The Loyal Groom (Groom 1)

All these years and he can still make me blush. He lets out a deep chuckle as he holds up the leggings, and I allow him to help me put them on. Once I’m decent, he opens the door, and I realize we’re already at the airport. A private plane is just ahead on the tarmac waiting for us. He takes my hand and leads me toward it, and I can’t believe this is our life now.

“We should purchase our own plane,” Darian suggests like it’s an end table and he can go and pick one up or order it and it will be here tomorrow. I suppose he could, and the thought makes me burst into laughter.

“Did you think you’d ever say those words?”

“No.” This time he laughs with me.

“I don’t think we need our own plane. We don’t really travel much.” I shrug. Darian is too busy for vacations.

The hand holding mine tightens, and I know my comment was a little catty. He stops walking and turns toward me. He looks at me for a long moment before he leans down and slowly kisses me, not caring who sees. His hand goes to my hair, and he tilts my head back as he deepens it. He doesn't stop until we’re both breathless, and I can feel how much he needs me.

I really hope there’s a bed on this plane.

“I’ll do better,” he promises as he leans down and grabs my purse. I hadn't realized I dropped it when he was kissing me.

I nod because I hope he’s right, and I hope things get better.

We walk up the stairs of the plane, and Darian takes me to paradise in more ways than one.

Chapter 12

Darian

Two months later…

It’s late when I get home, and Rosy hasn’t answered my texts. The house is dark, but it’s not unusual for me to get home by the time she’s already in bed. I think about the ways I’m going to wake her up and then all the ways I’m going to make love to her as I open the front door and drop my briefcase.

Something catches the corner of my eye on the way to the stairs, and I stop when I see a letter on the table nearby. As I walk closer I see my name written in Rosy’s beautiful handwriting, but I’m confused as to why she would leave this here.

With a shrug, I open it up and scan the single page. My stomach drops, and my blood runs cold as I read it again and again.

* * *

Dear Darian,

I love you, but I can’t do this anymore. I thought our trip to the islands was a turning point for us, but two months later we’re back in the same old routine. I don’t know how to fix this on my own, but I know that I can’t sit in that big empty house waiting for you to come home every night.

I’m going to stay at Lindsey’s for a few days to clear my head. Please give me the space I need. I’ll come home, I promise. I just need to figure out…I don’t know, everything.

Rosy

* * *

Before I know what’s happening my knees give out, and I fall to the floor. How can this be happening? The weeks since we went away for her birthday all blur together. I’ve had more demands at work, people pulling me in different directions, and no time left over for home.

How could I have been so stupid? How could I have let the best thing in my life fall to the bottom of the pile? How could I leave her as leftovers? I was so busy trying to build a life, I wasn’t living it. There’s one thing that’s clear to me in this moment, now more than ever before. We don’t do space, and being apart is what got us here in the first place.

Pushing up off the floor, I rush to the garage and grab the keys to my old truck. I break a few traffic laws on my way across town, but when I pull up to Lindsey’s building, I toss the keys to the doorman, who nods like he was expecting me.

The elevator to the penthouse is slower than normal, and I wonder if it’s because I’m anxious to get to the top and it’s torturing me. When the doors open to the top floor, I walk out to the small entrance with her front door straight ahead. I look at the keys in my hand and curse myself for not bringing the other set that has a key to her place. So I do what any normal husband would at this moment: I begin to beat on the door with my fists while kicking it in and screaming out my wife’s name like a lunatic.