Page 87 of The Ruthless and the Strong

“Yes.” She moved her eyes to something past my shoulders. I didn’t say anything, giving her the chance to gather her thoughts.

Then, as if she had just come to terms with something, she let out a deep breath and said, “Sam and I divorced because of me.”

I could feel my eyebrows pulling together in a small frown. “What do you mean?”

“I always thought I was good at hiding my emotions. It worked the first four years of my marriage to Sam. For a while, I had even convinced myself that I could be happy to spend a lifetime with Sam, and everything would be okay. That one more day that I went without seeing you, thinking about you… missing you, was one more day I could work to build my future with my husband. Seeing you on the holidays was tough, but I usually only saw you when in a crowd of people, and Sam was usually with us. I was so good at pretending, I almost forgot I was. Until I came back to visit Olivia with Hunter for Emma’s birth.”

“That was two years ago,” I said. I remembered seeing her at the hospital. Wanting to pull her into my arms and not let her leave. I hadn’t done any of those things, and I couldn’t remember anything about that time that had been so significant that might cause the divorce.

“Sam hadn’t come with us. He had a big exam coming up at the time, so he’d let us go to Chicago without him, even though he didn’t want us to.” She met my gaze then. “He didn’t trust me with you.”

“That’s ridiculous. You would have never done anything to hurt him. Nothing happened between us while you were married to him.”

She smiled softly at that, and grabbed my hands, placing them on her lap, playing with my fingers.

“He had a good reason. He saw you kiss me on our wedding day.”

“Fuck.”

She nodded. “I didn’t even know that until three years later, when he got drunk one night. When I saw you at the hospital two years ago, the illusion I had tried so hard to keep cracked just enough, and all I felt on the airplane ride home was this unbearable pain. Like I shouldn’t be moving further away from you. I didn’t want to. I wanted to stay so fucking badly, but I had wanted more for you to ask me to stay. And you didn’t. You just let me go.”

Tears sprang to her eyes and I moved without thinking, pulling her into my arms. She wrapped her arms around my waist and buried her face in my chest. I tightened my hold around her, holding onto this tiny, fragile girl. I didn’t want to let her go.

“Fuck, baby. I would have begged you to stay with me had I known that was what you wanted. It just about killed me to see Mason driving you to the airport that day. I thought I was doing what was best for you.”

She pulled away from me, and I swiped my thumb under her eye where a single tear had fallen. She nuzzled her face into my palm. “Sam could tell I missed someone.” She moved her eyes down to my chest. “He could tell I missed you. He thought he could love me hard enough to forget you. But I ended up breaking him because of it. I should have let him go sooner, but I was young, and scared, and so incredibly selfish.”

I shook my head.

“No, I was,” she said. “I should have let him, but I didn’t want to. Because everything was better with him, especially during a time when I had felt so lost. Things had been good between us before Hunter was born and before he started medical school. For a while, I had even convinced myself I loved him.”

I placed my finger under her chin and lifted so that she was looking at me. “Sometimes, it doesn’t work out for people. You can’t force love. That doesn’t make you a bad person.”

“Does it when I’m the reason he’s broken right now?”

“Sam is an adult man. He is more than capable of making decisions for himself. He chose to stay in this marriage, same as you. He chose to believe that if he worked hard enough, he could make you love him. There were two people in your marriage. So please stop taking on the blame for everything that has gone wrong. Do you understand me?”

She nodded, but I could tell she didn’t believe me. And I didn’t know what to do to make her see the amazing, beautiful girl I saw every single day.

I kissed her.

She tensed in my arms in surprise, but she didn’t push me away, and it didn’t take long before I felt her relax a bit and give into the kiss. Her hands slowly moved up to my shoulder, holding me there as if she was trying to anchor herself.

I pulled her in closer to me. We were pressed up in the perfect way possible, and Lizzie gave in to the sensation when she started to grind her hips against me. I let out a soft groan and pulled her down on me harder, wanting more of the friction of her movements. I wanted everything with this woman, and I would settle for nothing less.

I wouldn’t rest until she saw herself the way I saw her. When we pulled away, I could feel her hard, labored breathing, and I wanted nothing more than to pound my fist on my chest.

I looked into those magnetic green eyes and felt myself drifting.

Fuck. I still loved her.

Even after all these years, and all this distance between us, I still loved her. I wanted to deserve her.

But I didn’t know if that was possible, because despite all the trouble my actions had caused me, or might cause me in the future, I didn’t regret it one bit.

“The first time I realized I had feelings for you, it was three months after your seventeenth birthday.”

Her eyes widened in surprise, and I would have laughed at the shocked look in her eyes if things didn’t feel so heavy right now.

---