Page 67 of Perdition
Limerence. Em knew that word because she’d read a few Wattpad stories where the dumbass heroes had fallen for the cute, sweet, manipulative, love bombing other woman.
Never had she thought she’d be living fiction.
“You’re addicted to the feelings she gives you,” Em supplied flatly. “You like that she’s young, feeds your ego, and doesn’t come with all the wifey responsibilities. You can have your fun without having to worry about if you threw your towel in the hamper, or if she’s happy or sad or raging or insecure. You don’t have that weight of worrying if you’re meeting her physical and emotional needs—even though you care enough to make sure you respond to her texts, brush away her tears when she cries, and you hate to see her sad so you give her what she wants, even if it means taking her somewhere you know she doesn’t belong.”Like our spot, was left unsaid, but still echoed through the room.
Frost heard the unspoken, growling, “And yet, you cut down the red maple like it meant fucking nothing to you—then you burned it, right where I could see it, right where my brothers could see it. They asked questions, you know. They asked why you’d deliver wood for a random bonfire, and why I had to be there before they lit it. They asked and what the hell was I supposed to tell them?”
Lord, he sounded like the wounded party.
Victim this dude was not.
“Tell them that you’re trading up, got yourself a new old lady, and the old one is burning her bridges,” she replied, shrugging, even though she didn’t feel, at all, as carefree as that implied.
Frost let go of her like she was on fire and not their tree, hissing.
“I am not replacing you with Sarah—goddammit! I would never do that! I love you, Emily!” he practically bellowed.
Climbing to his feet, he began pacing between her and the reclaimed wood coffee table she’d bought from an architectural salvage place in Scranton. She’d been so proud, thinking Mads would love it, because it was made from old barn wood and old Harley parts.
Frost had taken one look at it and hadn’t said a word about it.
That was three months ago.
Just another thing he ignored—her gift to him, in their home.
Focus, woman!
Dragging her thoughts back to her pacing husband, Em opened her mouth to respond, but Frost’s next words left her utterly speechless…and enraged.
“What’s the real problem here, Em? I can tell you I’ll never see Sarah again, that I’ll send her to another club somewhere in Timbuktu, but that wouldn’t be enough for you, right? I could apologize until my face turns blue and my throat is sore, but that still wouldn’t be enough, right? I could cut off my dick, shave my head, and become a monk, but that wouldn’t be enough for you, right? I could leave the club and become the doting, domestic house husband, but that wouldn’t be enough, would it, Emily?”
Word after word after word slammed into her, each one a match to the fumes bubbling from her deepest, darkest parts.
He was right—God, he was right. Even if he spent the next fifty years apologizing, living like a monk, and being at herbeckon call, she’d still resent him, she’d still hold his mistakes against him, she’d still burn with embers of unquenchable anger—and she knew why.
She was humiliated, betrayed, cut open and hollowed out. The whole of her, every part that made her what she was, the woman she was, the mom she was, the wife and lover she was, had been poisoned—rotted out like a disease in her blood.
And she had no idea how to recover from that.
If she ever could.
It wasn’t because she’d somehow lost her womanhood, it was more like it was stolen from her—not the physiological bits and pieces that made her a woman, it was the spirit, the soul of her.
How was the possible?
Because the one man who’d made her feel the most feminine, the most cherished and adored and capable as a woman had betrayed her.
He said he hadn’t actually touched Sarah, but then Em remembered how Sarah had known things about Frost that only she and Frost knew.
How wasthatpossible!
She had no idea, and it was killing her.
Frost hadn’t just cheated; he’d ripped out the pieces of their love story that had made her unshakably confident and secure in her marriage. Mads loved her and only her, had only ever wanted her, had never looked at or lusted after another woman because he was only attracted to her. Mads never felt drawn to another woman, never wanted to ease another woman’s pain, never wanted to make another woman laugh when she was sad, or heal when they were unwell. Mads never cared about the opinions or thoughts of another woman; he never asked another woman for advice or insight. He never talked with another woman for hours, completely absorbed in her, so much so that he forgot everything else. Her Mads had neverprioritized another woman over her, neglecting her, forgetting her, carelessly brushing her aside…butFrosthad.
He'd done all of that.
With Sarah.
