Page 40 of Between Our Hearts

“I know, Mama. I don’t deserve him.”

Those weren’t the words of a woman who was cheating on her husband. Those were the resigned words of an overworked woman whose husband hadn’t protected her from her own malicious mother. Whose husband hadn’t taken care of her when she’d been unwell on Sunday. Who was constantly assuming the worst of her.

Christ.

The dropping, hollowing feeling in his stomach morphed as adrenaline took over. At least he could fix this one thing right now. His boots slammed the concrete as he strode to the driver’s side and flung the door open. Sadie’s head popped up, her mouth gaping, and her eyes wide.

“Penelope, I need Sadie. She’ll call you back.” Then his fingertips punched the steering wheel disconnect button.

?Chapter 21?

“Does she always talk to you like that?” Her husband’s voice was brimming with outrage.

Sadie tried to shrug, but with the weariness from the long day and then the onslaught from her mother, her shoulders barely raised a few millimeters. The air escaping her slumped body left with the force of survivors trying to vacate a sinking ship.

“Ever since I can remember.”

Clark’s left eye twitched, and his face twisted as if he’d swallowed a putrid lemon rind. “That’sbullshit.”

She sat back against the driver’s seat, shrugging fully this time. “It’s all I’ve ever known.”

“That’s wrong. She shouldn’t speak to you—” He cut himself off. “Why’d you agree with her?”

She tensed, and then decided to lie. “It’s often easier to simply say, ‘yes ma’am,’ than to argue.”

Clark eyed her, and she felt herself growing warm under his scrutiny. “Tell me you don’t believe her.”

Her hesitation set off something in him. “Because she’swrong.”

Unable to take the tight set of her husband’s jaw, she lowered her gaze to the garage floor between them. Tonight, she was supposed to tell him that she was going to pack a bag and check into a hotel for a while, that it would be best for him if she wasn’t around, but his indignation on her behalf was only making her chest hurt more than it already did.

“Love, look at me.” His soft words drew her attention unconsciously. “You’re an incredible surgeon. Iknowyou know that. You’re not being selfish by helping people in our community, by helping your colleagues. How many times have you spent extra time helping different residents perfect their surgeries so they could do the most good for the public?”

Her mouth moved, but no words came out.

A small, tender smile rose on her husband’s face. “And you’re an amazing mother to Lottie. I know you’ve been busy lately, but when you’re home, you two are inseparable. You’d never speak to her like—” He cut himself off again, shaking his head.

Clark seemed lost for a moment, his gaze fixed on the messy clutter covering her passenger seat. In the absence of his attention, a swell of guilt sideswiped her. What would spending time with Lottie look like once she no longer lived here?

When he lifted his face, those striking blue eyes bore into her. “Why did you agree with her about me?”

Her stomach clenched painfully as exhaustion pulled at every fiber of her being. She didn’t want to list all the ways that she wasn’t what Clark should have. All the ways she was letting him down by not being “woman enough.” Seeing him happy without her on Sunday had already been excruciating.

“It’s her, isn’t it?” That hard tone edged his words again. “She’s taught you there’s something wrong with the way you look.” Clark swallowed, his gaze far off, even though it was trained on her face. He blinked back into focus. “There’s nothing wrong with the way you look. Do you know how many times I’ve thought of another woman since I’ve met you?”

She subtly shook her head, not truly wanting to know the answer. Surely, the number had to be in the thousands.

“Not once.”

Shock quaked through every cell in her body.That can’t be—

“Not oncesince I kissed you that first night have I even thought of anyone but you. I mean, Jesus, Sadie”—he ran a frustrated hand over his hair—“you’re perfect.”

She couldn’t help but to wince at his description of her.

“You are.” His tone was insistent. “Look at you. Let’s put aside the fact that your fingers literally put people back together on a daily basis.” His hand gestured over her body and then his lingering gaze followed it, setting her aflame. “Your skin, your hair, those curves that fit perfectly in my hands”—his words hardened as his anger transformed into something else entirely—“and that incredible ass.”

She couldn’t formulate a response to his words, to the intensity at which they were shoved in her direction.

---