Page 10 of The Breaking Point

He takes a long breath. “I was engaged. To the woman I loved. We were walking down to the pub, just a normal day, cold pint, fish and chips, you know. Laughing about something I can’t even remember now. And then she just… dropped.”

My breath catches. The bar noise around us dims.

“I got her to the hospital as fast as I could. But it was an aneurysm. Sudden.. By the time we got there, she was gone.” He doesn’t blink. “Just like that.”

My anger deflates, replaced by something softer. Sadder. “I’m sorry,” I say quietly.

“She was like you, you know.” His voice is steady, but there’s an undercurrent of something sharp and aching. “Fierce. Loyal. Wouldn’t let me get away with a damn thing. Called me out every time I got too smug.”

I smile faintly. I can picture her. Some whip-smart British woman with dark humour and a spine of steel. “Sounds like a handful.”

“She was. But the best kind.”

He glances at me again. “So, if that prick cheated on you, then he’s a bigger idiot than I thought.”

I look down at my glass. The whisky’s almost gone, and I don’t remember drinking most of it. My chest feels hollow and full all at once.

“Yeah,” I whisper. “He really is.”

Chapter 5

Grant made me feel a tiny bit better. At least for a little while.

But the second that stupid fucking elevator music starts playing again, it all floods back and I’m pissed off all over again. I can’t do this; pretend I didn’t just find out my husband cheated on me a decade ago with someone who probably spells her name with a heart over the ‘i.’

I can’t stay here with him. I’ll go crazy.

Quinn lives in Pasadena near Ellington Field Base. That’s where her husband is stationed when he’s not somewhere in the middle of the fucking desert dodging bullets and sleeping in tents. I’ve been there before for wine nights and the days the house felt too empty, when Aiden would take the boys for their monthly boys’ trip. It’s not so far that I won’t run into anyone from school or from my work. But I just won’t leave the house.

I step inside using the keycard and see Aiden on the sofa. His head jerks up the second I cross the threshold.

“I can’t stay here,” I say.

He jumps up, “We’ll go home.”

“No, we can’t go home because the boys aren’t babies and they’ll figure out somethings wrong when mommy starts throwing daddy’s shit out the window.”

He tries to interject, “Kate…”

But I don’t let him, “I can’t even look at you right now,” I say, my voice flat. “So, here’s what’s gonna happen. I’m going to stay with Quinn for the week. You can either stay here or go to Bora Bora for all I care. Just don’t be seen by anyone we know. Last thing we need is the kids finding out.”

He blinks, clearly thrown. “Finding out about what?”

I stare at him. Really stare. Then I say it. “The fact that their parents cancelled their anniversary trip because their father fucked a stripper.”

He actually recoils. I’ve never been so blunt before.

“Jesus, Kate,” he mutters, like I’ve punched him.

Good. I walk over and grab my packed suitcase, zipping up the chain.

“We’ll conference call the boys in a few days,” I say. “Tell them there’s no cell reception. Meanwhile, I’ll text to make sure they’re okay.”

He’s quiet for a beat, and then he says it. “Are we okay?”

I stop, fingers gripping the handle of the suitcase.

I look at him. The man I married. The man I built a life with. The man who used to make me laugh so hard I cried, who held me when I thought I was dying after Alex’s c-section, who made me feel like the only girl in his world.

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