Chapter 8 #2
“You had plenty of chances to talk, Xavier. Plenty of chances to tell me the damn truth. Every time I asked what was wrong. Every time you came home late and wouldn’t look me in the eye. Every time you let me apologize for things that were never my fault.”
I take a slow step closer, my gaze never leaving his.
“You didn’t talk then. You lied. You let me question my own sanity while you protected that lie like it was worth more than I was—all while playing the perfect husband.
” My voice drops, colder now. “So forgive me if I’m not interested in a nice, honest conversation now.
You lost that privilege the second you decided a lie was worth more than me. ”
I nod toward the gloves in his hands.
“Now here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to put those on… and you’re going to stop hiding behind words you didn’t have the courage to say when they mattered.”
My gaze hardens.
“Act like the damn man I thought you were, Navarro.”
He blanches at the name. We both know I never use it unless I mean to remind him exactly who he is to me now—no one.
The space between us hums with the electric charge of everything left unsaid. Neither of us moves.
At long last, Xavier nods and shrugs off his tuxedo jacket.
He drapes it over the back of a chair, then slides each hand into the gloves.
His movements are slow, deliberate, as if he’s handling a loaded weapon that might misfire at any second.
The only sound is the soft scratch of leather against his shirt and our mingled breathing.
I turn on my heel and stride deeper into the house. Behind me, I hear him fall into step.
I lead him through the wide archway toward the lower level, a space we renovated years ago but rarely use. As I descend the steps into the basement gym, I flip on the lights. LED strips along the ceiling flood the room with an unforgiving white glow.
Our home gym stretches out before us, its walls gleaming with mirrors and polished glass. The far wall looks into the underground garage, where his car now sits; another reflects two figures stepping onto the training mats.
The familiar scent of worn leather, metal, and faint disinfectant hits me with a sharp rush of memory.
It carries me back to pain and triumph, to the long hours that made me who I was.
In one corner hangs a full-size heavy bag, with racks of weights and training gear lining the wall behind it.
On lacquered hardwood stands the boxing ring we built when we bought this villa.
My pulse stumbles at the sight of it. It always has.
Back when we built this gym, Xavier was terrified I’d be stubborn enough to climb back into the ring and push my body too far.
The doctors warned us that one more rupture could kill me, and he took that warning more seriously than I ever did.
Even so, I insisted on this room. I needed to believe I was still me. That fear hadn’t taken everything.
In the years since, whenever Xavier and I weren’t working out together, I found ways to avoid being alone in this room—online fitness classes, anything to keep myself occupied, even bringing our housekeeper Carmen down here with me so she could chatter through my workouts about whatever fresh family drama had taken over her life that week. I couldn’t be down here alone.
Funny that after all these years avoiding it, tonight of all nights, I’m grateful for it.
I retrieve my gloves from the cabinet and pull them on one at a time, forcing my hands into the worn padding.
I tighten the straps with practiced tugs of teeth and fingers.
My pulse settles. My mind narrows to a single point.
The leather closes around my hands, and my body remembers before my mind can resist it.
Fear still hums beneath my skin, but anticipation burns hotter. God, I missed this.
Xavier hasn’t moved from the edge of the mats. He stands there watching me, his expression taut with something that looks almost like pain. Sweat glints at his temple under the harsh lights, darkening the hair at his brow. I hold his gaze as I roll my shoulders, easing the tension from my muscles.
“Funny,” I say into the quiet. “All through dinner, I kept thinking about how long it’s been since I felt the sting of a good hit.” A bitter laugh slips out. “I just didn’t expect the first person I’d want to hit again to be my husband. How fucking poetic is that?”
Xavier presses his lips into a tight line, regret stark on his face. “Amor—”
“Ironic, isn’t it?” I cut in, circling him.
He pivots to keep facing me, instinctively lifting his hands a fraction.
“I spent years convincing myself I didn’t miss this.
” I gesture to the ring, the gloves, the violence thrumming in the air.
“Pretending I was content. That I’d buried this part of me for a peaceful life with you.
” My mouth curls. “And now life comes full circle and hands me one last round.”
For the first time in weeks—maybe years—my head is clear. Here, I know exactly who I am. Here, I am not powerless. The version of me I buried after the accident, after all those failed pregnancy tests and heartbreaks, is rising to the surface now. And she is done being hurt.
He raises his gloved hands halfway, a classic protective stance, but I can see he has no intention of throwing a punch. Fine by me. I’m beyond caring about fair fights.
“This isn’t how we solve anything,” he tries again. “We need to talk, amor. I’m begging you. It’s not what you think. Everything I did was for you.”
“Then explain it,” I snap, planting my feet shoulder-width apart on the mat.
“Explain how lying to my face was somehow for me. How spending our anniversary with your ex was meant to help me. How you could sit there tonight making puppy eyes at her while I was right in front of you and still push a bowl of shellfish toward me like my allergy had simply slipped your mind. Go on. Tell me what I was supposed to think, other than that my husband was making a fool of me while I played the blind, dutiful wife.”
Xavier flinches as if I’d hit him. “It wasn’t like that.
Yara, please, for God’s sake—I wasn’t making puppy eyes at her.
” He drags a glove-clad hand through his hair, the words tripping out of him.
“She lost her father. She has no one else. I was just trying to be kind. To comfort her. That’s all.
” His voice drops, ragged at the edges. “I wasn’t choosing her over you, amor. ”
I stare at him, disbelief curdling fast into fury. “Comforting her,” I echo. “What are you now, her emotional support animal?”
Before he can answer, I lunge. My jab stops just shy of his face, and he recoils on instinct—straight into my right cross. The glove clips his cheekbone, not hard enough to break anything, but enough to send him stumbling into the wall. The dull thud of impact echoes through the gym.
Xavier grunts, one hand flying to his face. He stares at me in shock, pain written plain across his face. A welt of red is already rising high on his cheek, just beneath the eye. I’m not sorry to see it.
“Was it kind to lie to me?” I snarl, feinting another jab. His guard snaps up on instinct. “Was it kind to let me sit there like a fool, smiling and swallowing every insult your family threw at me—right in front of the woman who used to share your bed?”
“Yara, stop.” He pushes off the wall and catches my next swing—an angry hook aimed at his shoulder—in his gloved hand.
Even through the padding, I feel how careful he is, the way he refuses to retaliate.
He holds my fist inches from his chest, breathing hard.
“You’re shaking,” he murmurs. “I don’t want to hurt you. ”
I wrench my hand free and shove him back. “Too late for that.” My voice comes out ragged, thick with hurt. “And you’re one to talk.” I nod toward his trembling arms.
We break apart and circle each other slowly on the mat. My blood roars in my ears. Our breathing and the low hum of the ventilation system are the only sounds in the room. I brace myself for whatever lie he’ll try next.
Xavier is the first to look away. He lets out a shaky breath and lowers his gloves a few inches. His shoulders sag, and under the harsh lights I watch something in him crumple. “This,” he says quietly, voice thick with emotion, “is exactly why I didn’t tell you, Yara.”
“Excuse me?”
He looks at me again, tears bright in his eyes. “Because of this,” he gestures between us with a hand. “I knew you’d react like this. Go for the jugular.” He swallows hard. “I lied because I was trying to keep the peace. To protect us from this.”
Pure outrage steals the breath from my lungs.
He’s blaming me . The sheer grotesque absurdity of it wrings a laugh out of me—a short, sharp bark of disbelief.
“Peace,” I echo. “That’s what you call keeping the peace?
Lying to your wife and parading your ex in front of her under a fake name—was that your version of keeping things calm? ”
He winces, shame flashing across his face.
But I’m not done. I feel my composure splintering, words spilling out hot and fast. “Let’s recap your brilliant plan, shall we?
You didn’t want a confrontation, so instead of telling me the truth, you brought me to a dinner where everyone knew exactly who she was except me.
You let me sit there oblivious while you played the comforting hero to poor, lonely Isabel”—I spit her name like poison—“and I’m the one going for the jugular?
Tell me, Xavier, was it also part of your plan to kill me for good measure?
Because apparently forgetting your wife’s life-threatening allergy while making puppy eyes at your ex is your idea of keeping the peace. ”