Buttons and Blame (Buttons 5)

It wouldn’t work.

The second I sat down, Lars brought our dinner and filled our glasses with wine. The candles on the table were lit, and dusk settled over the fields.

Button drank her wine as she looked at me.

I cut into my food, hardly looking at her.

“This is ridiculous.” She set her glass down. “You must know that.”

“I agree. We shouldn’t be in this situation at all.”

Her eyes lit up with anger. “I already explained why I did it.”

“I never asked for a justification.”

“Then what are you looking for?”

My eyes zeroed in on her face, and I didn’t even blink. “You know exactly what I’m looking for, Button.” This was a recurring problem with my wife. I respected her fire, her drive, and determination. I loved the fact that she never gave up, no matter what odds she was up against. But her recklessness was infuriating. My patience had officially expired.

Her fingers rested on the stem of the glass, and she stared at me with the same intensity. “Spell it out for me.”

“I want an apology. And I want a change.”

“A change?”

“I want you to promise that this phase is over. That you won’t go anywhere by yourself, that you won’t interfere in things that don’t concern you, and most importantly, that you will always put your safety above everything else.”

“You can’t expect me never to go anywhere alone,” she snapped. “I want to go grocery shopping. I want—”

“And you can do those things after you inform me.”

She rolled her eyes.

I stared at her harder. “You think this is a joke?”

She stared at her glass.

“You want us to move forward?” I asked coldly. “Then this is how it has to be. You’ve risked your life enough times. You’ve hurt me enough times. This conversation needs to happen. Your cooperation needs to happen. If you’re truly sorry, this shouldn’t be a problem for you.”

“Compromising isn’t a problem,” she said. “But I can’t live my life that way, Crow. I want to take our kids to get ice cream after school…stuff like that.”

She definitely wasn’t taking our kids out alone. “For a woman so bright, I don’t understand why you don’t get it.” My ferocity was coming to the surface again, my patience disappearing. “Do you not understand what I do for a living?”

“Yes, but—”

“Do you not understand that people want to kill me?”

“I get that, but—”

“Do you not understand that I can’t have a normal life? I’ll always have to look over my shoulder. I’ll always have to be paranoid about someone trying to take away the most important thing in the world—you. I’m sorry you don’t get to have an easy life with a nobody husband. I’m sorry you can’t have the luxury of driving to the store whenever you want. But that’s how it is, Button. You married me—this is what you get. If you don’t like it, maybe we should talk about our options.”

Her eyes flared like exploding grenades. “Don’t you ever say that to me again.”

“Then don’t make me say it, Button.”

Her ferocity dimmed, but only slightly. If the table weren’t between us, she probably would have slapped me.

And I would have slapped her back. “Do you really not understand what I’m saying?”

After a long pause, she nodded. “Yes…I do.”

“Now that I’ve made my feelings perfectly clear, what do you want to do?”

She didn’t touch her food, choosing to look away from me and stare at the scenery.

“Button.”

“I heard you.”

“Then give me an answer.”

She remained silent, staring out into the night. The crickets started chirping, playing their uniform song as dusk disappeared and the darkness replaced it. Tonight, we were having salmon with greens, but our food was probably cold by now.

Like a snake, I had the utmost patience. I could sit there and stare at her all night until she finally moved. She was prey—and I was the predator. My eyes trained on her like a target.

“I am sorry, Crow…”

Finally, an apology.

“I’m not sorry for what I did, but I am sorry for hurting you.”

That was the most I was going to get out of her, so I accepted it.

“You’re right. I need to be more careful. I’m not invincible like I sometimes think I am. I forget that we live in a dangerous world because this place is so beautiful.”

Now we were headed in the right direction.

“It’s just hard for me…I’ve always had so much freedom.”

“And that freedom is how you wound up here.” She trusted a man she shouldn’t have trusted, and that was how she ended up in the hands of a madman like Bones. Under my supervision, she would never be in danger again—if she just listened to me.

Her eyes flashed with irritation. “And I don’t have a single regret.”

If Jacob hadn’t sold her, she wouldn’t have met me—and married me. It took a strong sense of love to feel that way, to suffer for so long at Bones’s mercy just to be with me. But I didn’t doubt that she meant it—and she would do it again if she had to.