5. Ophelia
FIVE
OPHELIA
I jerked awake, disoriented, as an overhead light pierced my eyes.
Sebastian stood in the guest room by the bed, his expression dark and rigid, his jaw tight with barely restrained anger.
“What are you doing in here, Lia?”
I glanced around, realizing I was still fully dressed, a crumpled blouse clutched in my hand. “I was looking for something professional to wear for an interview tomorrow, and I guess I dozed off.”
“In the guest room?” He sounded incredulous. “Are you sleeping here now?”
“What?” I sat up. I picked up some of the clothes I’d been checking out on the bed and showed them to him. “I fell asleep sorting my clothes.”
“You don’t sleep here. You sleep in our bedroom,” he growled like I didn’t say anything, like he wasn’t seeing me at all.
I got out of bed, the day laying heavy on my shoulders, my muscles burning because I fell asleep awkwardly. “Why does that even matter, Sebastian?”
I was tired. Exhausted.
I can’t do this anymore, I thought bleakly.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” he demanded, taking the steps so he could be toe-to-toe with me, and in my personal space.
I looked up at him.
My handsome husband with his Gregory Peck cheekbones and blue-blue eyes. When was the last time he looked at me…just me with love and affection? When was the last time he sat next to me on a couch, his arm around me, my head resting on his shoulder as we watched some nonsense on television?
Three years ago.
He’d checked out of our family and our marriage, and now he was making demands on me? Well, he could go fuck himself.
“It’s not like we do much beyond sleep in our bed, and most of the time, you come in after I’ve fallen asleep and leave before I wake up. So, how the hell does it matter where I sleep?”
He flinched as if I’d physically struck him.
I didn’t swear—at least not out loud. In my head, I was a full-blown sailor.
So, when I said hell, the way his eyes widened and he physically took a step back, like I’d just dropped the filthiest word in the English language, was almost comical.
He looked genuinely horrified as if I’d uttered a profanity obscene enough to scorch the wallpaper.
Bud, if you hear what I say in my head, you’d run far, far away from me.
His eyes narrowed, anger simmering dangerously close to the surface. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know exactly what it means.” A strange courage surged within me. “When’s the last time you…touched me?” I almost said fucked me, and maybe I should have. Perhaps it was time for me to find out who the hell I was so I could be that person instead of Sebastian Boone’s Savannah society wife.
His voice hardened. “Don’t turn this around on me. You’re the one hiding away in here, acting like a martyr.”
What was he talking about? Had he been drinking?
“A martyr?” I snapped, my voice rising. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“This is you sulking, isn’t it, because I didn’t come to your silly little ceremony?” He was so far gone, I could see it in his eyes, in his demeanor, he was riding on temper.
Still, that silly little ceremony comment cut deep. I realized, at that moment, there weren’t any fresh wounds left on my soul—because I was the wound. Raw. Exposed. So, when he said things meant to make me feel small, old scars didn’t just ache—they ripped open, bleeding all over again.
I pursed my lips and looked down at the floor, at my bare feet. I’d taken my heels off by the kitchen when I came in and hadn’t bothered to find my house slippers.
I finally looked up at him. “Why are you picking a fight with me, Sebastian?”
His nostrils flared. “I am not.”
I swallowed. “She called you Seb.”
I could all but hear his teeth grind. “I already told her not to do that again. She didn’t mean anything by it—just a slip. No need to blow it out of proportion.”
How interesting that neither of us needed to address who she was because we both knew, which meant he knew the second she used that shortened name I’d react, and yet he hadn’t called, hadn’t reached out to put my mind at ease. Oh no, he’d shown up late in the evening and picked a fight.
That’s when the epiphany struck. He felt guilty.
About what?
My body began to shiver. My heart hammered, adrenaline racing through me. “Are you…are you having an affair with Jane?”
His face flushed deep crimson. “For Christ’s sake, Lia! How can you even ask me that? After all these years, you think I’d betray you like that?”
I knew Sebastian inside out, and right now, he was feeling tremendous guilt. My breath shuddered.
“You are, aren’t you?”
“Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“Stop swearing at me.” I stepped forward, all five feet three inches of me against his six feet three inches. “I know you. You look guilty. God! Is that why you’ve been ignoring me? Is that why—”
“Stop it! I’m not having an affair.” He put his hands on my shoulders. “If you say you know me so fucking well, you’d know I’d never do that.”
“I don’t know what to think anymore.” I stared at him, unwilling to back away this time. “You’re never here, Sebastian.” I waved a hand around to indicate our home, and pulled away from his touch. “What else am I supposed to think?”
“You just insulted our marriage and me, Lia. I can’t believe that your insecurities have pushed you so fucking low that you’d think I’d cheat on you.”
With that, he stormed off, slamming the guestroom door behind him. I stayed unmoving for a moment, trembling from head to toe. After a while, I slowly headed to the kitchen.
When I entered, the scent of the half-prepared meal hit me.
Anger surged anew, fierce and blinding.
How dare he? How dare he dismiss my feelings as though they meant nothing, as though I meant nothing?
If I was having doubts about him, wasn’t it his damn job to help me feel better? Oh, no, Mr. Arrogant I’m So Insulted just walked the fuck away.
I wanted to cry. I wanted to go down on my knees and wail, grieve for a marriage that was over, and there was nothing I could do about it.
Whether Sebastian was having an affair or not, one thing was clear—he wasn’t with me anymore.
And if he wasn’t, how did it matter who he was with?
Marriage vows meant nothing if there was no marriage—regardless of the legalities.
I turned on the oven, finishing the honey-mustard pork tenderloin with baby carrots and potatoes I’d started earlier.
I’d planned to have dinner ready by the time Sebastian got home, but since I didn’t know precisely when that would be—and didn’t feel like texting him—I’d completely forgotten about it until now.
When he came into the kitchen where we usually ate, leaving the formal dining room for…well, formal events, I went about plating our food.
I could smell his shower gel, and his hair was still wet from the shower.
He’d changed into sweatpants and a T-shirt.
He looked like my Sebastian, casual and at home, but this man, who called something significant that happened to me today a silly little ceremony, wasn’t mine. He was probably Jane’s.
“Would you like some wine?” I asked.
“Yes, thank you.”
He took our plates to the table. I opened a bottle of steel-cask unoaked chardonnay from Willamette that I’d recently bought from Ganem’s wine shop in the historic downtown a couple of days ago when I was planning our celebratory dinner.
I thought we’d go out for lunch, so it would be nice to have a meal at home, just Sebastian and me. Instead, we sat in strained silence, forks scraping porcelain, a lifetime of intimacy reduced to the awkwardness of two strangers forced to share an umbrella in a Georgia thunderstorm.
“This is very good, thank you, Lia.”
I hummed my acknowledgment instead of saying, “Where’s your phone, Sebastian?” because he usually had his eyes glued to it during the few times we managed to eat together.
I had so much bitterness lodged in my throat that I was sure I’d say words I’d regret later.
Sebastian exhaled heavily, and I heard his knife and fork clatter onto the plate. “Lia, baby?”
I looked at him.
“I’m sorry for losing my temper earlier,” he said coolly, formally, so it didn’t sound like an apology at all—because it wasn’t; these were mere words he was speaking to make himself feel righteous. “But asking me if I’m having an affair is insulting.”
There it was—the proof in the pudding, as they said.
He wasn’t apologizing. He was telling me I was wrong—wrong for how I felt, wrong for daring to suggest he might be having an affair.
He wanted me to apologize, to beg forgiveness for bruising his ego.
The gall. He acted like I had insulted him, all while casually invalidating every emotion I had, as if my hurt was just another inconvenience.
Did he not realize how often he disrespected me?
How each forgotten milestone was not just neglected—but was a quiet, cutting cruelty that he inflicted without a second thought?
Silly little ceremony!
I finished eating, which wasn’t difficult to do since I’d barely put any food on my plate. But there just wasn’t enough space in my stomach after being filled with rage and regret.
He set his knife and fork down on the plate he’d cleaned.
He had no problem eating. My husband liked food, he liked my cooking, he always said so.
But he was fine eating at the Olde Pink House today with that woman while I had waited and waited and waited until my eyes hurt for him to acknowledge my victory, my success… .
“Tell me about this interview you have,” he demanded softly, unaware or perhaps uncaring of my inner turmoil. “Where is it?”
“Savannah Lace.”
“How did that come about?”
“Betsy Rhodes was at the graduation ceremony.” It was petty, but it felt good to see him raise his eyebrows.
“And?”
“Well.” I got up and began clearing the table. “She was impressed by my speech.” My silly little speech! “And she said that Nina Davenport may have something for me at Savannah Lace. Nina’s assistant called to book time for tomorrow.”
I started to rinse the plates.
I heard his chair move and then he was standing next to the sink, facing me, resting his hip against the kitchen counter. His brow was furrowed in what I knew was disapproval.
When was the last time I saw approval on his face, in his eyes? I couldn’t remember, but my guess was three freaking years ago, when we were not living under the shadow of the Boone family legacy, which I didn’t give two shits about.
“Nina Davenport and Betsy Rhodes are friendly, I’ve heard. But Nina is…. You know how Mama feels about her.”
I also know how your mama feels about me, but that didn’t stop you from marrying me, now, did it?
“I have no idea how she feels about Nina,” I murmured, now stacking dishes into the dishwasher, not allowing myself to throw plates in so I could hear them crack and break, releasing some of my frustration.
“You should call her.”
I straightened, still holding a plate in my hand. “Call whom?”
“Mama.”
I frowned. “Why?”
He huffed out a sharp, irritated breath. “She knows how things are done in Savannah.”
“Sebastian, I’ve lived here as your wife for twenty-two years. I also know how things are done in Savannah, especially in your social circles,” I quipped, a hard edge to my tone.
His eyes flickered with disbelief that I was talking to him like this.
Oh, yeah, baby, Ophelia Boone has some claws, and thanks to you grinding her into the ground, they’re pretty sharp right now.
I know it was pitiful that my barely standing up for myself felt like some major breakthrough for me—but it was.
“Lia, what’s going on, baby?” he spoke gently like I was a wild animal he was trying to corral.
I shrugged and put the plate into the dishwasher and then slammed the door shut. “Nothing. I got a job interview. I’m excited about it. I don’t need to call Dolly to get permission to do anything, Sebastian, and you asking me to do that is…insulting.”
Sebastian hissed.
I grabbed a washcloth and began to wipe the counter.
“Lia, Nina is not someone you should associate with. The way she divorced her husband, starting that company—it’s nothing but a vanity project.”
I dropped the cloth on the counter and stared at him, incredulous anger rising once more.
This was my husband, openly disparaging the one person who’d recognized my potential, who’d offered me an opportunity, and for what?
To preserve the Boone family’s precious reputation?
To keep his vapid and mean mother happy?
I pursed my lips for a moment and then quietly said, “Sebastian, this is not up for discussion.”
“Lia,” he growled in warning.
Oh, please, you think you’re the only one who can get all threatening? Get a life!
“I have a headache,” I told him. “I’m going to bed. Can you clean the rest up?” I waved a hand at the stove and the dining table.
He gaped at me. I never asked him to clean up.
Well, bud, the times, they are a changing!
“Thanks, honey.” Without waiting for his response, I left the dining room, retreating to our bedroom.
I took my time getting ready for bed, not prepared for him to come in and try to talk to me, order me around, or treat me like I was an imbecile and he was oh so fucking superior.
Damn it, but I should never have to be ready for that kind of emotional abuse from my husband, the one who claimed to love me—though it had been a while since I’d even heard the words.
I curled beneath the covers, exhaustion crashing over me. I lay awake in the dark, silent, rigid with resentment.
When Sebastian came into the room, I pretended to be asleep, my breath long and even, which wasn’t difficult since I was very tired.
I heard him in the bathroom, and the time he spent there felt like a reprieve. But when the mattress dipped beside me, and after a moment, I felt his hand brush gently over my hip, squeeze, the reprieve was over.
I wore a pair of sleep shorts and a loose T-shirt to bed while Sebastian slept naked. I got too cold to do that. I felt his touch burn through my clothes in more ways than one.
It had been so long since he showed any care that my eyes pricked with tears, but the fact that he wanted to paper over our problems with sex crushed me.
Sex was fun between us, at least it used to be. We used to enjoy it so much. We tried everything. I had never felt shy with him, but I suddenly did now—no, not shy, but uncomfortable, like he was a new lover, a one-night stand I’d picked up.
“Baby, I’m sorry,” he whispered, his lips now close to my ear, featherlight and caressing.
What exactly are you sorry about? I wanted to ask, but I was pretending to be asleep, so I stayed still and kept my breathing slow and even.
After a while, Sebastian clued in that I was out for the count. He kissed my cheek. “Goodnight, baby. I love you.”
My heart twisted painfully at his words.
Sebastian sighed heavily, then rolled onto his back, his withdrawal as loud as his anger had been earlier.
We lay side by side, inches apart, yet worlds away.