Tangled Up In You (Rogue #1)

Chapter 86

86

SOPHIE

W hen Sophie returned home from Prague, she was surprised to find Gavin sitting behind his desk in the room he had made into a writing space. His MacBook Pro was aglow but he was using a leather-bound book to write. She watched him unnoticed for a minute, examining him for signs of drug use.

After he had returned from London with apologies and promises to quit cocaine, she was numb. They had spent the following days tiptoeing around each other as he dealt with the crash of his sudden lack of cocaine. He was exhausted but couldn’t sleep, moody and anxious, all the while trying desperately to earn some forgiveness from her. Then work had taken her to Prague for two nights and she had been once again both relieved and worried to leave him.

But now he seemed clear-eyed and alert, and she didn’t want to disrupt the focus he had on writing. It was something she hadn’t seen him do in such a long time.

“Darlin’, you’re home,” he said, stopping her as she turned to leave.

“I didn’t want to interrupt you,” she said.

He stood, held his hand out to her and she went to him. As he pulled her into his arms, she took in a deep, shaky breath. He smelled of soap and his skin was warm. She relaxed into his embrace, grateful to feel the kind of comfort and intimacy with him she had gone too long without.

That good feeling was gone the instant she woke from a deep sleep at two forty-three in the morning with a feeling that something was wrong. Gavin was not in bed with her. They had gone to bed together having spent the afternoon and evening reconnecting, easing into the familiar, easy relationship they had always enjoyed.

Until now. The house was silent, still. She knew without exploring other rooms that he had gone.

It didn’t take long to get to Jacob’s club. It was well after hours, but there were still enough people inside that the sounds of a party spilled out into the street.

She pulled her jacket tighter around her, took a deep breath, and pushed the front door open. She was assaulted by blaring electronica and cigarette smoke. As she made her way to the back of the club, she struggled to identify Gavin in the crowd.

She naturally looked for him in the center of the largest group, but instead found him off to the side, sitting on top of a table. A dark-haired woman stood between his legs, entirely capturing his attention. He was leaning back on his hands as they talked, not the aggressor but not doing anything to dissuade Julia O’Flaherty from toying with the rip on the thigh of his jeans. The recognition of her husband’s old lover came as the same reeling sensation she’d had all those years ago when she understood she had been made their fool. Then, it was because he had been clumsily trying to hide the fact that he had never really ended things with Julia, even as he had made Sophie his fiancée. Now, it was because he had apparently been lured by Julia out here in the middle of the night.

Sophie should have been devastated to find him like this, with her. They had been trying so hard to reestablish something real, something hopeful, only for him to casually destroy it all. What she felt instead of devastation was an odd kind of relief. Because now she—at last—had the final excuse she needed to give up on him.

Before she could assert herself, Julia glanced her way. Without missing a beat, she said, “Oh look, it’s your wife come to fetch you.”

Gavin’s brows came together in confusion. But when he saw Sophie, he hurriedly sat up, got to his feet, and brushed past Julia.

“Sophie, I?—”

“Thanks for making it easy in the end,” she told him calmly.

“What? No, you don’t mean that,” he said, following her as she headed for the door.

Out in the street, it had started raining, and she had never been so cold. She stopped and turned on him, needing to confront him. “You left our bed to be with her?”

“No, that’s not what happened. I didn’t come here for her. She’s just been around lately, hanging with this group.”

“And I bet she doesn’t make you feel guilty for doing drugs like I do, right?”

He looked away but didn’t stop himself from saying, “She doesn’t judge that.”

She wanted to punch him. She wanted to unleash her anger, but all she could muster was, “That must be very attractive to you right now.”

He turned his gaze back to her. “I’ve done nothing with her, I swear to you.”

“I am done believing anything you say, Gavin. I have been a complete idiot for far too long.” She laughed bitterly as she thought of her own behavior over the last few months. “I kept thinking if I just hung on, I could be the thing you need to get through all of this. I must have been delusional. But I’m done now. I don’t want to beat my head against a wall anymore. I don’t want to do it ’til it hurts.”

He looked stricken. That was exactly the reaction she’d hoped for in mocking his song lyrics. But now she just wanted to get out of the rain and go home.

The stupid key fob wouldn’t respond to her attempt to unlock the car door, however, even as she pressed it over and over again.

He put his hand on her wrist to stop her, then took the fob from her. With one push, he unlocked the door. She had been pressing the “lock” button in her attempt to leave, and she wanted to both cry and laugh at this bit of self-sabotage that so perfectly mirrored her life with Gavin.

They stood at the door of the car, the rain soaking them. Her body shook uncontrollably even as she hugged her arms tight around her chest.

“I’ll let you go, if that’s what you want,” he said softly. “I’ll give you a divorce. Whatever you want.”

They had never spoken of divorce before. A life without each other had never been within the realm of possibilities.

“Is this what you’ve been trying to do all along?” She tried for eye contact but he looked away. “You’ve been trying to get me to leave you? So, what? So you can be alone with your drugs?”

“Sophie, you’ve always known me so well. How can you not understand me now?”

His pain was so raw that it triggered her years-long habit of wanting to be the one to fix him, even after just telling him she had been delusional to keep hanging on to this pattern. She reached out to touch him but he jerked away.

“Tell me,” she said. “Talk to me.”

“Don’t you see?” he asked. “I don’t deserve you. I don’t.”

She shook her head. “I don’t believe that. I won’t give up on you, baby.”

There was relief in his eyes but it quickly gave way to something else. Something dark. She thought it was self-loathing, but what he said next deflected that hatred to her.

“You’re so weak,” he said softly, and her stomach dropped at the cruelty of his words. “I didn’t marry this girl.”

Her chin quivered, not from tears but from the burning rage that warmed her body from the inside out. Once again, he was twisting things to suit himself. He had spent months holding firm to her while at the same time pushing her away. It was an untenable dynamic he had created and she was finally ready to put an end to it.

“No, you didn’t. You made me this way,” she replied. “You made me just as weak and selfish as you because even though you pretend you want to be alone with your misery, you’ve always made sure I was right there with you. So don’t you tell me it’s anything else.”

The truth of her words froze him.

She yanked opened the car door and paused. “Are you coming home?” she asked, the anger drained from her voice.

Nodding, he got in the car with her.

They embraced silence. Silence during the drive. Silence as they entered the house. Sophie went to their bedroom’s en suite to take a shower without saying a word. Gavin mutely traded places with her as she was stepping out.

Dry and warm now under a layer of heavy bedding, she still couldn’t stop trembling. Gavin soon joined her, wrapping his arm around her from behind. She felt the regret and fear in his body as he clung to her, the desperation in his mouth as he pressed his lips to her neck and shoulder. And when he pulled her over so that she lay on her back, she let him make love to her, even as she felt the tears he tried to hide by sinking his face into her hair.

She suspected it was a silent goodbye. And this was confirmed when in the morning she found him gone again. This time he left a note:

My sweet girl,

I’ve left for LA. Jackson’s filming there and has offered to help me sort things out for good. You are all that I have ever wanted. But you deserve so much more. I’m going to get to a place where I can give you something other than my misery. Be patient.

I love you.

G