Page 37 of Devlin

Devlin swallowed against the tightness in his throat. “No, no, that’s not what I’m saying.” He rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck, needing to relieve the mounting tension threatening to strangle him. “I was home alone… drinking like I had been every day and night, when she showed up. I knew her. She was oneof our support people. She and her boyfriend had a fight after drinking at a party, and he locked her out of their apartment. She was drunk, crying, pissed off, and because he lived in the same complex, she came over and banged on the door. She asked if she could sleep on our couch until she sobered up enough to drive.”

Mia’s face was a storm of emotions—disbelief, fury, and something far deeper that made his stomach twist. She had never been able to hide what she felt, and seeing it now was like a punch to the gut.

Her voice was quiet and measured, but the ice in her tone was worse than her shouting. “So you let her in. But she was clearly in our bed, not on the couch.”

He nodded. “Yes, butIslept on the couch.”

He hadn't expected Mia to jump for joy, but her tight jaw and thinly pressed lips made him even more nervous. "And before you ask, she had her clothes on underneath the covers. She wore a strapless dress when she’d been out with her boyfriend, but she was dressed the whole time in our apartment."

Her brow lifted, skepticism clear.

"The following morning, I woke up and reeked. I stank of unwashed clothes and an unwashed body due to too much fucking alcohol.” He exhaled. “I was a fucking mess, Mia.”

Her expression didn’t soften. If anything, she looked even more disgusted.

He pushed forward, needing her to hear it all. “I slipped through the bedroom to see she was still sleeping and went into the bathroom. I looked in the mirror and knew it was time to straighten up. So I got in the shower and washed off. I couldn’t remember what day it was, but I knew you were coming home soon."

“Soon, as in you expected me to walk through the door and see that woman, appearing naked, in our bed?”

“No, absolutely not. Honest to God, I didn't know that was the day you were coming home. I mean, I knew you would be home sooner rather than later. But as I was in the shower, the alcohol finally leaving my system, I knew that you and I needed to have a heartfelt and probably painful conversation. I could not let you sacrifice any goals you had just to try to stay with me, as fucked up as I was.”

“So you were just going to decide we needed to be apart?”

Her legs uncrossed, feet dangling off the bed, and his gaze caught on them for a second—small and delicate. He used to love how they looked against his and fit so perfectly between his larger ones when they sat together. A memory of one of their teenage summers at the pool flashed through his mind as she lay with her back against his chest, her laughter ringing in his ears as they compared foot sizes.

But that was another lifetime ago.

His chest ached, but he forced himself to look back at her face, finding her staring at him with an expression so guarded, so wounded, that it made his stomach turn.

He blew out a breath and shook his head. Looking at her face, he realized he'd allowed his mind to wander down the path from years ago while she awaited an answer. “Mia, at that time, I wasn’t thinking clearly. I barely knew what day it was, let alone what I was going to say to you.”

“Okay,” she murmured, voice deceptively calm. “So let’s get back to the morning you finally had this epiphany. The morning you showered, stood in front of the mirror, and decided I deserved better. You found yourself wondering all sorts of things about us… theusthat I will remind you had been together for almost ten years. The same morning I walked in to find another woman in our bed.”

The words landed like a slap, and Devlin flinched despite himself.

He swallowed hard. “I took a shower and realized I hadn’t brought clean clothes in with me. I peeked out and saw that Cheryl was still asleep, so I shut the door, dried off, wrapped myself in a towel, and was just going to grab some clothes from the closet.”

Mia’s jaw was so tight, he swore he heard her teeth grind. “And I walked in.”

It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.

He nodded slowly. “Yes. You walked in just as I opened the door.”

Her lips rolled inward, blinking rapidly, and he prayed she wouldn’t cry. He deserved every bit of her anger, but seeing her in pain and knowing he was the reason was unbearable.

Mia’s voice turned razor-sharp, slicing right through him. “You knew what it looked like. You knew what I thought and did nothing to fix it.” Now, her tone was harsh. Mia’s face didn’t crumple, but the pain was there, raw and exposed. It was still a wound that hadn’t fully healed. And it was his fault.

His throat felt tight, his lungs constricted. “Yes.” Silence stretched between them, thick and heavy, threatening to cut off his breath.

Mia blinked, but her gaze didn’t waver, her hands clenched into fists in her lap. “Ten years, Devlin. Ten fucking years. Do you have any idea what that did to me?”

His stomach churned. “Mia, I?—”

“No.” She cut him off, shaking her head. “You don’t get to explain away what I went through. I spent years—years—questioning everything. Hating myself for trusting you. Hating myself for loving you.” Her voice cracked, but she pushed through it. “You broke me. And the worst part? You let me believe I wasn’t enough. That I wasn’t worth fighting for.”

His hands clenched into fists. “That was never?—”

“But that’s exactly what you did,” she interrupted, her eyes burning into his. “You didn’t chase me. You didn’t try to explain. You didn’t attempt the long conversation about how we might be better apart. You just let me go after I’d seen the worst.”

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