Love Me Nots (Jasper Falls 3)

She could say the most cutting things to him. At first, he had no clue where her resentment came from. But soon, after rolling back some of the security footage and catching her in action, he understood. Tara was using him, and the moment he stopped providing daily incentives in the form of collateral assets, she stopped pretending to like him.

He now believed she never loved him at all. The most unfortunate part… He loved her.

At one time, he believed she hung the moon and stars. When she looked up at him with such trust and whispered about how happy she was, he believed her. He was honored to provide for such an appreciative woman. He valued her opinions and found her interest in his work refreshing, as if he could finally share the load with someone. But her interest was more of an investigative nature, one where she was constantly measuring his worth while sharpening her claws for the kill.

By their one-year anniversary, her mask had slipped. The honeymoon was over. But he loved her and still wanted to save their marriage, so he tried harder, doing whatever it took to please her. But there was no end to her greed. She was a bottomless pit of expectation.

When he eventually cut her off, sometime after the insistence for a third streamline jet, she turned vicious. Her cruel words knew no bounds, and she would attack every exposed inch of vulnerability she could find. Nothing was off limits. She’d insult his work ethic, his appearance, his virility, his performance, and even his success, using his deepest secrets and fears to break him in ways only a trusted wife could manage.

But she didn’t break him. She scarred him and gave him a decent mind fuck, screwing with his confidence so much that when it came time to fucking his own wife, even the act itself left him feeling like less of a man.

“We’re over,” he eventually told her one night when he’d been unable to get hard. “I can’t do this anymore, Tara. You don’t want me.”

Her concern had shifted, morphing from worry to rage, then into something cold. “You don’t get to decide when we’re over, Gage. This is a marriage. It’s a partnership.”

“Tara,” he’d pleaded with her, exhausted with the charade. “We have to call it. This hasn’t been a healthy marriage for some time. Don’t you want to be happy?”

She scoffed. “I’d be happy if you’d do as I ask. But you only care about yourself!”

“That’s not true. I love you, but sometimes, I wonder if you love me.”

Then she shifted her argument, bringing up some insecurity from her past, and shaping into vulnerable tenderness. “Don’t do this, Gage. Don’t leave me. I do love you. Remember how it used to be, how hot we were? Remember Hayman Island and how we never left the bed?”

She would actually convince him a spark still burned in the fallen embers, but her betrayals and mental abuse ran too deep. When he’d recall her cutting words, he’d lose his passion and pull back, and the true her would show up.

“Jesus, what’s wrong with you? Maybe you don’t even like women… You’re just better alone. You don’t know how to have a family that’s why God never gave you one. You’re cold…”

Opening a new text to his attorney, he instructed him to go at her hard and end this once and for all. He just wanted to cut away this part of his life, like the cancer it was. But Tara knew how much he was worth, and she wouldn’t leave without her fair share.

“So now you’re fucking some little skank from Chicago,” she’d accused, the moment she heard from her sister. “I always knew you were a cheater.”

“Tara, there’s only one adulterer in this marriage and it isn’t me. Do you really want to bring fidelity into it? We’ve been sleeping in sperate rooms since I filed.”

“I’m throwing all your shit out. This is my house! Do you hear me? Mine! Go live with your little whore!”

There had been no getting through to her. It didn’t matter that he’d been trying to finalize the divorce for months and completely transparent with her about his intentions. Nor did it matter that she’d cheated on him God knew how many times. All that mattered was that they negotiate this nightmare to the end, so he could move on.

Pulling away from the property, he drove back to the motel. Jasper Falls was growing on him. Despite its redneck feel and almost hostile welcome, there was something charming about it. The older locals seemed reluctant for the revitalization, but the younger generation accepted the inevitable. Except the lumberjacks.

Gage knew there would be no going against a setup like McCullough Lumber. The company was generations old and the lifeblood of the entire town. He’d have to come to some sort of deal with them, if he truly planned to build here, but it would be up to the team to honor those terms. Sometimes he felt like the only honest person doing business anymore.