Page 67 of Spiralling Skywards
“She begged me to forgive her, asked me to take her back so that we could try again. She brought up our history and said that we were meant to be together.”
Her top teeth gnawed on her bottom lip, but I couldn’t see her clearly enough to gauge her mood as anything other than pissed off. Really pissed off in fact. I leant across her and switched on the Betty Boop lamp next to her bed. Sarah sometimes dressed a little bit like her, their fashion sense was similar, and I found it only mildly disturbing that I got turned on when my girlfriend dressed like a cartoon character. Which in and of itself was disturbing.
Her nose was red and her eyes were bloodshot and puffy—Sarah’s, not Betty’s. I leaned in to brush a tear from where it was caught on her eyelash, but she batted my hand away.
“I didn’t want her back then, and I don’t want her back now, Sarah. I made a mistake that night. A monumental mistake that I’ll regret for the rest of my life.”
Sarah wrapped her arms around her middle at the same time as her mouth opened slightly. She knew what was coming. She was holding herself together, preparing for the blow that I was about to deliver. I didn’t want to tell her, I wanted to lie or just not mention it, but look at where untruths had gotten me with her.
“What did you do?” she whispered.
“I’d heard that the bloke I’d caught her in bed with had left his wife and young family and that he and Olivia were now together. It didn’t bother me. I couldn’t give a fuck who she shacked up with or who she was rooting. But I was petty, the thought that I could get one over on him. . . I let it get the better of me.”
Her face fell before I even said the words.
“I fucked her.”
I watched her pant as she fought to hold in her tears. Then I watched her chest heave as she lost the battle. The noise she made was one of total utter misery. I wanted to touch her, hold her, make it better, but how could I when I still had blows to strike and more misery to deliver?
“You lied to me.”
“I know, and I can’t even begin to explain how sorry I am for that.”
“I asked you, Liam. Two things,thatwas all I ever asked of you. Don’t lie to me and don’t leave me. You did both.”
“I never left you, Sarah. I’d never leave you.”
“You left me tonight. You left me standing there. You let go of my hand, and you left me standing there. Have you . . .”
She paused to wipe her nose and her eyes on her T-shirt. She was almost choking on her words she was crying so hard.
“Have you any idea how alone I felt? You left me, so easily, so quickly. You let go of my hand and left me standing there alone and devastated.”
“I had to. She hasn’t signed the divorce papers yet. If she knew, if she even has a suspicion that there’s something going on between us, then she won’t sign. I’ve got leverage over her at the moment. I’ve threatened to go public over her affair with Markham. Right now, everything is being split nicely down the middle. If she finds out about me and you, I’ll lose that leverage, and she’ll want more.”
“So give it to her. Just let her have it. Or does money and your businesses mean more to you than making me feel like complete and utter shit? Worthless, a fucking nobody?”
“I’d give it all up for you, every last dollar, but it’s not about me. This is my family’s business. My grandad and my dad spent most of their lives building it up. I can’t let her just walk away with it. My pops is gone now, but my dad, I’m scared that it might kill him if I let that happen. I couldn’t do that to him, Sarah.”
“Of course you couldn’t, and I wouldn’t expect you to, but if you’d have told me all of this, if you’d been up front and honest with me about everything, I would’ve had half a clue of what I was dealing with. If I’d been made aware of what was at stake, I would’ve understood your reaction towards me when we walked in there, but you didn’t. Fuck, I only just found out you were married.”
I felt a little bit of hope bloom inside my chest at the fact that she at least understood why I’d acted the way that I had.
“But I would’ve told you. We’ve been dealing with a lot, everything has moved so fast with us that I just hadn’t gotten around to explaining everything, and the last person I expected to see when we walked into your brother’s house tonight washer.”
“Andwhywas she there exactly?Whatwas she there to discuss? What’schangedso greatly that she felt the need to jump on a plane and fly here to discuss it with you in person?”
And there it was. I’d just walked right into that one, and now I was gonna have to man up and tell her the truth.
I took in a deep breath through my nose.
“Sarah, I need you to know something. I should’ve said it earlier. I should’ve said it before we walked into your brother’s house tonight, or this morning even, but the truth is, I was frightened of scaring you off. I was worried that it was too soon, but now? Now I’m scared that you’re gonna think that I’m only saying it because of what happened tonight.”
I was so fucking hot, I felt like I was gonna melt all over her bed. Blood whooshed through my ears, and my stomach had dropped so low that it was probably somewhere back in Australia at that stage.
She started to shake her head, and her eyes shone with tears, but I needed to get the words out there. They needed to be said. I needed to say them, and she needed to fucking well hear me.
“I love you. I love you so fucking much, and I couldn’t be any sorrier for what has gone on tonight.”
