Page 52 of Indulgence
He fell apart a little more. “What’s happening here, Natalie? I get that I screwed up with the protection last night, but why does it feel like you’re acting as though you feel like I cheated on you? I followed your lead last night. You were there the whole time.”
“I know that,” I choked out, knowing he was right, but my feelings were raw and nonsensical. “But that doesn’t seem to matter.” Anger rose in my voice, taking over. “I can’t stop seeing your face when you came in her. You never make that face with me. You’ve never looked so far gone before. ”
His eyes widened then narrowed. “Natalie.” His voice had bite and sadness to it. “I don’t know what face I made last night, but whatever face I made was because my wife just had sex with another woman and it was one of the hottest things I’ve ever seen. It had nothing to do with Brooke and everything to do with you and what we were experiencing together. Brooke could’ve been anyone.”
Everything started to spiral.
The gravity of all that had transpired was too heavy, too suffocating. I knew I was about to break, and I didn’t want to break in front of Matteo. I felt too vulnerable for that.
I couldn’t look Matteo in the eyes. I really felt as if he cheated on me, but it was more than that or the face he made while he came inside another woman.
It was that there was a chance he could have a child with that woman. I didn’t care how big or small the chance.
Even the smallest fraction of a percent was too much for me.
Everything felt soiled. Everywhere I looked, I saw some part of last night. The idea of heading into my bedroom sounded as welcoming as being water boarded.
I didn’t know how I’d ever feel comfortable in our room again. How would I walk in there and not compare the blue of our walls to the blue of that woman’s eyes? Every time I climbed onto the bed, would I think about her all over it?
The tricks a distraught woman’s mind could play on her rational one were endless. Emotions were running the ship, and those bitches were steering straight toward the iceberg.
“Natalie . . .” The sound of his voice sliced me open wide, but I couldn’t reassure him. I just needed to get out of there.
As I shook my head, I saw the tears tip over Matt’s lower lids. Each one added a crack to my heart, but what were a few more when there were already thousands of fresh fractures? It didn’t seem to matter how much I loved my husband. We crossed a line, and there was no uncrossing it. “I need some time. Away from here.” It would have been easier to rip my own heart out than it was to say the next two words. “And you.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Natalie
My hand ached with afierceness as I banged on Penelope’s door unnecessarily hard. It was barely ten in the morning, and I was wearing an old, ratty T-shirt and leggings with bleach stains on them. Her neighbors must have thought I was a homeless woman lost in their neighborhood. Not that it mattered what anyone thought.
The ache in my heart outweighed any judgement from her neighbors.
The lock of the door disengaged, and then Pen was there, standing on the other side in her cute skinny jeans and billowy tank top. Her auburn hair was piled up on the top of her head in a messy knot and she held a cup of coffee.
The smell hit my nose and for some reason the fact I didn’t have coffee with Matteo that morning, like we’d been doing for the last few weeks it’d been just us, made the tears well up on my lower lids.
I rushed inside, snatching her coffee cup as I passed.
“What the hell?” she screeched at my back. “You pound on my door like the DEA on a raid, you look like something the cat dragged in, and you steal my coffee? All without saying a word? You could’ve called, you know?”
The coffee barely had any taste as I drank it down, but I didn’t care. “My phone is dead.” My voice cracked as I answered. Everything was bubbling up and ready to spill over. The tears started first. They slipped down my cheek without permission.
I was numb on the drive over and hadn’t considered the simple action of plugging it in.
I didn’t want it to ring.
I didn’t want to hear Matteo ask me to come home.
My shoulders shook as I tried my hardest to contain everything festering inside me.
“Natalie?” Pen asked, her voice bathed in concern. “What’s going on?”
She approached and assessed the situation quickly. My hands gripped the mug as if it were my only lifeline. Tears streamed down my face, and I seemed to be rooted to the middle of her living room floor.
“Sweetie,” she cooed, and the dam burst, sobs ripped from my chest as I crumbled to the floor.
Luckily for me, and Pen’s rug, she grabbed the mug just before it spilled everywhere. She discarded it on the end table, sank down next to me on the floor, and pulled me in a half hug.
