Page 25 of Push

He scowled but ignored the taunt and continued with his bullcrap version of what happened. “There was a cake, but she wouldn’t let me have a piece until she’d taken about a thousand photos.”

“A crucial detail.”

“I worked through lunch yesterday. I would’ve pushed my grandma out of the way to stuff some of that cake in my mouth. I was running on fumes by six o’clock.”

“And booze.”

Toby sighed, but he didn’t deny it. “Drinking was a stupid decision. Ian got bored after an hour and started egging everyone on to do some whiskey shots. It was like the first year of dental school all over again, except I’m thirty now and even worse at handling booze than I was back then. I spent a good part of the night sitting on the bathroom floor trying not to puke my guts up.”

“And Kayleigh?”

He shrugged. “She hovered around me all night. I thought she was worried because I was a bit drunk… But… When Iwas getting ready to leave, she started getting…handsy. She was talking about, um… about how…” His gaze lifted, pleading with me to let him off the hook without saying more. “Gwen, you’ll shish kabob me right through the balls.”

I folded my arms. “All the more reason to say it.” Finally, the truth was coming out.

He raked a hand through his damp hair, stalling for more time. My foot tapped. He wasn’t weaseling out of this.

“Kayleigh reminded me how unhappy I’ve been the last few months,” he said. “And about how you and I—Christ, Gwen—I’m not blaming you. I know I’m a huge part of it too, but you know things haven’t been good between us.”

The betrayal stung. Toby had toldKayleighthings hadn’t been good between us. The idea of him sharing our most intimate problems cut even deeper than his confession of kissing her.

I stared at him in disbelief. “You talked about our relationship with some nothing twenty-one-year-old who works for you?”

Toby grimaced, but again, there was no denial. “I’m stuck with Kayleigh in a treatment room for hours every day. She started noticing that I came to work tired sometimes. She asked questions I shouldn’t have answered.” He shook his head, eyes on the ceiling as if he were questioning the universe why he’d acted so stupidly. “I think I grumbled once or twice about spending the night on the couch. I guess she joined the dots.”

My life had already been ripped out from under my feet, and now I was being buried alive underneath the shattered ruins of what was left. There was a chasm in my chest. I couldn’t speak. The shock stole the last bit of strength keeping me upright, and I sagged against the wall, exhausted.

Toby’s mouth speared down. He pushed away from the door, ready to come to me, but I held up my palm to stop him. I didn’t want him to wrap me in one of the hugs that used to make everything better. I didn’t want him anywhere near me.

He eased back a step. “Gwen, I’m so sorry. For everything. Telling Kayleigh what I did. Going to the party. Not being there for you. Kissing her. If it means anything, I stopped the kiss almost as quickly as I started it. I hated it. All I could think about was how much I missed you—us—and what we used to have.”

Even when I thought I couldn’t plummet any lower, I was wrong. I tumbled further down into the cold black pit of his betrayal. “What weusedto have?”

“Gwen, you’re not…you…anymore.” He sighed. “You haven’t been for a long time.”

“Of course I’m not the same! I’m running this whole household on my own with no help! You live at work! I have a baby!” The laugh that barked out of me was bitter. “You can’t seriously be trying to blame me for what you did—”

“Never. And it’s not because of Noah, either. I know we didn’t plan on him coming so soon, but he’s here, and he’s beyond our wildest dreams.” Toby paused, his brain ticking over what he should say next. “Something changed between us before that. You don’t like to talk about it…but honestly…nothing’s been right since you lost your job.”

His words were another sharp sting. Wenevertalked about that day. The way my career ended after a spineless group of men cowered behind emails scorched all the way to my soul. Firing me over my pregnancy had been an excuse—a more palatable smokescreen than the fact they were accepting bribes from the mob, I suppose. I’d walked out of that building with my integrity intact but nothing else.

“At first, I thought it was the money you were worried about,” Toby continued. “We’ve got the trust, but I know the clinic isn’t turning the profit we thought it would be by now. You started pulling away, and I started putting in more hours…taking on more patients…” He sighed. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Prioritizing your twenty-one-year-old assistant seems like the logical choice.”

Toby’s shoulders sagged. “How badly have I screwed this up?”

“It’s all the way screwed up.”

“I can fix it.” He flashed me a lopsided smile. “I’m not good for much, but you know I’m good at fixing things.”

My first instinct was to softly urge him to stop putting himself down. He was terrific at so many things, and it had never mattered to me that he wasn’t the smartest man in the room. He had a big heart. A contagious smile. He kept trying when anyone else would’ve given up, and he was loyal almost to a fault…except when it came to our marriage.

I stood, silent, hoping I could dig out a flicker of hope from the dark hollow in my chest. But beyond the anger, past the sting of his betrayal, there was nothing.

“I can’t do this,” I said. “We were good together once upon a time, but I won’t be second best to that girl or anyone else.”

“You’re not. You never were—”

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