Page 71 of The Duke and the Hellion Bride

So it was that he threw open the doors with a sense of purpose, striding into the foyer with intent, his aim to search high and low for his wife until he found her, forcing her then to listen to him, no matter her mood. As things turned out, he didn’t have to look far.

She was standing in wait for him in the foyer’s center. No smile on her face to see him coming. No scowl either, which might have been a relief was it not for the red stain in her eyes. There was pain in those eyes, a sense of misery that had Magnus slowing, the enthusiasm he felt sucked from him in an instant because something was clearly wrong.

“Diana...” He came to a stop a few feet from her; it was as if an invisible barrier had been erected between them. “What is --”

“Please,” she said, her chin wobbling but her voice firm. “Do not speak. Just listen.” She fixed her eyes on him, a warning to heed her words.

Magnus’ brow creased with worry. The way her chin wobbled... how swollen her cheeks were... that she stood with her hands clutched to her chest as if holding her heart together...what on earth have I walked in to?

“Wh -- what happened between us last night, what you did...” She took a deep breath to calm herself and keep steady. “I have been thinking of it all day and I --”

“Diana, before you say anything else, you must know --”

“Please!” she exclaimed. “Do not --” She shut her eyes and took another breath. “Do not say anything, Magnus. Please, I must say this.” Again, she looked at him in warning.

Magnus could sense it coming. That feeling deep inside of him, abject pain and misery and helplessness. The look in her eyes told him as much, but he heeded her words and nodded once.

“I have had all day to think about it and I have decided that... that...” Her chin was wobbling furiously so that she could barely talk. “That it was for the best.”

Magnus leaned back as if struck. “Wh... what? How can you --”

“It hurt, what you did,” she continued, speaking over him. The way she spoke, it was as if he was not there; looking past him, saying words she needed to say, regardless of his reaction. “It hurt in ways that I didn’t think were possible, only now I realize them to be inevitable. I thought you had changed. I thought...” She faulted, taking another breath. “I thought that you could change. I know now that I was expecting too much – that I was asking too much of you.”

“No, Diana, you were not.” He took a step toward her, and she took a quick one back. “I have changed. What happened last night... it was a mistake. I know it now. I know I did the wrong thing, but it was only because I was scared.”

“And what of next time?” she shot back. Not angry. Resigned, was how Magnus read it. As if she had expected the answer. “And the time after that? It is an easy thing to admit fault after the fact, to promise change. But for some, change is not possible.”

“It is.” He took another step toward her, and she took the same back, determined to keep the distance between them. “I can change. I have changed. Surely, you can see that?”

She shook her head. “You say the correct words, but your actions speak over them. Last night --”

“Was a mistake.”

“The first of what will be many,” she insisted. Her chin began to wobble again, tears now streaming down her cheeks. “How often can we have this same conversation? And how many times must I be fooled before I realize the truth?”

“The... the truth?”

“That you... that us...” She was breaking slowly before his eyes and all Magnus wanted to do was hold her, to keep her in a single piece. His arms around her, to his chest, whispering into her ear that he was there for her. But he knew that would not work, that she was resigned to these words she seemed determined to speak. “That we cannot work.”

“No...”

“We tried, Magnus,” she continued, forcing herself to stand up and look at him. Blood-stained eyes bore through his soul and Mangus could feel it piercing his heart. “We tried and we failed. There is no shame in that.”

He shook his head. “I do not accept that. Today, I was speaking to my grandmother and --”

“And she told you what you needed to hear, no doubt. But the next time? And the time after that?”

“There won’t be a next time!”

“There will be.” She sighed and looked away. The tears fell down her cheeks. “Unless I do the only thing that I can so as to ensure otherwise.”

Magnus was stunned. One hand reached out, the distance between them only a few feet but it felt like an ocean’s worth of space. Where was this coming from? How had it happened so quickly? Although, as he thought about it, was it really that surprising?

Since the moment that they married, Magnus had been closed off to Diana. She had tried to bring him in, to force him to be real with her, and he had denied her at every turn. One step forward, two back it had felt like. And the first-time that he had finally been real with her, that he had accepted his feelings, he had turned and ran.

Last night wasn’t an outlier. It was the expected result. One which Magnus now knew to be behind him, while also knowing that nothing he could say would convince Diana of this.

He had done this to himself.

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