10. Valentina #3
Then she looks back at me. “Cillian takes things onto himself. He always has. When he’s scared of something he doesn’t talk about it.
He just—puts himself in front of it and deals with it alone and tells everyone else it’s fine.
” She presses her lips to her daughter’s temple, still lost in thought.
“Whatever this is, I think he’s trying to keep you safe from it. ”
“I don’t want to be kept away from things,” I snap. “I want him to actually—”
“I know.” She cuts me off, but not unkindly. “Tell him that. Tonight. Don’t let him change the subject.”
My eyes cut to Seraphina, at the small scrunched face pressing into Emma’s shoulder, and I reach out one finger, stroking her tiny knuckles.
Her fist opens then closes around my fingertip tightly, as if she’s offering me comfort herself.
My throat constricts and my eyes water. I blink them away.
“Okay,” I hear myself say. “Tonight.”
“Good.” Emma shifts Seraphina slightly and expertly reaches for her coffee one-handed. She looks at me over the rim. “Eat something. You look gray.”
“I’m not gray,” I tell her.
“You are,” she says flatly and signals the waiter.
He comes home at nine fifteen.
I know the exact time because I’ve been staring at the clock on my phone and putting it face down and picking it up again for the last three hours.
I’m in the bedroom with a book I have not read a single page of.
My back is against the headboard, and when I hear the front door I put the book down and take a breath.
I’ve been rehearsing this since lunch.
I’m going to be calm.
I’m going to be direct.
I’m not going to let him deflect or manage me or give me the partial version and call it the whole thing.
I have been negotiating in rooms full of difficult men my entire life and I can absolutely handle one honest conversation with my husband.
I hear him drop his keys on the entryway table. His footsteps down the hall.
The bedroom door opens.
The first thing I notice is how terrible he looks.
There are shadows under his eyes that weren’t that dark this morning, and his jaw is carrying three days of stubble because he hasn’t been shaving properly.
His mouth is pressed into the flat hard line he has when he’s somewhere in his head that he’s locked everyone out of.
He looks like a man who has been grinding himself down against something for days and isn’t anywhere near done.
He sees me sitting up and his eyes tighten. “Hey.”
“Hey.” I keep my voice even. “You eat?”
“I’m fine.” He shrugs his jacket off and hangs it up in the closet. He knows. I can see that he knows this is coming. There’s a bracing in his shoulders, a set to his jaw that’s different from tired. He’s been waiting for this the same way I’ve been waiting to have it. “You should be asleep.”
I shut my book. “I’m not tired.”
“You look tired—”
“What’s going on?” I ask impatiently, interrupting him.
He stills. His back is still to me.
One beat passes, then two.
Then he turns around and he looks at me.
The expression on his face is blank.
It’s the version he used in the very first weeks of our marriage when we hated each other. My stomach drops at how familiar it is, at how much I hate seeing it directed at me again.
“Nothing’s going on,” he says. “It’s work.”
“Don’t lie to me,” I say sharply, feeling anger wash over me. How can he sit there and lie to me like this?
His eyes flash. “It’s work, Valentina.”
“I said don’t lie to me.” I get off the bed, planting my feet into the ground.
“Don’t tell me it’s work. Don’t tell me it’s Connor.
Don’t give me the version you’ve decided I’m allowed to have.
” My voice is steady and I’m quite proud of myself.
I’m doing well. “You’ve been lying to me for days and I need you to stop. ”
His jaw tightens. “I haven’t lied to you,” he bites out.
“You’re not telling me the truth. That’s the same fucking thing.”
Something flickers in his face at the language.
Good. I want him off balance.
I want him to understand that I am not calm about this, that the steadiness in my voice is something I’m choosing.
“There’s nothing to tell,” he says finally. “I’m handling something. It doesn’t concern you.”
The words hit me like a slap. “It—it doesn’t concern me?” I stare at him in disbelief and he looks back at me, almost arrogantly. “I’m your wife. I’m carrying your child. How does anything you’re doing not concern me?”
“Because I said so.” His voice has an edge now too, something fraying underneath the control. “I’m handling it and you need to let me handle it. That’s the end of the conversation.” He turns to take off his shirt, clearly dismissing me. I see red.
“Like hell it is,” I hiss, my heart thumping. How dare he be the one to end this conversation? We are not done.
He crosses his arms over his chest. “You’re clearly exhausted, which is why you’re acting this way. Once you get some sleep, you’ll act more rationally.”
Okay, that enrages me and I take a step toward him.
“Are you serious right now, Cillian? Are you seriously treating me like I’m some hysterical woman?
Are you really treating me like I’m being unreasonable?
” My hands are shaking and I ball them into fists.
“You’ve been acting off for days. You take all your phone calls on the balcony.
You sat in the dark watching me sleep and when I opened my eyes you looked—” I stop, reminding myself to breathe.
“You looked guilty, Cillian. I saw your face before you fixed it. I know what I saw.”
Something moves quickly across his features before it’s gone and his face is of bored indifference again.
“You were half asleep,” he says.
“I was awake enough to know what I saw,” I snap, holding his gaze. “What is happening? Tell me right now.”
He closes his eyes in annoyance. “I already told you—”
“You told me nothing!” The calm cracks. I feel it go, and the thing underneath it comes up hot and fast. I stop trying to hold it back.
“You have given me nothing for days except the back of your head on a balcony and texts that say don’t wait up and I am done with it.
I am done with the half-answers and the coldness and the—” I gesture at him, at the space between us, at everything the last several days have been.
“You let me in. You actually let me in and now you’re doing this and I need to know why. ”
“Nothing has changed, Valentina.”
“Everything has changed!” My voice cracks on the last word and I hate it, but I can’t get it back.
“You’re not here. You’re physically here but emotionally you’re fucking checked out.
I wake up sick nearly every morning and you’re not—” I stop, breathing hard.
My eyes are stinging and I am furious about that too, furious at my own body for doing this right now.
“You used to hold my hair back. Did you remember that? Did you notice that you stopped doing that?”
His jaw shifts and he looks away from me toward the window.
“The ginger tea,” I say shakily, my voice going quiet.
I’ve moved past the hot part of the anger and hit despair.
“The pregnancy book on your nightstand. The crackers on the counter every morning. You just…stopped. And you won’t tell me why and I’m trying to figure out if I did something or if you’re regretting the baby or if there’s someone—”
“There is no one else.” He cuts across me fast and sharp, his eyes back on mine. His chest is heaving and there’s two bright spots on his cheeks. “Don’t you dare finish that sentence.”
“Then what the fuck is it?” My voice breaks fully because I’m desperate to know. “I am going out of my mind here, Cillian, and you are treating me like I’m being hysterical and I am not hysterical! I am eight weeks pregnant and scared and you won’t talk to me!”
“I’m protecting you, dammit!” The words burst out of him, like he’s been holding them back. “That’s what I’m doing. I’m protecting you and the baby and if you could just trust me for five fucking minutes—”