Page 57 of Cruel Vows

I’m on my own in this house and there’s nothing I can do about it.

I have to be the one to save myself.

16

SEAN

I’ve never dreaded going homesince I moved out of my father’s house, but right now, I feel like I’m standing at the edge of a giant chasm and my only choices are to either jump in and die or somehow scale the wall and hope I can make it to the bottom safely.

My fist closes over my keys, the little teeth digging into the palm of my hand.

I should’ve gone to the bar instead of coming home. A few drinks would have put me in a better mood to deal with whatever Ellie is going to throw at me.

But the past week without her has left me feeling uneasy in a way I’m not quite used to.

Things are rocky between us, and even more so now.

A week without saying a word to her isn’t going to put her in a good mood, but each time I picked up the phone and thought about calling her, something felt wrong. It felt like she wasn’t mine to call, even though she’s my wife.

I sigh and head inside. “Ellie?”

Nothing.

No answer comes. Everything is so silent that for a moment, I don’t think she’s here. She wouldn’t have gone out though. Thesecurity team was under strict orders to keep her on house arrest while I was away.

Which likely only pissed her off and had her escaping through the window.

“Ellie?” I flick on the lights and climb the stairs, floorboards creaking beneath my feet.

The sound of soft sobs comes from her door as I pass it.

I pinch the bridge of my nose, wishing that she would stop crying about our relationship. It’s not the first time she’s spent the night crying, and I doubt it will be the last.

This is our lives now, though.

Whether she likes it or not—and I thought she was starting to accept it—this is what our future is going to look like.

My shoulders slump, exhaustion setting in as I shove open the door to my own room, heading straight for the shower. The thing I hate the most about traveling is the feeling that sticks to my skin every time I do. It feels like I can never get clean enough for the first day or two.

Steam from the scalding water creates a foggy film over the mirror.

I shed my clothes, tossing them into the hamper in the corner before stepping into the shower. The hot stream cascades down my back, easing some of the knots away.

As I slick my hair back, some of the soft sobs rise above the noise of the shower.

Groaning, I slump against the wall.

I didn’t think that this marriage was going to be as impossible as it is.

Maybe I should’ve asked her to go with me.

Although, when I was planning the trip, I didn’t think that she would want to go with me. I had to take care of some business with one of the hotels I own in Ireland. She would havebeen trapped around a hotel and bored, but maybe that would have been better than being here alone.

“I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”

As I push off the wall and work some shampoo through my hair, I keep going back and forth on what I should do about Ellie.

The water runs cold, and I step out, wrapping a towel low around my hips as a crash echoes through the house.

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