Page 52 of This Is Love (The Light to My Darkness 3)

“But you need to know.”

“I don’t want to know. Can’t you talk to your therapist about this instead of me? Get it off your chest with him? And we can just keep…living. We can pretend everything is normal until it becomes normal again.”

The pain in his eyes seemed to sharpen as he stared at me. The vulnerability was gone. Now he just looked pissed at me. “I want to talk to my wife. Not a stranger.”

“Dr. Green is hardly a stranger. You’ve been seeing him for longer than I’ve known you. He can help you work through this, right?”

“I haven’t been seeing him for the past few weeks.”

“Why?”

“Because there’s no point.” Everything that came out of my mouth just made him angrier. “Penny, you can’t just hide from the truth no matter how much it hurts. This isn’t just about me. It’s about you too.”

“Really? It’s about me? So it’s my fault?” Asshole.

“What? That’s not…”

“God, James. All I’ve ever done was love you.”

“I know. And all I’ve ever done was love you.” He reached for my hands across the table, but I pulled mine onto my lap.

“You have a funny way of showing it.”

He sighed, like talking to me was the most exhausting thing he ever had to do. “Penny, I know this is going to be hard to hear. But we need to make the proper plans just in case. For the sake of the children. For your sake too.”

“For my sake?” I realized I had raised my voice and that people were starting to stare. I leaned forward and hissed, “Are you fucking kidding me? My sake, James? If you had been thinking about me at all you never would have let any of this happen.”

He stared at me. “I’ve done the best that I could. But my heart hasn’t been the same since our wedding day. You know that. I know we’ve never talked about it, but you knew that. You had to have known that.”

I’m pretty sure my mouth was hanging open. It reminded me of something Isabella had said to me once. That he was only interested in the chase. That once he got my heart, he’d get bored and move on to the next thing. The next rush of adrenaline. The next fix. “You don’t love me anymore.” I didn’t ask it like a question. If what he was saying was true, it was a fact. James’ heart didn’t belong to me anymore. He’d been slipping away ever since our wedding day.

“What? No, that’s not…”

“Just stop. I know, okay? I know. And…I don’t want to know any more. I saw the picture. Her face is already burned my brain. So whatever specifics you have, keep them to yourself.”

“Who are you talking about? What picture?”

“That tan brunette woman you were with in London. You weren’t with me when I went into labor. I was so scared and you weren’t there. But you more than made it up to me the past few weeks. So I forgive you. Let’s just move past this.” I was grasping at straws. He had made it pretty clear that we were done. But I couldn’t accept that. I just couldn’t. I picked up the menu and stared at it even though I already knew the whole thing by heart. And all I ever ordered was cheese pizza. Boring. No wonder he didn’t love me anymore. I wasn’t exciting or alluring or anything. I was just…me.

“You remembered? When did you remember that?”

“Outside. Right before we came in here. So you don’t have to fill in the details. You cheated on me. But you’re here now. That’s all that matters.” If that was true, why had I started crying? Why did it feel like he was slipping away from me before he even utter the words divorced?

“I wasn’t in London cheating on you.”

A strangled laugh escaped my lips. “There’s no point in lying to me now. Isn’t that what you’ve been trying to get off your chest? You made me pull it from you. And now here we are. What am I supposed to do with that?” What the fuck am I going to do with the rest of my life? I was moments away from bursting into tears or holding a knife to our innocent hostess’ throat if he glanced over my shoulder one more freaking time.

“I’d never cheat on you.”

“I remembered everything, James. Why are you backpedaling now? And I was wrong, I do need to know. What was it exactly that made you do it? Was it something that I did? I feel like I’ve given you everything I possibly could.” If I wasn’t enough for him…no matter how much I didn’t want him to go…how could I possibly ask him to stay?

“You have.” That was all he said. Like it was enough. It still looked like his mind was far away. Like he didn’t care about this conversation at all, even though it was slowly killing me.

“Then what were you doing in London?” I asked. “Why were the tabloids covered in pictures of the two of you? What could possibly whisk you away from me during the last trimester of my pregnancy? Especially when you claimed to be so worried about my health.” What a joke. Our whole life together was a lie.

He shook his head. But didn’t say anything at all.

“None of this even makes sense. Getting married shouldn’t have changed how you felt about me. You wanted to be married. You proposed to me, not the other way around. If you didn’t want me, why did you propose? Why?”

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