It Pains Me (Betrayal #5)

1. Astrid

1

ASTRID

My apartment was small—but it was mine.

I’d chosen a one-bedroom with a small kitchen and a sitting room that could only fit a couch. It was furnished because I’d rented it that way. I had a month-to-month lease, so it was just a placeholder until I found something worth the investment of my time. Staying at a hotel was way too expensive for the long-term.

It took me a couple days to prepare myself to return to what was now only Bolton’s house to retrieve the rest of my stuff. Not because I wanted to avoid him, but I was just too broken to muster up the energy. A part of me hoped a text from Theo would come through with an apology. Or he would call to check on me. Something.

But he never did.

I wasn’t sure what devastated me more. Bolton’s betrayal or Theo’s departure.

How did two men break my heart in such a short amount of time?

Now that I wasn’t living with Bolton, I didn’t know his schedule. Grabbing my things while he was out on a contract was the best decision, but I had no idea when he had his assignments anymore.

I suspected he’d stopped taking them—and just waited for me to come back.

I pulled up to the house instead of parking in my usual spot because I didn’t live there anymore. It was a foggy night, the cold heavy in the air, the light gone before five. The rain had finally let up, so I thought now was the best time to retrieve a load of my things.

I walked up to the front door and put my key in the lock, but then I quickly withdrew it and knocked.

Footsteps sounded a moment later.

My heart dropped to my stomach in disappointment.

Bolton opened the door, wearing his sweatpants and one of his black tees. With his hand on the doorknob, he stared at me with those eyes that were so blue they looked unnatural. He absorbed my appearance, his eyes trying to pull me in hard, like he wanted me right next to him.

“I just came to get a load of my things.”

He continued to stand there.

“I can come by when you aren’t home?—”

“I’m always home—waiting for you.”

When his stare became too much, I broke contact first. “Then let me get my things.”

He stepped aside and shut the door behind me.

The warmth of home surrounded me. It smelled the same. This had been his place when we got together, and I moved in a few months after we met. I’d been love-sick, and everything had happened so quickly, a rush that hadn’t stopped until he told me he wanted to fuck other people.

I took off my coat and hung it on the rack.

“Are you hungry?” he asked from behind me. “I made dinner.”

“No. I’m just here for my stuff.” I approached the hallway and the staircase.

“Astrid—”

“Bolton, don’t make this harder than it needs to be.” I stilled, feeling him behind me, picturing his stare.

After a pause, he spoke. “I’m just worried about you. It seems like something is wrong. Something besides our problems.”

I continued to look at the stairs and the photographs that hung on the walls on either side. Pictures of us on our wedding day. Vacations to Positano—our favorite place. Was my sorrow for Theo so obvious that Bolton could see it? Did I wear my broken heart on my sleeve?

I didn’t turn around, and he reached for my elbow. “Astrid.” When I didn’t yank my arm away, he gently turned me toward him, inch by inch, until our eyes met. “Talk to me. You’re my favorite person in the world to speak to…and I miss you. This time apart has only shown me how little life I have without you.” His fingers remained on my elbow, like I might fly away at any moment. His eyes continued to drill into my face with a hint of desperation, and he wore his heart on his sleeve in a way he never had before. “Talk to me.”

I was heartbroken over another man, and that made me feel guilty. Thinking of someone else when he poured his heart out to me like that. “It’s okay, Bolton. I’ll just get my things and be on my way?—”

“Astrid.” He tightened his fingers on my arm. “You can tell me anything.”

“I’m not your problem anymore?—”

“You’re my wife. You will always be my problem. I want you to always be my problem.” He moved closer to me, sliding his hand up my arm as he drew close. He stepped into my space, close enough that I could catch a whiff of his scent, the smell that was on my sheets, in the bathroom after he took a shower. “Have dinner with me. You can get your stuff afterward.”

“And you’ll actually let me get my stuff?”

He stared.

I stared back.

Then he smirked slightly. “We’ll see.”

It was nice to have a home-cooked meal after all the room service I’d had at the hotel. It was nice to eat at a dining table instead of on the couch. And it was nice to be with someone instead of being trapped in suffocating isolation.

Bolton didn’t ask me any questions as he sat across from me. Just looked at me as he ate his food.

“You haven’t gone to work?” I knew what he did for a living, but he talked about his line of work like he was a traveling salesman, selling life insurance to whomever he could find on the road.

He gave a shake of his head. “I handed over my assignments.”

“Why?”

His eyes locked on mine. “I can’t focus. Not when my marriage is about to collapse.”

“It already did collapse, Bolton.”

“It can’t fall apart as long as I continue to hold it up,” he said. “And that’s what I’ll do…until you come home.”

I looked down at my food when the anger seeped from my pores.

“I would take it all back…”

I pushed my food around.

“It meant nothing to me, and you know that.”

“That makes it worse, Bolton. That you would break my heart for something that means nothing.”

His stare burned into my face. “I know this is something you don’t understand, but to men like me, sex is just sex. It’s a means to an end. But with you, it’s not sex. You’re my wife, and I make love to you. They’re separate.”

“That’s fine, Bolton. But I don’t want to be married to a man who feels that way. I want a husband who only wants me.”

“Then I am that man,” he said. “Because losing you has been the worst experience of my life. I want it to be the two of us, in this house, and the only other people who will sleep in our bed will be our children.”

My eyes went down to my food, touched by what he said and hating myself for it.

“Astrid, please.”

“It’s too late.”

“It’s never too late to start over,” he said. “Please.”

I focused on my food like my life depended on it, determined to resist him.

“Is it because of him?” His tone changed once he mentioned Theo, the only man I’d slept with besides Bolton—even though he’d fucked who knew how many women.

I still didn’t look at him.

“Astrid.”

My eyes immediately obeyed at his tone, meeting his angry stare.

“Answer me.”

The thought of Theo always caused me pain, like a knife had been stabbed into my stomach. A man so perfect it hurt. With the darkest eyes I’d ever seen…but the most beautiful soul. But he ended up being the greatest disappointment, because he was either a liar or an asshole. I still wasn’t sure which. My mind continued to try to process the man I swore I knew and the version he’d shown me. “No.”

“Are you still fucking him?” He’d been calmly emotional a moment ago, but now the rage bubbled to the surface.

“No.”

“Don’t lie to me, Astrid?—”

“I’m not,” I snapped. “We aren’t seeing each other anymore.” He fucked me then dumped me. Hit it and quit it. Used me as a fucking come dumpster.

Bolton absorbed my stare with his angry look, searching for a lie.

“He—he ended things.” I wasn’t sure why I told Bolton that. I’d never been the kind to lie, even to tell a white lie, to purposely mislead someone with vague words. Truth and honesty were the backbone of my soul. I guess I wanted Bolton to know the truth, that it wasn’t my decision, because if it had been my decision…we would be together.

Bolton should have been disappointed by that information, but his anger started to seep into the ground like rainfall. “I’m not surprised. Got what he wanted…”

My eyes narrowed on his face, my heart giving a painful squeeze. “What—what do you mean by that?”

“Theo and I have a history—a bloody one.”

Hearing Bolton say Theo’s name was the strangest experience.

“He saw an opportunity to fuck up my life, and he took it.”

I kept a straight face, but inside, my heart was working like I’d just walked up ten flights of steps. My body needed more oxygen than my lungs could hold.

“It was a cheap shot, but nothing is beneath a man like him. Though, I suppose this is all my fault, because it wouldn’t have happened if I wasn’t such a fucking idiot.” His eyes drifted away, getting lost in thought. “I’m sorry you were a target in all this.”

Humiliation swept through me. Suffocating and unbearable humiliation. Did I actually get a flat tire, or did he slash my tires before I left? Did he actually give a damn about artwork, or did he need a reason to see me? All those things he said, that I was beautiful and deserved better, was that just to get me to leave Bolton? And when he came inside me on our last night together, was that just his last fuck-you to Bolton?

And then, did he dump me once he knew my relationship was irrevocably destroyed?

Did I ever mean anything to him?

I returned to my empty apartment with a couple boxes of my things. Some of my clothes and jewelry. A couple keepsakes from my parents. Bolton let me take what I wanted. Even helped me load the car. He didn’t have a fight in him, like he sensed how broken I was.

I left everything by the door then sat on the couch alone, listening to the rain pelt the windows behind me. My heart was a tundra of snow, cold and dead. My husband wanted to sleep with other people, and the man who’d wormed his way into my heart had done it with mal intent. It was all just a game to him, and I’d fallen right into his trap. I’d opened my heart to him, but what he’d really wanted was for me to open my legs.

Open my legs so he could claim my land in his name, so my husband could see it.

I felt so stupid. So fucking stupid.

The tears built up behind my eyes and started to fall, looking just like the raindrops on the windowpanes. I cried, and listening to myself cry made me hate myself more. I hated Bolton for the way he’d hurt me, but now, he looked like a saint compared to Theo. Bolton was honest with me. He could have fucked around behind my back and I never would have known, but he’d had the integrity to come to me directly. Theo was a manipulative mastermind. Used me as a pawn in his game of revenge.

And I fell for it.

I never take a woman to dinner—except for you.

If I wanted you gone, I’d tell you.

Stay. Can you stay?

Everything he said to me came back to me, and I cried harder.