The Marriage Rival

Presley lowers her gaze toward the floor. “I need to go…”

Panic rushes over me, my heart starts pounding at an increasingly rapid rate. She has to know nothing is going on with Eloise. I can call Noah, get him to explain. Fuck!

“Where are you going?” I demand.

She shakes her head with a twisted mouth. “Anywhere but here.”

Presley walks out of my office, and I don’t follow. Burying my head into my hands, I know this is the tip of the fucking iceberg. We are falling apart. The old me would have raced after her, demanded we go home so I can prove to her how much I only want her.

But I don’t have it left in me.

She has torn me to pieces, and I don’t know how to fight any longer.

Grabbing my things, I send Presley a text telling her I’ll pick up Masen. She doesn’t respond, though I can see the message was read.

Masen is exactly the distraction I need. We stop at a local burger joint, picking up something to eat before heading home. It’s almost like he knows something is wrong because he’s quieter than usual and even agreeing to go to bed without a fuss.

Once he is fast asleep, I pour myself a scotch, almost finishing it by the time I walk outside to the

back deck with my guitar in hand. There’s a slight breeze, the perfect amount to distract my thoughts and focus on tuning my guitar. I can’t remember the last time I played out here, and to warm up, I begin to play Maroon 5, singing along to “Memories” until the sound of the back door stops me.

I place my guitar against the chair beside me. Presley doesn’t say a word, and taking a deep breath, I push the anger aside and control my voice.

“I can’t do this anymore, Presley. Watch you destroy us because why… we lost a baby?”

Under the moonlight and the fairy lights hovering above us, I can see her posture stiffen.

“Destroy us?” she states in a chilling tone. “Because it’s always my fault, right?”

It kills me that she blames herself. I can’t understand why she thinks she has anything to do with physically losing the baby. Yes, at first, we both thought we did something wrong, but just like Charlie said, these things are in the hands of God. I never considered myself an overly religious person, but fuck, I have no idea what he is doing to us right now. My faith is beyond shattered.

“It’s not your fault,” I tell her, faintly.

“You didn’t lose a baby, Haden. Let’s get that straight,” she shot back. “I lost the baby. Therefore, all my fault.”

Clint’s words echo in my head. Cassandra has something to do with this, I’m dead certain. The woman standing before me is not the Presley I fell in love with.

And she changed the moment Cassandra came into her life.

This person? She’s a stranger.

“So, what do you want, Presley? No matter what I do, I can’t seem to make you happy anymore.”

Her shadow doesn’t move an inch, her silence making her almost invisible. My frustration builds, on the verge of exploding. I take a deep breath curbing my desperate need to shout and cuss hurtful words to make her realize she’s fucking wrong.

“I’m going to go away for a few days,” she mutters, unable to look at me. “I need time to think.”

“Think?”

“About us.”

The second it leaves her mouth, it crushes me.

My limbs begin to tremble, my chest tightens, making it impossible to breathe.

Why the fuck is she doing this?

“You can’t just leave, you have responsibilities,” I remind her with a raised tone. “You’re a mother.”