Before Him

It seems like an eternity and so fucking scary to watch, to feel her gasping for breath as I rub slow circles over her back. “That’s it. You’re doing amazing. One, two, three . . .” And on. I can’t take my eyes from hers. I don’t know whether she’s looking at me as though I’m her saviour or the monster under the bed. Wide eyed and so fucking worried. But eventually, her breath begins to slow, the tension leaking from her, leaving her like a deflated balloon. As she lies against my bare chest—I’m pleased I grabbed my undies from the lounge—I get up onto my knees, then my feet, before lowering her to the mattress.

“It’s okay.” I move her phone, taking a quick glance at her call list. Holland was the last person she spoke to. I don’t think either she or Kennedy would blame me for feeling that fist ease just a little bit more. Wilder’s fine. This isn’t about him.

Curling in behind my girl, I slide my arm under her waist. With the other, I stroke her skin and her hair, and rub the tension from her shoulder. I press kisses there and whisper tiny bits of nonsense in the guise of reassurance.

I do whatever I can think of to fix this.

I’m so relieved when she eventually stops shaking, but that’s when the tears begin.

“Kennedy, sweetheart.” I gather her closer even as she fights me, moving across the bed. “Whatever that was, it’s over now.”

“It’ll never be over.” She presses her watery words to the pillow, refusing to look at me. “I can’t help it. I’m not good. Everyone leaves.”

Well, I guess her sister had bad news.

“That’s not true. I’m here, and Wilder will be back later.”

“You. You. You won’t stay.” Her words are halting and filled with pain. “You’ll take Wilder, too.”

“How is that even possible?” I ask with a tiny chuckle. “He idolises you. We both do.”

I get such a fucking shock as she swings around. It’s more the speed she turns than the way her eyes are red and swollen.

“I have something to tell you,” she whispers. “And you won’t love me then.”

40

Kennedy

PAST

UNHAPPY ENDINGS

I spend a whole forty minutes luxuriating in Roman’s shower after he’s gone. I’m sad that he is gone, and I worry about what’s waiting for him when he gets there. But a tiny, selfish part of me can only think of last night. I have never experienced being loved so thoroughly and with such sincerity. He’s silly, and he made me laugh so much my sides literally ache. But, my God, the way he loved me, it was with such sweet, urgent agony. And his expression as he’d left promised me he would come back to me.

My husband will return.

I lather that contentment into my skin in the shower. I feel safe.

I’m still wearing a dreamy sort of smile as I pad back into his hotel room, wrapped in a fluffy white towel. His room is so much better than the one April and I share. It’s spacious and has an enormous bed. And tangled sheets that, glancing at, make me blush. Plus, this room has the bonus of not housing my best friend, usual roommate, and bathroom hog. Hence the forty minutes of luxuriating.

The only downside is the fact that this isn’t my actual room, meaning my things aren’t here. It’s gone ten already, so it’s not like I’ll be sneaking through the hotel hallways before anyone wakes. My very first walk of shame, I think, stepping into my tiny dress and shimmying it up my body. There’s no way this little number could be mistaken for a daytime number. Fastening the chain at my neck, I decide to forgo the instruments of torture that are allegedly shoes and check my tiny clutch for the fourth time just to be sure fairies haven’t stolen my husband’s details.

My hot husband.

A thrill rushes through me, and I find my reflection grinning back at me this time in the dresser mirror. I thought . . . hell who knows what I thought when he asked me to marry him. I only remember answering. Yes. Yes, to marrying him. Yes, to madness. Yes, as it turned out, to the most wonderful experience of my life.

The sheet of hotel notepaper is still there, Roman Phillips’s particulars detailed in a masculine hand. I fold it back in half and slide it into the pocket of my clutch and take a minute to examine the heavy signet ring he’d slipped onto my finger in that awful chapel last night. It’s gold and engraved, but I can’t make out the initials thanks to the fancy script and the way it’s aged. Folding my fingers over it, I remember how he’d pulled it from his pinkie finger and how it was still warm from his body as he’d slid it onto mine.