God, it hurts so bad. My heart. Oh, my heart. I never knew I could ache like this.
“So what? I’m just supposed to let you go?” he questions, sounding devastated.
I fight back a sob along with the urge to fall to my knees. I don’t want him to let me go. And it’s in this moment I realize I’ve never wanted or loved a man as much as I do Winston. He’s everything to me, and yet I have to let him go. I can’t be the reason he loses everything he’s ever worked for.
“You made your choice, and even though I wish things were different, I can’t live a lie alongside you,” I murmur, recalling his desperate pleas for us to be together in secret. His last-ditch effort to make something out of us that could never be.
“I love you, Cece.”
“I know.” My head drops forward, and it takes everything in me not to tell him how much I love him too. He starts to move toward me, but I step back out of reach. If he touches me, it’ll be the last straw. I won’t be able to hold my ground any longer. “Please just go.”
“This isn’t over,” he whispers before turning and walking away.
“Come on,” Mia tells me as I watch him get into his SUV, and she wraps her arm around my waist then turns me back toward the house. Once we’re inside, she leads me to the couch in the sunroom and takes a seat next to me, grabbing my hand while Chaz and Talon head out the back door.
“What the hell was that?” Mom asks, sitting down on the other side of me.
“Mom.” Mia shakes her head, telling her without words to be quiet while I start to tremble.
“What? I want to know who that man was and what that was all about.”
“He’s no one,” I lie, leaning forward and resting my face in my hands. “Can we just have breakfast and forget what just happened?”
“No, we can’t,” Mom snaps. “For months, you kept your separation from Mike to yourself, thinking you could handle it all on your own, and look what happened. Now is not the time to hide things.”
“Mom, please stop. You’re not helping things right now. Why don’t you take a moment to go get dressed?” Mia comes to my rescue.
“Fine.” Mom stands up and starts to storm out of the room, but pauses to add, “But this conversation is not over, not by a long shot.”
I roll my eyes at her dramatics as Mia rubs my back, then she asks quietly, “Are you okay?”
“I’m in love with a married man.” I pull my hands from my face. “I’m not okay. I’m an idiot. I don’t even know how it happened, but it did, and… and God, I’m so stupid.”
And I want him to come back. Make him come back!
“You’re not stupid, and he obviously feels the same about you,” she tells me, sounding conflicted. “He said he’s been separated from his wife for years. Why won’t he just divorce her if they aren’t together?”
“They have a prenup. If he cheats or is the one to ask for the divorce, she gets everything, his money, his business, everything. I guess after ten years, it becomes null and void, but I’m not going to live a life where we’re together only behind closed doors for the next three years, and the rest of the time I have to pretend like he doesn’t mean anything to me.” It would be too hard. There’s no way I could hide my feelings for him. They’re just too strong.
“Wow, that’s… that’s….”
“Fucked up. I already know, and there is no way I’m going to subject my girls to that kind of drama, not when I would be either lying to them or asking them to lie so the truth didn’t get out.”
“I can’t believe he’d ask you to do that.”
He didn’t, not exactly. Not about the kids. “He didn’t ask me, but I’m not an idiot. I know that’s exactly what would happen, and his wife is crazy, like really crazy. She shows up wherever he is and is always making a point to start drama at the restaurant. I don’t even want to imagine what she would do if she found out about us.” I shake my head. “I’m just done. It’s time for me to stop thinking with my heart and to start using my head.”
“I’m sorry. I wish you weren’t dealing with this on top of everything else,” she tells me, and I lean into her.
“I’ll be okay. As long as my girls are happy, nothing else really matters.” I’ll just have to learn to live with half my heart missing.
“Still, you know I’m always here if you need to talk, and I’ll always have your back.”