Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
TREVOR
When the old clock in the corner reads three in the morning, my back aches from my rigid, unmoving stance.
Sitting in the rarely used chair in our living room for hours has taught me an important lesson: we need to burn this thing.
However, it has given me something other than a backache tonight.
It’s given me a prime position to sit and contemplate the last day, as well as a place to admire the beauty of my sleeping, pregnant wife.
Foolishly, when I first entered the house, I rushed to our bedroom, out of my mind with the bone-deep need to lay eyes on her.
Everything was off-kilter from the moment I heard the words car accident …
Subaru … and finally, and most damning, Paige.
So when I slammed into our room and saw her usual spot in the middle of the bed was empty, and that the bed was made, my heart froze in my chest. I didn’t stop to think.
I tore through the closet, trying to recognize the loss of her favorite dresses, jackets, possibly our luggage—any hint that anything was missing.
Then, I ransacked her drawers, tossing everything around to locate her most used shirts or to see how much of her underwear was missing.
It was a stupid thing to do. I couldn’t tell, and that only made me dizzy with a new fear.
My head swam, so I sat down at the edge of the bed and stared into the open closet.
and breathed deeply. In two, three, four, and out two, three, four.
I had to fight with myself to stay calm and seated.
My entire being was tense and primed, muscles twitching with the need to move.
My mind cycled through every conceivable possibility of all the places she could stay.
I continued to breathe, Paige’s voice in my head counting it out in her soft way.
“In and out, one, two, three, four.” I started the breathing process over and over again, allowing my eyes to take in the details of her presence rather than her absence.
There, on the bedside table, lay her e-reader, still sitting on the charger.
Her robe remained draped over the seat where she sits for her morning skin routine.
I mentally cataloged every detail until my heart stopped beating in a frantic staccato.
I realized something devastating in those moments of silence. It was a comfort and a slap at the same time. There was no way Paige would sleep in our bed if she truly believed I had betrayed her.
My movements were slow, my body in an uncoordinated but automatic rhythm as I reorganized her things.
A dress straight on a hanger, shirts lined up Marie Kondo-style in the dresser.
The underwear drawer slid shut with a silent push, marking the final step before I made my way to see that Paige chose the couch over the comfort of our bed after a day of overwhelming emotional upheaval.
I left the room, shutting the door with a quiet click, and padded barefoot into the living room.
I wasn’t surprised when I came across her wild curls flowing over the arm of the couch.
A fuzzy blanket, normally reserved for fall and winter, was draped over her, leaving only a small portion of her face and her mane of hair uncovered.
I stood directly next to her for a beat, taking in the dark circles lining her puffy eyes, likely—hopefully—more prominent in the shadows left from the dull glow of a lone lamp left in the corner.
My hands twitched with the need to caress her sweet face, but instead, I went upstairs, only to see that Jacob wasn’t home.
Likely staying with his aunt. Finally, I took the seat in the corner of the room.
That’s where I currently sit, hours later.
Paige’s soft snores fill the space. She’s not a light sleeper, and I’m glad I didn’t wake her with my mania earlier.
Unbidden, another sickening bolt of pain and guilt tears through me.
My poor Paige did nothing to deserve what happened to her.
My eyes drift over her, stopping at the gentle swell of her belly, barely visible through the blanket.
Likely only noticeable to me. She was going to tell me during the fireworks.
Another baby. Joy and absolute terror fill me in equal measure, adding to the mess in my head.
Her devastation on our way home had splintered my mind, and I couldn’t put one thought together with another in any way that made a lick of sense.
Her showing up with Billy then puking after that train wreck of a dinner, already had me in a mental tailspin.
Those details, compounded with her bolting from the car, did not help my ability to think beyond knowing that I didn’t do anything, even as I watched her hold that piece of damning evidence.
I brace my arms against my legs, drop my head into my hands, and release a silent, shaky breath. The look on her face when she thought the worst of me will haunt me for the rest of my life.
Movement in my periphery pulls me out of my self-flagellation and draws my eyes directly to the quiet fury of my wife’s glare. And isn’t it just the fucking worst that even this kind of attention is preferable to being away from her in any capacity?
“What are you doing here?” Her voice is a rasp, but despite the words and their order, it is not a question. It’s a blatant accusation.
“I needed to make sure you’re okay, baby.”
She scoffs, and the sound, so unlike her, only makes me want to hold her and smooth the edges she’s sharpening against me.
“Get the fuck out of here, Trevor. I asked for one night. You took ten years and can’t even give me one fucking night?” The grating dichotomy of her gentle voice and the harshness of the words makes me want to flinch. Her smile tells me she knows it.
“I’ve never had sex with anyone but you. Ever.” Straightforward, honest, no beating around the bush.
Her face freezes, and a flicker of something appears in her expression before it disappears.
“How stupid and naive do you think I am, Trevor? You think I’m just going to ignore the blatant evidence?
” She wiggles out of the covers to use her hands to speak, as she usually does in times of high emotion.
My jaw goes slack, and I watch, entranced, as the fluffy blanket slips from her shoulders to pool at her fun, delicious hips.
Dammit, Trevor. Focus. My wife is truly the most stunning woman I have ever met, and I should have known she’s pregnant from her curves—lovely, lush, and currently on full display.
I drink her in from the hint of her bare thighs, along the dip of her waist, to her delectable cleavage, clearly unbound, from the top of her loose sleeping tank.
I worship her with my eyes, forgetting that things are not as they have always been.
Something dark and vicious uncovers last. It’s painted across her left shoulder.
My focus narrows to that spot, and the blood drains from my face.
I must move—teleport—because I’m kneeling at her feet, reaching for her injured shoulder with a trembling hand.
“Do not touch me,” she hisses with so much venom, it instantly snaps me out of my fixation.
I snatch my hand back, meeting her fiery gaze with one of abject hopelessness.
I gulp at the violence emanating from the gentlest woman I’ve ever known and carefully sit back on my heels, still at her feet, but now kneeling—an appropriate position—at her feet.
“Paige, I’m so sorry. Please, I need you to listen.
There is so much you don’t know. I swear to you, it’s nothing like what you think.
” My eyes slide back to her shoulder as I speak, and another shudder runs through me.
The what ifs clog my mind again. Her shoulders tense while I watch, my fingers clenching where my hand hovers, untethered, in the space between us.
She watches me through narrowed eyes. Then she sits straighter, her chin tipped up in quiet defiance. My woman. My world.
“Fine. You know what? Say your piece. But Trevor?” She waits for me to nod, holding my eyes a beat for continuing. “Whatever is decided tonight? You need to promise you’ll listen to what I need from you.”
I nod and drop my hands to my legs. I’ll always do what she needs from me.
My beautiful wife pulls the blanket back over her shoulders, hiding her visible pain from my eyes.
I can’t help but wonder if she thinks it also conceals the pain pouring out from her in every other way.
It’s palpable. It covers the space between us in a suffocating blanket—because of me.
“Yes, Paige. Always. I’ll always do what you need. ” A sharp nod is my only response.
“Okay. Well, Friday was a tough day.” She huffs, but I continue.
“I broke my phone before it was even noon, and I sent Krista to get me a new one. When she got back, she said they closed early for the holiday, so I had to rely on her for communication. I was pulled into more work for my dad and had to sit in a couple of meetings that were not supposed to happen that day. I had her send you all kinds of messages. All day long yesterday and today. Or”—I check my watch—“two days ago and yesterday.”
She blinks at me.
“I didn’t get anything from you. Never. I would have answered your calls. I would have—have been there for you. Nothing could have kept me away.”
She … says nothing.
I gulp and rub the back of my neck, searching for the right thing to say, to explain what happened.
Paige’s face, blank now, is suddenly replaced with a vision of her, only hours ago.
Her small frame curved into itself, the wrapper crumbling in her fist, the biggest part of this clusterfuck—this perceived betrayal.
The adultery my wife believes I committed the very same night she waited to share the news about the life we made.
“At the party, Bobby said something to me about Krista, and it hit all sorts of warning bells, and Bethany … She heard him.” A small sound of pain comes from Paige.
Of course it’s the idea of someone else suffering that makes her finally react.
“I wanted to dismiss it as drunken idiocy, but there were too many things that happened over the week since you brought it to my attention. Then I saw them together—Bobby and Krista.”
The memory comes back to me all at once. That stupid night full of all the wrong decisions. Looking at the face of my lovely, disbelieving wife, I sigh, and I tell her everything.