Page 12 of Fault Lines
A sob caught in my throat.
“I’m sorry I can’t give you that, Cam. I’m so sorry.”
He shook his head. “Please don’t blame yourself. I never have. I just wish I could make it better. When Janet left and I hired Lacey, she came onto me right away. Not that I wanted her—not really. But it was a rush. Someone found me interesting, attractive. It made me feel like a man again, not a failure.”
“You’re always enough for me,” I whispered.
His voice got even quieter. “I know. But you’re in this pain with me. When women flirt with me, it’s the only time I feel alive anymore.”
I made a broken, ugly sound, but he just stared at the drink in his hand.
He looked up, met my eyes. “I don’t want to hurt you, and I know I’m about to.”
“What is it?” My voice was a rasp.
“I want to see other people.”
The words landed like a blow. I felt like the world was spinning sideways. “You’re leaving? You want to split up?”
“No. Never.” He lunged forward, wrapping me up in his arms. “I never want to lose you. I just… I need something. I need to feel like myself again, so I can come home and be the husband you deserve. If I can get this out of my system, maybe things can go back to what they were.”
I broke away, stinging. “You think sleeping with other women will fix us?”
He was relentless. “It would just be meaningless sex. I’d come home to you, always to you. You’d still have all of me. It’s just… I need the novelty, the difference. I promise, I’ll never make love to anyone else. That’s only for you.”
My mind whirled. I could barely comprehend what he was asking. “So you’re asking for an open marriage?”
“In a sense, yeah.”
“And what about me?” I said, voice flat.
He flinched. “I don’t want you with other guys. But if you wanted to—I couldn’t say no, I guess.”
He said it like he already knew I wouldn’t. He was the only man I’d ever been with, my whole world. He must have known I’d never want anyone else.
“You don’t have to decide tonight,” he said, trying to sound gentle. He circled the island, hugging me close, his chin in my hair. The first time in so long. “Take a few days. We’ll figure out rules that make you comfortable.”
“And if I say no?”
He didn’t answer, just looked down at me with a tremor in his jaw.
And there it was. I had no real choice. He was going to do this, with or without my blessing. My only options were to accept—or walk away. And I loved him too much to leave, even if all he was offering was a sliver of himself.
I cried in his arms for hours. I was drowning in hurt, but at the same time, being held by him again felt so good, it was almost enough to make me forget what had broken between us. It was like being starved, then finally tasting what you’d missed for so long. Except it came at an impossible price.
He stroked my hair and whispered that he loved me, over and over. And I wanted so badly to believe him. Maybe I did. But I knew nothing would ever be the same again.
Chapter Five
The morning after was cruel. I woke not so much with a headache as an ache through my entire body—a thud behind my eyes from all the wine and scotch, but also something more: the heavy, leaden sensation that comes from hearing something that can’t be unheard.
My husband, lying next to me with his arm draped across my waist, wanted to be with other women. Not just wanted, but needed. Needed other women to dull the pain that I, his wife, couldn’t give him children. He’d said it to my face: that this was the only way to somehow steer himself back to me, to love me as he had loved me before.
There was something odd and heartbreaking about waking up in his arms—it had been ages since he’d held me through the night. Was this really what it took? Releasing him to the appetite of strangers, just to catch these battered, leftover scraps of affection come morning?
I loved him, but the whole thing burned me up inside.
I pressed myself out from under his arm, careful not to wake him. Cold floor under my feet; I slipped into house shoes and padded downstairs.
