Page 127 of The Truth About Love

And for what?

To be the hero for a woman who has been lying to me all along?

“I was scared,” Cara cries, seemingly having realised the game is up. “It was a one-night stand and I didn’t know what to do. I knew you were going to ask for a divorce that night and I panicked. You were always such a good daddy to Oscar, you loved him so much and in the months that he was alive, you didn’t even seem to resent me that much. We were almost like a real family, you know? And I knew that you’d love this baby too, that you’d do the right thing and stand by us. So, I made you think that we’d slept together.”

She screams as my fist sails into the wall, plaster exploding around the room.

I can’t breathe.

In all my life, I’ve never felt fury like this. It’s the kind of anger that leads to murder or world wars. The kind that makes you feel as if your head will explode from the impossible pressure in your skull.

She was going to trick me into raising a child that wasn’t mine.

I’d have given up the kind of love that only comes once in a dozen lifetimes for a liar and a son that doesn’t belong to me.

I shake my head, my tight fists hot and vibrating at my sides, blood trickling down my knuckles from punching the wall. I need to get out of here.

“You can’t leave me!” she shrieks as I turn and start to head out the room. “You’d really leave me alone with a baby? That’s not you, Auden. You’d never do that.”

“I’ll have my lawyer draw up the divorce papers,” I say, my voice cold, not bothering to turn around to face her.

I don’t ever want to look at her again.

“I’ll contest it.” She runs in front of me and tries to block the doorway with her body.

“Like fuck you will,” I growl and stare her down with a glare so intimidating, she visibly shrinks in size.

She takes a tiny step to the side, but it’s enough for me to get past her. Her sobs are growing uncontrollable, her wailing shrill and ear-piercing.

“Please don’t do this to me,” she begs.

“You’ve done this to yourself.”

I can still her hear crying as I wait for the elevator to take me down to the lobby, but I feel nothing. Even when the smashing sounds begin and she undoubtedly starts destroying my things, I don’t even blink.

There’s nothing in that apartment that I can’t replace anyway.

I’ve only ever had one thing that I considered irreplaceable and I returned it to the person who gave it to me months ago.

I can only hope that Summer-Raine will forgive me enough to let me have it back.

Chapter Thirty-four

Summer-Raine

He wrote a book about us.

It was released well over a year ago, while I was still in rehab, I think. And I don’t know how I’ve gone so long without knowing it existed because apparently, it’s quite the global success. I guess that’s how he made his money. I’ve even heard that it’s being made into a movie.

The Sun After Summer Rain,that’s what he called it.

He wrote our love story and shared it with the world. He changed our names, of course, but every magic moment on my balcony, every time he brushed my hair behind my ear or recited poetry with me, he wrote it all in that book.

It’s unmistakably the story of us.

But he gave us a happy ending in those pages that we didn’t get in real life.

I’ve read it three times now and I still sob like a damn baby every time, wishing that it was us who got the happily ever after instead of Sienna and Andrew from the book.

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