Chapter 24
WESTON
Itrudged across the estate to the cattle shed. A band of dark, billowing clouds had gathered over the coastline, a low rumble of thunder echoing in the distance. Wind rustled through the thistles along the fence. A nasty storm was brewing. That felt appropriate.
Was it really just a few hours ago when everything had seemed so sunny and bright?
It felt like a million years had passed since this morning, when Lena and I had gotten into the car to head to the festival.
She’d been chattering away about the dozens of things that still needed to be done, and I’d caught only one word in three because I was so lost in the way the light caught her hair.
Who the hell were those people? Because I certainly didn’t recognize either of them. How could so much go so wrong in such a short amount of time?
Thunder rumbled again, closer. I tried not to replay the conversation with Lena in my head, but the confusion and frustration inside me refused to be silenced.
I’d gone through this with my parents. They were constantly at each other’s throats with one transgression after another, pointing fingers, doing their outright best to make the other as miserable as possible.
When Narissa had started making demands, it was as if I had walked into a similar situation, and I knew I needed to get out before we said “I do.”
I turned up the path, flinging open the door of the cattle shed just as a light rain began to fall, pinging off the metal roof.
I stalked down the main aisle, the smell of manure and damp straw intense. It wasn’t until I heard a soft moo that I paused, turning my head in time to watch Arran dash across the pen toward the gate, looking for a wee scratch.
Something inside me settled at the sight, and I couldn’t help but stop at her pen and reach out for that soft nose.
Arran panted happily as I leaned over the fence, lifting her head for me to scratch behind her ears.
“Hiya, girl,” I whispered, wishing the sight of an adorable Highland calf was enough to banish the miserable thoughts from my mind.
But nothing would fully erase Lena’s words or the reality that she was upstairs right now, packing her things.
Well, good.
What the hell did I care?
As I stared down at Arran, lost in my thoughts, I didn’t even notice Callum arrive with a bucket of feed until he dropped it by my feet with a thunk. He was kitted up in a rain jacket and wellies.
“Hope this blows through quickly, or they’ll have to wrap the festival up early,” he said. He cocked his head, his bushy eyebrows knotted. “Speaking of, I thought you’d be down there all day. What’re you doing back already?”
I grunted. “Lena wasn’t feeling well. Jo insisted that I bring her home.”
“Aye, Jo’s always insisting on something,” Callum said. “Is Lena okay?”
“She’s fine,” I muttered.
“Then why do you look like you just sat yourself down on a thistle?”
“Lena and I got into a fight,” I said, watching Arran stick her head between the slats of her fence, trying to get to the bucket. Callum chuckled and topped up her feed trough, then put the bucket down again, leaned against the fence, and sighed.
“I’m not the type to pry,” he said. “A couple’s business is their business. But you seem like you’re bursting to tell someone. And I reckon I might be a better choice than Arran here since I might have a decent piece of advice or two.”
I bit my cheek, trying to decide if I really wanted to talk about it.
I’d obviously stalked all the way out here for a reason, and it wasn’t to vent my troubles to Arran.
Maybe some subconscious part of me had been seeking Callum out given the advice he’d offered me earlier about fucking Jasper.
And I wasn’t in the mood to dump my feelings on Locke or Alistair, who’d dragged themselves all the way up here to enjoy the festival.
I turned to him. “Jo thought Lena was pregnant. She threw up at the festival and—”
Callum’s eyes widened.
“Anyway, she’s not,” I hurried to say. Callum didn’t seem the type to spread rumors, but better safe than sorry. “In fact, it turns out…” I swallowed hard. “Lena actually can’t have children.”
“Oh,” Callum said softly. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“So was I,” I admitted. Because as angry as I was over how it had all played out, I could still see that it bothered Lena, who loved children. “But apparently she didn’t think it important to tell me that little tidbit despite the fact we’re married.”
“Hold on now,” Callum said, raising his hand. “That’s not why you married her though. You married her to satisfy the terms of the will. That’s what you told me.”
“I did,” I agreed.
“And there was nothing in there about you needing to have a child,” he said slowly, giving me space to correct him, “so there would have been no expectation for her to need to tell you.”
“Sure, at first. But then…things between us changed. Or I thought they had. And there were so many moments where she could have told me about her past, once it started to become clear that it might have an impact on our future.” The frustration flared inside me.
It felt like opening an oven to a flash of heat. “But she chose not to say anything.”
Callum went quiet as he leaned against the fence next to me, hands folded.
“You think I’m an asshole,” I said.
“Didn’t say that.”
“You’re thinking it,” I said. I could feel the words even if he wasn’t saying them.
“I think you were surprised,” he said, which was true. “But did you ever stop to think it would be a hard subject to bring up when she was still trying to figure out where the two of you stood with each other?”
“I think that’s been pretty damn clear for weeks,” I muttered.
“Is it? You ended things with her as soon as you found out, right? Do you not want Lena anymore because of her inability to have children?”
“Of course that isn’t the problem! My issue is with the lie!”
“How can she have lied about something you never asked about?”
“The fact that she never told me is enough!” I’d once stood in here, looked Callum in the eye, and told him there were no secrets between me and Lena. Now I felt like an idiot because as it turned out, she was keeping a pretty massive secret. “She purposely chose to keep that information from me.”
Callum hummed. “All right. But is that actually why you’re so angry?”
I sucked in a heavy breath, releasing it in one sharp puff.
Honestly, I didn’t know what the hell I was angry about.
Yes, Lena had a right to keep painful revelations to herself in a marriage that was meant to be temporary.
Yes, it hurt that she hadn’t trusted me with the truth when we’d gotten closer.
Both of those things could be true at the same time.
And there was more there, too, more feelings coursing through me that left my insides twisted into knots, because now I couldn’t help wondering if I knew Lena at all.
She knew absolutely everything about me.
My life was an open book that she organized and scheduled down to the minute.
She’d watched my engagement with Narissa blow up, she knew which deals Kincaid Energy was going after, she knew what size my goddamn boxers were because she placed the orders from Zimmerli.
And what the hell did I know about her? After today, it felt like very little.
The Lena I thought I knew, the one that existed in my head, was just a shell.
A neatly made-up shell that was smart and efficient and wasn’t afraid to be blunt with me when she thought I’d gone too far.
But the real person underneath all that, the one with thoughts and feelings and fears of her own…
She’d never really let me meet her, had she?
Despite these past few months, despite taking my last name and getting into bed with me again and again, she’d never stopped being my assistant. She gave just enough of herself to me to make me think we were building something. But that wasn’t the real her. It wasn’t all of her.
I bit down on my lip to keep the ache in my chest at bay. How could I be with a woman I barely knew? How could I be so foolish as to let myself fall for her when she was simply doing her job?
I thought a couple was supposed to support each other through the hard times, cherish the difficult parts, soothe the hurt and heartache. When faced with a challenge, we were supposed to tackle it together, but Lena hadn’t trusted me with the more vulnerable parts of herself.
But that was never her intent. If Lena was so insistent on cutting this off at the six-month mark, then so be it.
I’d sort out Jasper and his contesting of the will, and as soon as that was settled, I’d give Lena the freedom she wanted.
Because she clearly wasn’t invested in me the way I’d been invested in her.
To her, I was a job.
And maybe that was for the best. I needed to snuff out this spark of passion for her because I’d always known that kind of love had no place in my life. Too many complications. Too many chances to hurt each other.
That kind of love would ruin me.
“You’re brooding,” Callum said. “And that’s not a good thing. You’ll get turned around if you spend too much time wading through the gunk that’s mucking up your head.”
“I trusted her with everything,” I said, fingers balancing where they gripped Arran’s fence. “My life. My hopes. My dreams. My feelings. And she trusted me with nothing.”
“That’s not true,” Callum said. “If she didn’t trust you, she never would have gotten on that plane and followed you out here.”
I snorted. She’d followed me out here because I’d held grad school and her dream job out to her on a silver platter. I’d already offered her what she’d wanted most. And that wasn’t building a life with me. I’d lost sight of that.
“Is it truly such an unforgivable thing?” Callum asked. “That she didn’t tell you?”
“Feels like it,” I said. Because how could we be together if something as fundamental as trust wasn’t there? Maybe love was too messy to build anything solid on, but trust? Trust could have carried us through.
“You’re being as stubborn as Bonnie.”
I snorted. “Well, maybe Bonnie has the right idea. I was starting to…feel things I promised I’d never let myself feel when it came to a relationship.”
“You were falling in love,” Callum said softly.
The word sounded so strange. So foreign. I hadn’t ever intended to cross that line, but he was right. I hadn’t just been falling for Lena.
I’d fallen.
And love only ever ended in messy heartache.
My parents had shown me how painful and destructive love was when it ended.
Once Narissa had decided she was in love with me, the only side of her I ever saw was the ugliness with the petty jealousies and unreasonable demands.
I knew with her that I wasn’t prepared to endure that, and it was the same with Lena, so the sooner I got out, the better.
“Doesn’t matter now,” I said, straightening up and dusting my hands on my pants.
“If I can’t trust her, then it’s better this thing comes to an end now.
I already have enough of a mess to wade through with Jasper.
There’s no point in trying to fix things with Lena when that relationship has already gotten messy too. ”
“So what if it’s a mess?” Callum said, huffing a laugh. “Love’s always messy. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth fighting for.”
I shook my head, refusing to believe him.
“Don’t be daft. Nothing is easy when your heart’s on the line,” Callum said.
“I’m not putting my heart on the line,” I said with finality. With certainty. I couldn’t trust Lena to share the important things with me, and she clearly didn’t trust me with what mattered. So whatever we’d had, whatever we were…it was over now. “I’m done.”