Page 85 of First Comes Marriage

When had she started crying? She dashed away the moisture from her eyes, but it was useless. “I’m sorry I doubted you, even for a minute. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t know how to trust you.” He closed his eyes, shaking his head.

“Sebastian, please.”

“I’ll find somewhere else to stay tonight.” This time when he drew in an overlarge breath, he seemed to shrink under the weight of it, his shoulders slumping.

“Don’t do this. Can’t we talk about it?”

“No. Not right now we can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’ll say things I can’t take back.”

She forced herself to breathe through the inescapable feeling that she was being torn apart from the inside out, that her organs had conspired to make manifest the agony of watching Sebastian slip away. “Don’t give up on us. Sebastian, please.”

“There is no us. None of this was real.”

“Don’t say that. It was real to me.”

He hung his head, then sniffed and looked right through her. “I wish I could believe you.”

Sebastian disappeared around the corner of the house as Sabrina stood in shock, unable to move, unable to speak. A moment later, his car kicked up gravel as it turned out of the driveway and down the street, leaving her alone.

She crumbled, dissolving into tears as she sat on the steps of the deck, the ache in her chest warring with the stabbing in her abdomen as she sobbed. She pressed against the familiar spot on her side as the pain seared through her again, hot and sharp and bright enough that the edges of her vision went white, and she gasped for breath.

This wasn’t like the last time or the time before that or the time before that when the sharp stab of pain slowly dimmed, when it dulled to the sting of a pulled muscle, flaring with movement but otherwise quiet, until it disappeared altogether—at least until the next time. This pain wasn’t diminishing. It was as though someone had her insides in a vise grip and was slowly twisting, twisting. Like she was being torn apart from the inside.

Was this what a broken heart felt like? God, how could she survive it?

“Sabrina.” Kyla’s voice called to her as though she were underwater, fuzzy and muted, too far away.

And then her hand was on Sabrina’s forehead, the other resting on her knee as Kyla crouched in front of her. Kyla was talking to her, but Sabrina couldn’t make out what she was saying.

Then everything went black.

Chapter Thirty-one

Baz threw another stone and watched it skip across the surface of the bay once, twice, then sink. Grunting in frustration, he bent and gathered another handful of the small smooth stones that littered this section of beach beneath the bridge and tried again. Once, twice, gone. He swore under his breath and tried again. And again. Each stone sinking too early.

Fucking rocks.

He shed his suit jacket, tossing it onto the beach. As though he were preparing for a fight, he rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, pacing at the water’s edge, his shiny dress shoes sinking into the wet sand there. They’d be ruined. He couldn’t be bothered to care.

He squared off with the open water, as though meeting an enemy in the boxing ring, exhaled hard through his nose, and sent another stone skipping across the water. When it, too, sank, he threw down the remaining stones, cursing.

This was supposed to be his place, the one place where all the rest of the noise faded away and he could think, but now all he could see were flashes of the other night. Sabrina in his lap, her hair in the wind, those fucking red lips.

He shouldn’t have come here. But there wasn’t a place in town that didn’t hold her memory now. Part of him wantedto go home to her, to shout and fight and fuck until there was nothing left to do but forgive her. He was hurt and angry, all his old wounds pushed to the surface and cut open to bleed, but he loved her. Helovedher. And yet she’d somehow believed he was capable of leaving her, of taking from her and hurting her the way her ex had.

Didn’t you, though? She wanted to explain herself and you wouldn’t listen, just like you wouldn’t listen ten years ago. Jesus Christ, she was in pain and you walked away.

Fucking stupid voices in his head. He wanted to be angry, dammit, not feel guilty.

He’d work off the last of this adrenaline and then he’d go find her. She’d tell him he was an idiot. He’d agree. They’d make up. It would be fine. Couples fought, right? It would be fine.

He threw another stone across the bay, but his heart wasn’t in it. She’d hurt him, but he’d hurt her too. His anger dissipated, only to be replaced by guilt, sour and twisting in his stomach.

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