CHAPTER THIRTEEN #2
Tristen found me in the alley behind the venue, pacing back and forth with my arms wrapped around myself.
"Aubree, please, let me explain."
"Explain what?" I spun to face him, and the rage that erupted out of me was volcanic. "Explain why you let her get up there and declare herself in love with you in front of everyone we know? Explain why you've been handling her escalating behavior for weeks without telling me?"
His face went pale. "How do you know about that?"
"Your attorney called while you were at the podium.
Something about the contract review you requested.
He didn't realize you hadn't told your wife.
" I laughed, and the sound was ugly. "But that's the pattern, isn't it?
Tristen handles everything alone. Tristen keeps secrets to protect poor fragile Aubree.
Tristen builds an entire emotional relationship with another woman while his wife sits at home wondering why she feels so fucking invisible. "
"It's not an emotional relationship."
"Then what the hell was that in there?" I gestured wildly toward the building. "She just told three hundred people that you're her rock. Her comfort. The person who holds her hand through every scary moment. What do you call that if not emotional intimacy?"
"I call it a pregnant woman who got carried away. I call it someone who's going through a difficult experience and latched onto the nearest source of support."
"And why was that you? Why wasn't it me? I'm the mother of that baby, Tristen. I should be the one she turns to when she's scared. But she doesn't even see me. She looks right through me like I'm not even there, and you let her."
He reached for me, and I stumbled backward so violently I nearly fell.
"Don't touch me." My voice cracked on the words. "I can't, I just can't right now."
"Aubree, please. I know I made mistakes. I know I should have told you about the attorney, about the boundary violations, about all of it. But I was trying to handle it quietly so you wouldn't have to deal with the stress."
"The stress?" I stared at him, incredulous.
"You think this is less stressful? Finding out my husband has been secretly managing another woman's emotional needs for months?
Watching her declare her dependency on him in front of the national press?
Knowing that right now, right this second, the entire internet is probably calling me the fat infertile wife who got replaced by a younger model? "
My hands were shaking so badly I could barely get my rings off. But I managed. I wrenched my wedding band and engagement ring over my knuckle and hurled them at his chest with every ounce of strength I had.
"There. Now you can give those to someone who actually matters to you."
"Aubree, no." He caught the rings, his face crumpling with anguish. "Please, don't do this. I love you. I have only ever loved you."
"But you didn't protect me." The tears were streaming down my face now, hot and bitter.
"You protected her. Every decision you made, every secret you kept, every boundary you let her cross, you chose her comfort over mine.
And now the whole world knows exactly what I am.
The broken woman who couldn't carry her own baby.
The wife who wasn't enough to keep her husband's attention.
The failure who got publicly humiliated at her own fucking gala. "
"You're not a failure. You're not broken. You're the strongest person I know."
"Then why don't I feel strong?" My voice broke completely, dissolving into sobs that shook my whole body. "Why do I feel like I'm dying, Tristen? Why does it hurt so much I can't breathe?"
He tried to come closer, and I held up my hand to stop him.
"I need to leave. I can't go back in there. I can't face those people, those cameras, that woman."
"Then let me take you home."
"No. I can't be in that house with her. I can't sleep down the hall from someone who just staked a public claim on my husband."
"I'll make her leave. Tonight. I'll call a car and send her to a hotel."
"It's too late for that." I wiped my face with the back of my hand, smearing mascara across my skin. "It was too late the moment you chose to keep secrets instead of trusting me with the truth. I'm going to Collette's. Don't follow me."
"Aubree, please."
"I said don't follow me."
I walked away from him standing in that alley, my wedding rings clutched in his fist and his face wet with tears that came too late to matter. My heels clicked against the pavement like a countdown to the end of everything I'd built my life around.
The car service picked me up at the corner. I gave them Collette's address and collapsed against the leather seat, my body shaking with sobs I couldn't control.
My phone was already blowing up with notifications. I didn't need to look to know what they said. The photos would be everywhere by now. The video of Oakleigh's speech. The comments dissecting my weight, my fertility, my worth as a woman and a wife.
I'd spent four years fighting to become a mother.
I'd lost three babies and most of my self-esteem and now, apparently, my marriage too.
The worst part was that I still didn't believe Tristen had cheated.
Not physically. Maybe not even intentionally.
But he'd given another woman the emotional intimacy that should have been mine.
He'd built a partnership with her while shutting me out, one secret at a time, until I was standing on the outside of my own family looking in.
And that betrayal cut deeper than any affair ever could.