Page 66 of Kiss From A Rose

"Okay."

"Thank you."

CHAPTER 25

Rose

We went for a walk—something we never did at home. I was surprised and delighted when Gray agreed.

The moon was high and bold in the clear sky, spreading a silver glow over the beach as Gray and I walked along the shoreline. The brisk December air was tinged with the salt of the sea, each breath a cool, briny kiss. We were wrapped in our coats to ward off the chill as we trudged through the soft, cold sand.

We walked in silence for a while; the only sounds were the crashing of the waves against the shore and the occasional distant call of a night bird. The world felt hushed and expectant, as if it, too, was waiting to hear what would be said between us.

Finally, Gray stopped walking and turned to me, his face pale and drawn in the moonlight.

"Tell me how I hurt you?"

Those words slammed through me. He'd never asked that before. I felt a riot of emotions race through me, and I didn'tknow how to articulate what I needed to without getting angry. We were here totalk,and that meant I had to keep the raging bitch inside me quiet so Icouldspeak coherently.

"I don't want you to think that's all our marriage has been…the bad stuff," I explained as I collected my thoughts.

"I know, Rose."

I angled my head toward one of the benches that were strewn around the beaches. We walked to it slowly and sat down with him on one side and me on the other, a small but deep distance between us.

"You stopped coming home after the kids left. It was as if your only interest in being home were Willow and Jude.Iwas not important."

I waited for him to comment or get defensive, but he just sat patiently, his eyes soft. I sat up straight and watched the soft flurry of the waves sweep across the sands.

"Whenever I tried to talk to you, you found it irritating. You werealwaystoo busy. I didn't want to be a nagging wife, but I feel like I became one."

"Never," he interjected. "Never, Rose."

I nodded sadly. "I felt the way I felt, and I can't change that."

"I understand."

He fell silent, and I sifted through all the things that I knew I had to say, but I wasn't sure how they'd land. I wanted him to understand why I left. Maybe it was defensive on my part, but I couldn't change that either.

"The last few years, it started to feel like Willow, Jude, and you were a family, and I was just the maid who cooked and cleaned. When I said something, Willow ignored me, and Jude…ah…my baby talked to me like I was an embarrassment." I paused my hands in my coat, squeezing the material nervously. "You can't tell him that."

"I won't," he promised.

I looked down at my hands. "You never said anything. It was as if it wasokayfor him to speak to me the way he did. I always felt that you regretted marrying me, but these past few years, I started to believe it. I felt that you thought I wasn't good enough to be your wife, to be married to a Rutherford." I chuckled in self-deprecation. "Mama Rutherford said it often enough. I worked hard, so very hard, Gray, to be a good wife. I learned to cook and pair wine so that no one would say the trailer trash didn't know her chardonnay from her sauvignon blanc."

I closed my eyes because it was becoming harder and harder to tell him what was inside my heart, to show him my pain.

"You have always been an amazing wife," he said softly. "It's my fault that you didn'tfeelit. It's my fault that I didn't tell you, show you."

I swallowed and opened my eyes. I didn't look at him.Couldn't.

Since I left, I thought Gray and the kids, too, would blame me. But they blamed themselves, as did Gray. I didn't know what to make of it.

"You always saymymoney.Iearn. It'smyinheritance." I turned to face him now. "You and your mother always made sure I understood that I hadnorights. She threw that prenuptial agreement at me, as did you."

"Everything I have isours," he immediately said. "The fact that I didn't say that is…fuck…Rose, that'smyfault. I'm nothing without you. I couldn't have built my company without you."

"I feel like you're lying to me now, to maybe even yourself, because you don't want to be divorced," I confessed. "And that drives me crazy because I don't understand why you want to keep me. You've behaved for a while like…well, like you'd be happy to see me go."

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