13. Delphine #2
“At the gala. After I broke Kendall’s nose.
” I was shaking. “She called me a common little whore in front of the entire gala and she put her hand up. She had her rings on, Heath. I watched the light come off her rings and I stood there and I let her, because I had nothing left, and do you know what stopped her?”
He couldn’t speak.
“Blair. Blair Beaumont stopped her. A woman I’ve known for four years stepped in front of my mother-in-law and put a shoulder into her chest and told her she would end her.
” My throat closed. “Blair did that. Not you. You were fifteen feet away, and you were holding Kendall, and my husband did not turn around.”
The sound he made was not a word.
He sat back on his heels. His hands went flat on the floor either side of him like the room had tipped. All the color went out of his face at once, and I watched him do the arithmetic, watched him put himself back in that ballroom and turn his head and see it.
“Fuck,” he said.
I had heard Heath Fairchild swear maybe six times in eleven years.
“Fuck.” Louder. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “She raised her hand to you and I had my arms around Kendall Saladino. I was standing in that room. I was standing right there.”
“Yes.”
“It should have been me.” His voice was in pieces.
“Del, it should have been me. Whatever else I did, whatever I was hiding, that one is not complicated, that one is the simplest thing in the entire world. Someone raises a hand to my wife and I’m between them.
That’s not being a good husband, that’s the floor.
That’s the absolute floor of it, and I wasn’t on the floor, I was fifteen feet away with my back turned holding the woman who did this to us. ”
He looked up at me and I’ve never seen anything like his face.
“Your friend protected you from my mother,” he said, “because I wouldn’t.”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to be sick.”
“Good.”
“I’m not asking you to pretend.” He was still on his knees, still looking up at me with those red-rimmed eyes. “I’m asking for a chance. One chance to prove that I can be the husband you deserve. One chance to show you that I’m not going to disappear again.”
“And how exactly do you plan to do that?”
“I don’t know.” He laughed, a broken sound. “I have no idea. I just know that I love you, and I’ve always loved you, and there’s no version of my life that makes sense without you in it.”
I shook my head. “Love isn’t enough. Not after this.”
“Then tell me what is.” He leaned forward, his eyes searching my face. “Tell me what I have to do, Del. Tell me what it would take to earn back your trust.”
“I don’t know if you can.”
“But you’re not saying I can’t try.”
I looked at him for a long, awful stretch. This man I had loved for eleven years. This man who had broken my heart without even realizing he was doing it. This man who was kneeling on a hospital floor, crying, begging me for a chance he probably didn’t deserve.
“I don’t have anything to offer you that isn’t already yours,” he said quietly. “I’ve got no argument left. I’ve got a house and a firm and a name, and I would hand back every piece of it to sit across a table from you at three in the morning with a problem between us.”
The words hit me somewhere deep, somewhere I had been trying to protect. I felt my eyes fill with tears again.
“That’s not fair,” I whispered. “You can’t just say things like that and expect me to forget everything.”
“I’m not asking you to forget. I’m asking you to let me try again.
” He reached for my hand once more, and this time I didn’t pull away.
“I was a coward, Del. I was so afraid of asking you to give up your life again that I ended up destroying it instead. But I’m not afraid anymore.
I’m terrified of losing you. I’m terrified of never getting to meet our child.
I’m terrified of spending the rest of my life knowing I had everything and threw it away. ”
“You should be terrified.” My voice was steadier now, even through the tears. “Because I’m not going to make this easy for you. I’m not going to fall back into your arms just because you say the right words.”
“I know.”
“You have to earn this, Heath. Every single day. You have to prove to me that you’re the man I thought I married, not the stranger who lived in my house for three months.”
“I will.” He pressed my hand against his cheek, his tears wet against my fingers. “I swear to you, Del. I’ll spend the rest of my life proving it if that’s what it takes.”
I looked at him. Really looked at him. And I saw a face I hadn’t seen in months.
The boy from the engineering lab. The one who had looked at my work and seen genius instead of competition.
The one who had made me laugh until I couldn’t breathe.
The one who had asked me to marry him the week I turned twenty-two and meant every word of the promises he made.
“No,” I said.
His face crumpled.
“No,” I said again, “I’m not going to give you another chance.”
He started to pull away, started to stand up, started to retreat.
“But.” I tightened my grip on his hand. “You can convince me to give you another chance. If you’re willing to do the work.”
He went very still. “What does that mean?”
“It means I’m not saying yes. But I’m not saying no either. It means you have to show me, Heath. Actions, not words. Presence, not promises.”
He nodded slowly, understanding dawning on his face. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay.” He brought my hand to his lips and pressed a kiss against my knuckles. “Got it. Whatever it takes.”
The door opened, and the doctor walked back in with a prescription pad in her hand. Heath stood up, wiping his face with the back of his hand, trying to compose himself.
I lay back against the pillows and closed my eyes, exhausted and overwhelmed, and underneath both, an unfamiliar lightness. It felt almost like hope.
He had said it like a man taking an oath in a courtroom.
I was going to hold him to that.