Chapter 32 Rome
THIRTY-TWO
ROME
Flashback
Everything is cold. My hands, my arms… my heart.
My leg won’t stop bobbing up and down, like it has a mind of its own. I clamp my hand on top of my knee, willing it to stop.
“Rome.” Julianna’s voice shoots straight for my heart. An arrow driven deeper with every breath.
Absentmindedly staring at the rug beneath my feet, I move my hand from my knee and anxiously twist my wedding ring around my finger.
“Rome,” she says again, this time her voice tighter, stronger.
I bring myself to look up, and when I do, I immediately regret it. I shatter all over again. The arrow in my chest changes to a massive knife. Just looking at her feels as if I’ve died a million times over. Part of me wishes I was dead, then this wouldn’t hurt as fucking much.
Tears stream down her soft pink cheeks, trails of black mascara staining her skin. Her eyes are broken, staring at me with both disappointment and anger.
“Are you going to fucking say anything?” she asks, gesturing toward me with her hands. She leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees, covering her mouth with her palm. A sob breaks free from her throat, causing her shoulders to wrack uncontrollably.
Unable to give her an answer straight away, I look back down at my hands. I twist my wedding ring before moving to my Montgomery signet ring on my right index finger.
“I don’t know what to say.” I’m honest, knowing I’m exactly who I was told to be.
I’m the man my parents raised me to be.
Ruthless. Heartless. Soulless.
“I’m telling you that I saw you with Macy.” Her anger boils over.
“And I saw you with Will,” I bark back.
She blanches, blinking rapidly as her head jerks back in shock. I can’t help it. I’m seeing red and I don’t feel like myself. I lift my hand and massage the back of my neck.
Julianna curls her delicate hands into tight fists on her knees. She sucks in a sharp breath, pinning me with invisible daggers. “I told you my father had already set up the dinner. I couldn’t give him a reason to think something was wrong.”
“You could have told him no.”
“No, I couldn’t.”
“Fuck, Julianna!” I shout, then stop myself. I’m fucking losing it. Frustrated, I tug on the ends of my hair and stare at the rug between my feet. “We’re going around in fucking circles.”
“Well,” she scoffs, drawing my attention back up to her.
“At least I’ve given you my reason for being with Will and you know nothing happened between us.
But you… you’ve said nothing about being with Macy, and I saw you with my own two eyes.
Her hands on you, your body pressed against hers.
What’s your defense, other than being drunk and high?
Which isn’t an excuse, I might add. You have nothing else to say? ”
I’ve already told Julianna I was fucked up the other night. I was drunk and high, but even I know it isn’t an excuse. I shake my head, knowing there’s no coming back from what’s happened. Reality comes crashing down around me.
The odds are stacked against us. They always have been.
While getting Julianna pregnant was the best thing to ever happen to me, to us, losing our daughter has also given her nothing but heartbreak.
I can’t bring myself to look at Julianna, because every time I do, it’s a reminder of the damage and destruction I’ve caused simply by being in her life.
I’ve tried to plan a way out from under the clutches of my father and struggled.
I thought marrying Julianna was the answer to it all, escaping my father and this damn family rivalry, but every step along the way has proven me that it’s near impossible.
The harder I try to step away, the more damage it causes.
Keeping my focus on my Montgomery ring, I shake my head. “No, I have nothing to say. I know what I did with Macy was wrong.”
“Fucking her wasn’t just wrong, Rome.” Her voice cracks. “Fucking her after everything we’ve been through these past few months is what’s fucked up. I thought you loved me.”
“I do.” I snap my head up, every organ inside me wilting. I swallow as I stare at my wife. She used to be full of life. A hailstorm of colors, lighting up every room with one single glance.
I’ve done nothing but destroy her.
“I did,” I correct myself.
I’m a coward. Weak and powerless. But I can’t let Julianna leave here knowing the truth. That I’ve loved her since the second I saw her staring at me over the tops of those books.
“You told me I was the love of your life.” She sobs, tears flowing down her face.
“You were,” I whisper, forcing the words out. I need to end this, reverting back to the way we used to be. Enemies instead of lovers. “But I lied. Now, you’re just a loss. We never should have started this. We’re nothing.”
The sharp inward gasp she takes will haunt me for the rest of my life.
“I hate you,” she grinds out, the veins in her neck popping.
“Good.” I sneer, driving the nail into the coffin.
“I want a divorce.”
I hide the way her statement feels like a punch to the gut.
I pause, turning to look out the front window of the cabin.
The bridge over the shimmering pond, where Julianna and I got married only a few short months ago is in the distance—a reminder of the na?ve hope we had then.
A tight ball tangles and weaves inside my chest. Like a fucking pressure cooker, I bite back the urge to stand up and destroy everything in this house. On this property.
This place offered us fucking hope, and now all it’s done is gone to shit.
Despite me knowing I’ve hurt Julianna in more ways than one, I can’t get over the thought of her with Will. The idea of her being with someone other than me, touched by someone else, makes me want to tear my flesh apart.
But I don’t see a world in which divorce wouldn’t put either of us at risk. Getting married was risky enough. We may never break this family curse of ours, but I worry what news of a divorce would do. Not just to me by my father, but what he could do to her, too.
Refusing to allow tears to fall, I grind my jaw, then turn to Julianna.
“A divorce would only stir news and bring attention to the relationship we had. If either of our fathers learned even a hint that we were together in the first place, it would destroy what little we have left with our families.”
“So, what are you saying? You won’t divorce me?”
“I don’t think we should.”
“Then, what are you proposing?” She laughs despondently. “We stay married but live separately.”
“Yes.” Now I’m the despondent one. I allow myself to turn cold, the way I used to be with Julianna, shutting off every bit of warmth and love I ever felt toward her.
It’s the only way she can ever be happy again.
“We live our lives as if we’re single. We’re free to do what we want, who we want, live wherever we want.
The only time we interact is if it’s absolutely necessary. ”
“We live separately?”
“Yes.”
A tear falls as she swallows dramatically. “Fuck other people.”
“Yes,” I’m quick to answer, blurting it out as fast as possible.
She’s shaking, visibly vibrating as she wraps her head around what I’ve proposed. For a moment, I think she’ll shoot my offer down, but she surprises me when she doesn’t. I try not to read into it, knowing there’s no way we can be anything other than enemies.
“We’re over then?” she asks, her gaze tearing me apart from the inside out. “We’ll bury our marriage and pretend it never happened.”
“Yes.” I shove down the urge to vomit. I just need Julianna to agree and leave. Then she can start healing.
With shaky fingers, she slides her wedding ring off and sets it on the oval coffee table.
“Right.” She clamps her mouth shut, then turns her head to stare out the window.
A single tear slips from her glassy eye before she’s quick to wipe it away.
I watch her transform in ten seconds. Her once sad, relaxed shoulders pull back, her spine straightening.
Grinding her teeth, she turns back to me. “I’ll never be free from you, will I?”
Her question feels like a fucking knife to the chest. Is this what dying feels like? It must be.
“La—" I open my mouth, her nickname almost falling free, but I catch myself in the nick of time. “Julianna.”
“Don’t.” She abruptly stands, her arms pinned tightly to her sides.
“You’re right. This was a mistake. Falling in love with you, marrying you.
We were foolish to believe we were stronger than a generations-long hatred between our families.
We’ve already lost too much, so this is the best way to move on.
All I have left is my name, and I don’t need you.
I don’t need you, Rome. I don’t need anyone but myself. ”
I open my mouth to object, but I don’t. This is what I want, for her to agree to separate. Right?
If this is how it’s meant to be, then why does it hurt so fucking much?
Moving around the sofa, she grabs her pink and white striped duffle bag—the one she started packing when we agreed to meet here—and clutches onto the handle. Her knuckles are white as she inhales a deep breath.
“Marcus can give you a ride back to the city,” I tell her, trying my best to stay where I am, rooted to this chair.
If I move, I’ll do everything in my power to make her stay.
I’ll take back everything. I’ll carry her up to her our bedroom and kiss and fuck every bit of sadness and pain from her body.
“Fine.” She purses her lips. “But that’s the last thing I will ever need from you, Rome.”
I nod, digesting the anger and hatred she’s throwing my way.
She heads toward the front door but stops with her hand on the knob.
“This is for the best, Julianna.”
Half turning, the last thing I catch a glimpse of is her profile.
Mascara-stained pink cheeks, her brown hair pulled into a high messy bun.
She refuses to look me in the eye. At first, I wish she would.
But I realize I’d rather remember the way she used to look at me with nothing but love in her eyes.
I know if she were to turn completely around, all I would see is the hatred she now holds for me.
“Goodbye, Rome,” she whispers.
Then she’s gone.
Once the door is shut, my hand flies to my neck, tracing the wings of the lark wrapped around my throat, knowing I’ll spend the rest of my life never breathing the same.
Julianna said she’ll never be free from me. But there’s one thing she never considered.
How I’ll never be free from her, either.