She was allowing herself to feel it now.
“I was wrong. There is no excuse. The reasons don’t matter. I was wrong, and I’m very sorry that I hurt you. I’m sorry that I hurt April. That I had any part in hurting Isabella. I am sorry.” His words were raw, genuine. But she couldn’t find it in herself to care.
“It changes nothing. What good does sorry do? Can you give me back the last two years of my life? Can you give me back my heart? I am so tired of you holding my heart. I am a fool. I am the fool who has loved you for the last fifteen years, and you never deserved that.”
“I feel you’re probably right. That I never have deserved for you to have any feelings for me at all.”
“I am right,” she said, conviction burning in her words. “You didn’t deserve my father’s affection, either. The world has been kind to you. I imagine the first time anything tragic ever happened to you was when that other car crossed the centerline in Italy.”
He closed the space between them, reaching down to where she was on the bed, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her up against him. His dark eyes blazed down into hers. “I deserve all of that,” he said, his voice low, soft. “All of that and more. Give me your anger, agape. Let it out.”
“I hate you,” she hissed. “As much as I ever thought I loved you. How dare you do this to me? I did nothing but live my life trying to please people. I was the daughter that my father required. I took care of him after my mother died. I never let him see how I used to cry. I never let him know how badly I missed having a woman in my life. I never let him know how lost I was all through junior high and high school. How lonely I was. Because I didn’t want him to worry. I agreed to marry you for his peace of mind, even though I knew you didn’t love me.” She took a gasping breath. “And I never let you know how much it killed me when you went out with other women. I simply accepted what you handed to me. I licked the crumbs that you threw me off the floor, because I am such a sad, pathetic creature. But I am not your creature anymore.”
He reached up, sifting his fingers through her hair, holding her head steady, staring down at her. “You cannot possibly hate me more than I hate myself.”
“Of course I can,” she spat. “I wish you could feel this.” She pressed her hand to her chest. “I wish you could feel exactly what you did to me.”
Tears burned her eyes, her heart pounding, her entire body trembling. She felt desperate. Desperate to make him understand exactly what she felt inside. Her heart was like shattered glass, the shards working their way into her skin, burning, aching.
She wanted him to feel this. She wanted him to understand. This man who had always seemed so charmed to her. So together. Who seemed to get everything he wanted from life, who seemed to be denied nothing.
Who made her want with every deep, desperate part of herself. Who made her want him even now as she burned incandescent with rage over his actions.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, tilting her face upward as she rose up onto her tiptoes and claimed his mouth with hers. She kissed him with all the anger inside her. She poured all the hatred, all the rage that she had just professed straight into him. Hoping it would burn all the way down. Hoping it would destroy him slowly the way that it was destroying her.
She sobbed helplessly even as she parted her lips, thrusting her tongue deep into his mouth. She hated herself. Almost as much as she hated him. For wanting him even now. For needing to be comforted by him even though he was the one who had caused her all of this pain.
But if it was so easy to turn it off, she would have done it a long time ago. If she could simply decide that she didn’t want him, decide that she didn’t love him, things would be so much easier.
If she could transfer it all to him, exorcise it from her body, everything would be simpler. She would be free. Finally. Instead of feeling like there were chains wrapping around her wrists, around her neck, pulling ever tighter. Binding her to a man who could never give her what she needed. To a love that could never give back to her.
She moved her hands, curled her fingers into the fabric of his shirt, holding tightly to him as she continued to kiss him. He pulled her forward, taking a step back, bringing them up against the wall. Then he flipped their positions, her shoulder blades pressing into the wood paneling.
She slid her hands down to his chest, felt his raging heartbeat beneath her fingertips. She couldn’t stand these clothes between them. Couldn’t stand secrets between them. Couldn’t stand lies, even lies that were lost in the dark spaces in his mind.
She couldn’t erase those other things. But the clothes, she could do something about.
She tore his shirt from his body, followed by his jeans, and all the while, he made quick work of what she was wearing. Soon they were both naked, pressed skin to skin, as though they were trying desperately to connect. Trying desperately to get beneath everything between them so they could find some way back to each other.
His desperation matched her own. His pain did, too.
Whatever Leon might have felt about any of this at another time, it hurt him now. That didn’t absolve him. Not even close. But it satisfied her. Deep down in the meanest part of her, the part of her that wanted him to hurt, too.
She pulled her mouth away from his, angling her head and scraping her teeth along the side of his neck. He growled, grabbing hold of her chin and straightening her head, leaning in and kissing her before nipping her lower lip.
She returned the favor. Sinking her teeth into his skin before soothing him with her tongue. He moved his hands down her body then, cupping her bottom, pressed her tightly up against his hardened length. She arched into him, seeking oblivion. Seeking satisfaction.
He shifted, moving his hand down, grabbing hold of her thigh and lifting it up over his hip before testing her readiness. Then he thrust up deep inside her, both of them groaning as he filled her.
It wasn’t a gentle coming together. It was fiery. Intense. It was rage, it was need. It was a kind of broken hopelessness that wound its way through the air around them, impressed itself on their skin.
When all was said and done they had something to contend with that neither of them knew how to handle. Once the desire between them was extinguished they would have to find a way to move on from this moment. Find a way to handle the child that was now in their life, in the center of their marriage.
Find a way to either repair this betrayal or go their separate ways.
But right now, there was this. Right now, they had each other. And she clung to him. Held tightly to his shoulders as he pushed her to the heights. As he shattered her completely beneath his touch.
She arched against him, crying out as she found her release, and he let out a hoarse growl as he found his own, spilling himself deep inside her.
And when it was over, when her heart rate returned to normal, she released her hold on him, sliding down the wall and sinking to the floor, allowing misery to overtake her completely.
* * *
Leon found himself dropping to his knees next to Rose. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her against him as she wept. She cried because of him. Because of the pain that he had heaped upon her. He held her, even though he had no right. Even though she would be better off with a stranger.
It seemed inappropriate to try and heal a wound that he had caused. Although perhaps there was no one else who could do it. Perhaps it was right really. To pour himself into atoning for his sins.
“I’m sorry,” he said, the words feeling frustratingly hollow.
He wished he knew everything he was sorry for. He wished he could give them more weight by being aware of each and every transgression he’d committed against