Page 34 of Bad Husband

Blinking slowly, her arms wrap around my neck bringing our chests together. “What about you?”

Me? I’ve been in love with Madison since I first laid eyes on her, remember?

But back to the moment. Look at her. She’s wanting to know if I love her too. But you know me by now and I say, “I love me too. I’m a loveable guy.”

You see that glare but the smirk on her face? She loves my witty personality. “Just tell me you love me, you pussy.”

I don’t, yet, and raise her thigh higher up on my hip to enter her. My mouth moves to her shoulder and then neck, kissing my way to her mouth. “You’re so dirty, baby,” I growl against her jaw before my lips find hers. I kiss her once, twice, three times and then say, “I love it… and I love you. Since the day I first saw you wearing that Catwoman costume, I knew I was in love.”

“WE HAVE A conciliation conference tomorrow at one,” she tells me, righting her nightgown.

Pulling on a pair of shorts, I sigh, standing at the end of the bed staring at her. “Madison, I can’t just take off in the middle of the day again. I have a job to do, you know.”

I’m trying here, I really am, but how can she think I can just stop working and deal with all this shit when I own the business. If I don’t do these things, Brantley has to, and building custom homes isn’t a one-man job. She knows this. She understood it when I started the business, but now it’s all of a sudden changed?

“And what the hell is a conciliation conference?”

“The state requires you to go when you file for divorce. It’s to work out a parenting plan and custody I assume.”

I do not like the words parenting plan and custody. In fact, I fucking hate them. I heard those words a lot growing up and swore I would never make my kids go through it. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, I face the wall, afraid to look at her because I know what’s coming. Maybe her reasoning, but more so, the realization that this could end the way I don’t want it to. Could I really be a weekend dad?

My heart pounds in my chest as I stare at the wall. “If you were serious about this, why didn’t you hire a lawyer?”

Her voice is quiet, the bed dipping beside me as she moves to sit next to me. “I thought we could work everything out ourselves and it’d be less messy for the boys.”

“Is that so? And how do you suppose we do that if you’re not willing to talk to me?”

“Iamtalking to you. Right now, I’m talking to you, and I talked to you last night. You hear what you want, Ridley.”

That’s untrue and unjustified as far as I’m concerned. I don’t believe that for one second. I’ve heard what she’s saying to me. Remember? She said she didn’t love me.Howcould I have forgotten that?

Swallowing over the insanely huge lump in my throat, my brow pulls together, and I twist to face her. Raising my hand, I cup her cheek hoping maybe that might convince her. “How can you honestly say you suddenly don’t love me anymore. It doesn’t just happen. Just five minutes ago, what was that? Sure seemed like you loved me then?”

I sound so fucking pathetic I want to punch myself in the throat so I can’t talk anymore.

“That’sallyou heard last night?” She stares at me, ignoring my comments, the sadness returning. Her lashes flutter, tears welling up. “Us growing apart…. It didn’t just happen, Ridley. It’s been going on for years, and you’re blind if you can’t see it. The busier you get at work, the more you ignore what’s happening here. I don’t even know you anymore. It’s like you’re a roommate. Sure, you provide for us, but weneversee you. You leave the house before the boys are up and by the time you get home, they’re either in bed or supposed to be in bed. Up until the last two days, I bet you hadn’t seen them for more than five hours. It’s not just me, how do you think it makes them feel?”

She’s right on that one, but still, I work. I can’t help that I’m trying to provide for them.

My stare catches her wedding ring she finally has back on, and I wonder if she takes it off when she leaves the house. “Madison, I meant what I said when I gave you that ring. I did. And the way I see it, I have two options here. I can walk away, but I don’t think it’s what you want. Or I can stay and show you I can be different.”

I can see it in her eyes, what I’m saying, the way I’m saying it, she’s thinking about dropping all of this because deep down, this isn’t something she would do. The Madison I know wouldn’t resort to something so drastic, but then again, do I know this woman at all?

“You should move out,” she says, delivering the earth-shattering blow straight to my heart.

I stand up immediately, my temper rising. Remember when I said I didn’t yell? I didn’t until now. “What the fuck? No, I’m not because this is my house. This is fucking bullshit, and you know it. I’m trying here, and you’re giving me nothing and acting like it’s already over between us before I have a say in any of it.”

“That’s because it is over. You just refuse to see it,” she retorts with cold sarcasm.

“Maybe I didn’t see it, before… but I see it now. I seeyou. And I’m not giving up without a fight.”

She says nothing.

“I think I should get a chance to at least prove to you I can fix this.”

She tosses a pillow at my face. “Sleep on the couch.”

“MAYBE SHE’S SLEEPING with someone else?” Brantley suggests, and I want to punch him for saying that because the pain it sends to my heart makes that heart attack feeling return.

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