The Wife He Couldn't Forget

“I was thinking we deserved a second chance at making our marriage work,” she said with a betraying wobble in her voice. “We still love one another, Xander. This past month has proven that to me as much as to you, hasn’t it? Haven’t we been great together? Wasn’t last night—?”

“Don’t,” he said, slicing the air in front of him with the flat of his hand. “Don’t bring last night into this. Do you have any idea how I feel right now?”

She shook her head again, unable to speak.

“I’m lost. I feel about as adrift as I did when I woke up at the hospital and found myself surrounded by people I didn’t know and too weak to move myself without assistance. Except it’s worse somehow because I should have been able to trust you.”

Olivia moaned softly as the pain of his words struck home. He was right. She’d owed him the truth from the start.

“Why were we separated?” he asked, coming to stand in front of her.

Olivia’s legs trembled, and she struggled to form the words in her mind into a sentence.

“We had begun to grow apart. I guess the gloss of our first year of marriage wore off pretty quickly. A lot of that is my fault. I made decisions about us that I should have included you in. Getting the dog was one of them.”

She took in a deep breath, preparing to tell him about Parker, but an icy-cold fist clutched her heart and she couldn’t push the words from inside her. Not yet, anyway. “We both got caught up in our separate lives and forgot how to be a couple. You spent a lot of time at work—initially, before you made partner, you put the time in so you could show them how good you were at your job. After that, you were proving you were worthy of the honor.

“I...I was unreasonable about it. I resented the additional hours you spent there, even though I knew you were doing it for us. We wanted to finish the house off quickly, and it was a juggle for us both. I was still teaching during the day and painting at night. When you were home, you expected me to be with you, but I had my own work to do, as well. We allowed ourselves to be at cross-purposes for too long, and we forgot how to be a couple.”

What she said wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth, either. Their marriage hadn’t been perfect before Parker had been born, but she’d ignored the cracks that had begun to show—plastering them up with her own optimism that as long as she stuck to her plan, everything would be okay.

But it wasn’t okay. Not then and not now. Their marriage hadn’t truly ended until they’d lost Parker—but the problems that had been in place all along were the reason why they hadn’t been able to pull together after the death of their son. They’d gotten too used to going on their separate paths to find their way back to each other even in their time of greatest need.

“You don’t exactly paint me in a very good light,” Xander said. “I don’t like the sound of who I was.”

She stepped closer to him and laid one hand on his arm, taking heart when he didn’t immediately shake her off. “Xander, it went both ways. I wasn’t the easiest person to live with, either. We both had a lot of learning to do. We met, fell in love and got married so fast. Maybe we never really learned to be a couple like we should have. But I still love you. I’ve always loved you. Can you blame me for wanting to give us another chance?”

* * *

Xander looked at her and felt as if she’d become a stranger. She’d withheld something as important as their separation from him. A separation that had been on the brink of becoming permanent, according to the conversation he’d overheard.

And worse than the doubt and suspicion were the questions that now filled his mind. Why had he left her? Was there more to it than the growing apart? Was she keeping something else from him?

One thing she said, though, pushed past his anger and confusion to resonate inside him. She loved him; and he knew he loved her. Maybe that’s why her betrayal in keeping the truth from him made him so angry. Was this the reason behind the disconnect he’d been feeling all this time?

Her fingers tightened on his arm. “Xander? Please, say something.”

“I need to think.”

He pulled away and left the room. Thundered down the stairs and out the front door. He vaguely heard Olivia’s voice crying out behind him, but he daren’t stop. He needed space and he needed time to himself. He powered down the hill, anger giving him a strength, coordination and speed he’d been lacking the past few weeks. His footsteps grew faster, until he broke into a jog. It wasn’t long before a light sweat built up on his body and his lungs and muscles were screaming, reminding him that he was horribly out of condition and that if he kept this up, he’d likely be on bed rest again before he knew it.