Page 102 of It Must Be Fate

It took far less time to realize I was terrified and on the brink of blacking out.

Past experiences hiding from my mother’s many dangerous boyfriends made me petrified of tight spaces. I avoid them with ease so as not to trigger my claustrophobia or the inevitable ensuing panic, but faulty elevators seem drawn to me.

The first time I was stuck in one, I was lucky because Rhys was in the elevator with me.

This time he wasn’t. I cursed myself for being impatient and not waiting those few extra minutes to have him with me.

Being alone while scared out of my mind made the experience that much more terrifying.

I sat on the floor, in the corner, my legs drawn up to my chest, my eyes closed, and my hands pressed tightly over my ears to try to drown out the sensory overload. If I couldn’t see it or hear it, maybe I’d believe the elevator wasn’t there. Maybe I wouldn’t feel like the walls were closing in on me.

Try as I might, I couldn’t shut out the noise, or the lack thereof.

Not the eerie silence, which scared me just as much as the screeching brakes, and not the subsequent sound of screaming metal followed by a loudthunkabove my head.

I only had time to look up, lifting my hands a couple of cautious inches off of my ears, before a ceiling panel crashed to the floor at my feet with a decidedthump.

My scream of terror was prepped in my throat but I never got a chance to release it. I blinked and suddenly Rhys was in the cage with me.

Convinced the claustrophobia was making me hallucinate my greatest wish, I didn’t react to my husband’s impossible appearance.

Not until he gave me a familiar crooked grin set below a concerned and searching pair of eyes. His hands reached for me in the same breath, wrapping me into his arms as he whispered “hi, love” into my hair.

Later, I’d learn from Bellamy that when he learned I was stuck in the elevator, he raced up the emergency flights of stairs in one go, emerging on the eighteenth floor barely winded and storming towards the elevator, determined to destroy the machine that held me trapped. He’d pried the doors open with his bare hands and, in an impressive feat of athleticism, had jumped down the ten feet that separated where he stood from where the elevator was stuck between the two floors, landing smoothly on top of the cage. He’d kicked in the panel and dropped in next to me likeSpider-Manhimself.

He knew that when he jumped into the elevator shaft and down into the cage below, he would be trapping himself with me for as long as it took the firefighters to come rescue us. He did it without thinking twice, flinging himself off the landing before Bellamy could even put out a hand to attempt to stop him, and he held me for two hours while we waited, his presence instantly calming.

Once we were free, word of his heroics spread like wildfire. It came as no surprise to find him gracing the cover of the London Times the following morning.

That’sRhys. That’s my husband.

That was him barely a month ago.

And now we’re here, staring at each other, tipping perilously close to the edge with a much steeper drop below us and no cage there to catch our fall.

“What’s going on?” he asks.

“We need to talk.”

“Sounds ominous.” He chuckles as he lowers his big frame into his seat. When I don’t laugh in return, he freezes halfway down, his smile wiping instantly off his face. “Silver?”

There are tears in my eyes but I blink them away. If I start crying now, I’ll lose my nerve. I’ll choose the easier road, the one I hesitated between for days, agonizing over whether to confront him or live in blissful ignorance.

We’re happy. What I don’t know won’t hurt me, right?

Wrong.

I fiddle with the jewelry on my left hand. The massive engagement ring and the wedding band Rhys slid onto my finger ten years ago. He asks me a question but I don’t hear him over the roaring in my ears.

I slide the rings off and set them on the table.

The sound of them quietly touching the wooden surface echoes as loudly as a gunshot in the tense, deafening silence that hangs between us.

The low-ball glass in Rhys’s hand freezes halfway to his mouth. His brows draw together, his gaze remaining fixed unflinchingly on the rings. He’s sitting now, which is good. I couldn’t do this if he loomed over me, intimidating me with his presence.

So slowly it’s almost unbearable, he sets the glass down without taking a drink. The confused look on his face is only overshadowed by the swiftly darkening color of his eyes.

He’s never quick to anger, my husband.

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