He scoffs. “Then what the hell are you doing here? Why are you acting like she’s been kidnapped? Face it. She’s off with someone else, same as she always is.”
“She’s not,” I snap before I can stop myself. It comes out too fast. Too desperate. But is that just because Ineedthem to be wrong?
Domhnall gives me a long, hard look. Then he shrugs. “Then why aren’t you at home waiting for her?”
And there it is.
The final blow.
Because the truth is, Ishouldbe. I should be pacing our goddamn house, waiting for the inevitable moment she comes stumbling back in, laughing off her absence, maybe eventauntingme about it, seeing how far she can push me.
It’s not outside the bounds of our original agreement. And we never updated it after the marriage.
But I don’t believe it.
I can’t.
Not Moira. NotmyMoira.
Not after everything.
And yet?—
I hear Kira’s words in my head again.
She wasn’t scared, Bane. She was excited.
The club is too loud. Too bright. Too fuckingsuffocating.
I turn on my heel without another word and walk out.
I don’t slam the door. I don’t say goodbye. I just leave, the conversations behind me picking back up, the music resuming, like none of this ever happened.
Like I’m already forgotten.
Like she’s already forgotten me.
I get into my car and grip the wheel, my breath coming in sharp, controlled exhales.
She left me.
Even as my gut screams that something isn’t right.
Even as my body shakes with the urge tohuntfor her.
Are they right?
Is it the right thing to let her go?
Beast wars with priest.
My car ultimately takes me home, though, if only in case she comes back to me.
But when I walk in the door, apart from the cat, the house is horribly, hauntingly empty.
FORTY-FIVE
MOIRA