I’d been a coward, and I’d lost the girl. I was paying penance.
Eileen had come into my office guns blazing and threatened me with every available source at her fingertips when she discovered my affair. My career, my reputation would all be disintegrated in hours. I had no choice but to take her seriously and play along. The result was a visit from a jaded and hurt Nina a month later.
“Devin, good to see you. How’s the family?” She walked past me, her speech rehearsed.
“I should have told you,” I said, mentally nailing my feet where I stood to keep from going to her. A thousand times I’d picked up my phone, a thousand times I’d put it back down. I had no excuse. And the one I had would not be the one she wanted to hear.
In this fucked up scenario, I should have been apologizing to my wife, not my mistress.
“Yes, you should have, but that’s not why I’m here.” Her voice cracked. She was trying so damn hard, and I saw it in the way she carried herself. I’d hurt her. I’d hurt myself. It was for the best. Eileen was unpredictable. If she’d gone far enough to take off her clothes and pose for Nina, she meant business. I hadn’t seen her naked in years.
Manipulative, conniving cunt.
She knew I was in love with her, and looking at Nina in front of me, I knew it had never been more true.
“Okay, why are you here?”
“This.” She pointed to a piece of property on a single sheet of paper she’d pulled from her purse. “I want to purchase it for my mother. I need to know if it’s a sound investment.”
“You could have emailed,” I countered as false hope spread through my chest.
“I should have,” she said weakly. She stood and walked over to my office window in a daze.
“I never wanted to hurt you, Nina. That’s the truth, but I know it’s shit.”
“Do you love her?”
I didn’t answer. It was best if I didn’t. If I told her the truth, it would give her hope that things could turn out differently.
“I can’t do this. I can’t pretend you didn’t ruin me.” She looked at me then with tears in her eyes, and my chest cracked. “I told you I loved you, Devin. Did that mean anything to you?”
I loved her enough to tell her the truth. “It can’t.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
“Nina—”
Not meeting my eyes, she cut me with her words. “I said okay. Call Taylor and let her know when you’ve researched this. She’ll be the one you speak to from now on.”
I nodded, standing at my desk with my hands in my pockets.
“I miss us, you know. I thought we were happy. You seemed happy. But I guess that was a lie, too.” She looked to me to agree with her as I stood there like the fucking coward I was. “Right. Goodbye, Devin.”
She walked out that day, and I was sure it was over, until a month later when I fucked her in a coat closet. My wife had forced her to retaliate, and I was Nina’s tool. I’d been cruel to her, forcing myself to act in a way so I could avoid the hole inside of me that festered when I looked at her. She’d changed as well, acting ruthlessly with her new friends. Friends I’d introduced her to. She carried herself well with the chip on her shoulder I’d caused, making moves against her peers out of spite, and watching their reactions with glee. I’d seen her exhibit some of the same behavior as my wife. I was disgusted by it and took it out on her every chance I got. This was not the woman I fell for, and I wound up resenting the monster I’d created.
I was ruthless with her as well, hoping that she would have the courage to once and for all rid herself of me and the chain that I was attached to. All the while, I’d never refused her sexually and taken every chance I could to have her, just one more time.
I was forcing her to give up.
And then she did.
And now it was my turn to let her go.
“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”
? Ernest Hemingway
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