheating on me isn’t something I can move past.”

“Steph,” I started to beg.

“No, Ollie. You need to listen to what I’m saying. I will ALWAYS wonder. If you’re late, I’ll wonder who you’re with. If a phone call or text takes your focus away from me or the kids, I will wonder who in the hell is more important than us and why. That question will always be at the back of my mind now. If we were intimate again, I’d always compare myself to the nameless, faceless whoever you might be doing behind my back or the one I know you did already.”

Fucking hell. My stomach felt like it was full of rocks.

“To you, it was just a blip that you can somehow get over because it wasn’t as great an experience as you hoped it would be, what with the blackmail and all. To me, you ruined the very foundation of my life. Now, I have to question everything because I can’t trust myself to know when I’m being made into a fool. Not only did you marry me under false pretenses, but you also cheated on me and then carried on with your ex while lying to my face about what you were doing and where you were going for months. So, I was triple the fool.”

She could have taken a knife and plunged it into my heart and it would hurt less than her words and knowing what I’d done to her – to us.

“I’m going to give you space, Steph, but I am not giving up on us. I’ll prove to you that you can trust yourself and that one day, you’ll be able to trust me again too.”

Her head shook and the stiff muscles in her shoulders and neck stood out. It was time to leave because as she had already said, I was causing her stress. Too much of it.

I couldn’t give up on us, even if she wanted me to because she was my family. My wife. My love. The mother of my children. If it took me a lifetime, I wouldn’t stop until I fixed everything I broke between us.

CHAPTER 11

Steph

“Have you told him about your appointment?”

“No.”

“Considering it’s in an hour, don’t you think you should do that?” I rolled my eyes at my twin. He was the one who didn’t want me to be with Ollie to begin with. I wasn’t sure why the hell he kept pressuring me to involve the man in my pregnancy. If anything, I would have thought he would have helped me keep the pregnancy hidden.

“He wouldn’t even know I was pregnant if it wasn’t for you. I’m angry, Stevie. Why can’t you, of all people, understand that?”

“I do, but the reason you’re angry now isn’t his fault.”

I glared at my brother. “Everything is his fault. If he had never climbed back in between that bitch’s legs, I wouldn’t be out of a job.”

“You weren’t fired.”

“I have been put on indefinite leave without pay for the safety of the students and staff, Steve. Unpaid leave,” I reiterated, “because they have to hire a sub to take my place. I am a single, pregnant mother who is divorcing my cheating, lying husband and I have no income.”

“You have savings, right?”

“How long do you think that will last?”

“Everything is paid for, so…”

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