10. Chapter Ten #2
“The etiquette instructor was worse. She set the table for eight when it was only the two of us. She watched how I sat down, how I picked up a fork, how I cut food that wasn’t even there. She told me people could tell in thirty seconds if someone had grown up without proper standards.”
Hayden’s face changed. “She said that to you?”
“Yes.”
“Those exact words?”
“Close enough that I heard them every time I sat at your parents’ table.”
He took his hands away from the coffee cup.
“I saw her with you,” he said. “She was polite. She told me you were doing well.”
“They were all polite when you were there,” Caroline said.
The anger left his face. What remained looked worse.
“The chef would act as if I’d ruined his day if I went into the kitchen without warning.
Once I asked for grilled cheese, and he told me the menu had already been approved and changes should go through you.
For a sandwich.” Her throat tightened. “The maids stopped talking when I entered a room. They moved my things back to the library. If I sat somewhere they wanted to clean, they’d stand there with their supplies until I left.
Nobody ever told me to get out. They didn’t need to. ”
“Jesus, Caroline.”
“That’s why I waited until they went home to make food. That’s why I stayed in the library. It was the only place where I had a desk that felt like mine and I wasn’t in anybody’s way.”
Hayden looked sick. She had wanted him to understand, but the sight of his shame gave her no pleasure.
“I didn’t know,” he said.
“I know.”
“I swear to you, I never saw any of that.”
“I know.”
“But you thought I would allow it.”
Caroline breathed in slowly. “I thought you’d tell me they were trying to help. I thought you’d ask why I was making trouble with people who were good at their jobs.”
He looked down at the table. “Because that’s what I did about my family.”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.
He dragged a hand over his neat beard. “You were living in our house, hiding in one room until the staff left, and I kept telling myself I’d given you everything.”
“You had given me everything. That was part of why I couldn’t complain.”
“No.” He looked at her again. “I gave you expensive things. I didn’t give you a home where you were safe from people I brought into it.”
Safe. The word caught somewhere inside her. Hayden had always wanted to keep her safe from bills, bad neighborhoods, hard work, and worry. He’d never understood that the danger in Southampton had been quiet. A smile. A pause. A look that said she’d wandered into the wrong life.
“That’s why I kept delaying Mom’s move,” Caroline said. “I told you there were details to work out. I said she wasn’t ready. The truth was that I wasn’t ready to bring her there.”
His eyes shifted toward her mother at the counter.
“I promised her something better too,” Caroline continued. “How could I bring her into that house and watch people decide she didn’t belong? How could I let your mother teach her to hold a fork? Or let the maids wait for her to move out of their way?”
“I would’ve stopped it,” he said.
“You didn’t stop it for me.”
He took the words without looking away.
“No,” he said. “I didn’t.”
Caroline pressed her palm against the ache behind her ribs. Their daughter shifted again, a slow push under her hand.
Hayden noticed. “Are you all right?”
“She’s moving.”
His gaze dropped to her stomach. Love crossed his face so openly that Caroline had to look away.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m ashamed of every person who treated you that way, but I’m more ashamed of myself.
I asked you to leave your work and your life and trust me.
I brought you into a house where you felt alone.
When you tried to tell me about dinner, I defended what I wanted to believe.
Then I took every promise I’d made and used it to accuse you. ”
Caroline blinked hard.
“I didn’t know what the staff were doing,” he continued.
“That isn’t an excuse for anything I did know.
I knew you were quiet. I knew you kept asking me to stay home.
I knew you didn’t want your mother to come anymore, and instead of wondering what had happened to make you give up that dream, I decided it proved something ugly about you. ”
His voice broke on the last words. He lowered it before he spoke again.
“You trusted me, and I failed you.”
There it was. The thing she’d once believed she needed to hear. It came too late to make her feel safe. It only made her tired.
“It’s fine,” she said.
Hayden’s head lifted. “No, it isn’t.”
“I’m fine now. I’m here. Mom and Jemma have made room. The baby is okay. It’s all over.”
“Caroline, don’t.”
“We made a mistake.” She kept her voice gentle because anger would pull her back into the fight, and she couldn’t live inside that fight anymore. “We fell in love and got married before we knew how our lives would fit together. They don’t.”
“They can.”
“Getting divorced will stop this.”
His face lost color.
Caroline forced herself to continue. “You can see the baby. Of course you can. I would never keep her from you. We’ll find a way to co-parent, and you can be involved as much as you want.”
“As much as I want?” His voice was almost too quiet to hear. “She’s my daughter.”
“I know.”
“And you’re my wife.”
The words should’ve warmed her. They once had. Now they made her hear the rest of the sentence he’d given them that night. His wife because she was pregnant. His wife because he was too decent to leave.
“Not for much longer,” she said.
Hayden pushed his untouched coffee aside. “Is that what you brought me here to say?”
“We needed to decide what happens next,” she said.
“You’ve decided.”
“I can’t afford a divorce lawyer. I don’t want one anyway.
We were only married for six months. It should be simple.
” She folded her hands over her stomach so he wouldn’t see them shake.
“I don’t want the house or your money. I don’t want to fight about anything.
Have your lawyers prepare whatever needs to be prepared, and I’ll sign it. ”
He stared at her as if she’d struck him.
“Whatever I send,” he said.
“I trust you to make it fair,” she said.
Pain twisted his mouth. “You trust me to end our marriage, but not to be your husband.”
She couldn’t answer that.
“I’ll give you the divorce,” she said. “You won’t have to fight me.”
The quiet cooperation seemed to hurt him more than her anger had. His shoulders lowered. For the first time since she’d known him, Hayden looked like a man who had no plan left.
Caroline slid toward the edge of the booth. If she stayed, she would start comforting him. That frightened her more than another argument.
“I should go.”
Hayden rose when she did. “Wait.”
She gripped the top of the seat.
“Please.” He moved around the table but stopped before he came too close. “Give me another chance.”
Caroline shook her head.
“I’m not asking you to come home today. I’m not asking you to forget what I said.” His control cracked, and she heard the fear beneath it. “Let me do better. I will do better. Let me prove I can be a man who’s worthy of you and our daughter.”
Her throat closed. She wanted to believe him. That was the worst of it. Even after everything, some foolish part of her wanted to cross the space between them and let him carry the weight again.
If she opened her mouth, she’d either tell him yes or start crying in the middle of the diner.
Caroline shook her head once more. She couldn’t speak.
Then she turned and walked out.