“Where’ve you been?”

“Jace’s. Where I said I’d be when you told me you were going to the club with your parents.”

She pouted and sauntered up to me, letting her hand trail over my chest. I could’ve just gotten it all over with at that moment, but she reeked of wine and I knew it would be pointless. I’d just have to tell her all over again tomorrow anyway.

“But it’s so late. I’ve been waiting for you.”

“Good night, Liv.”

“Brody,” she whined and dug her fingers into my chest and arm as she pulled herself closer. She pressed her lace-covered breasts against me and breathed in my ear. “I’m so horny, Brody. I want you.” The hand on my chest dropped to my pants, and I gripped her thin wrist in my hand.

“I said, good night. You’ve taken care of yourself for years, tonight doesn’t need to be any different.” As gently as I could, I pushed her back and turned to walk toward my room.

“Why don’t you love me anymore?” I could already hear the tears starting and was determined to keep moving until she spoke again. “Is it because of Tate? Or is it because I can’t have kids—you think I’m worthless now, don’t you?”

Or maybe I’m not going to wait until tomorrow. I stopped walking when she mentioned Tate and had to grit my teeth to keep myself from lashing out at her for bringing him into this again.

“You would still love me if I could have more children, Brody, I know it.”

My head slowly shook back and forth as I turned to look at her. There was already makeup streaking down her cheeks with her tears as she hunched in on herself. “You and I both know that’s not it,” I said. “We’ve drifted too far apart, and it started long before Tate.”

“But—but it didn’t!”

Holding back a sigh, I put an arm around Olivia’s waist and led her to one of the large couches and sat down next to her. “We both know you only stayed with me to piss your parents off. Just like we know that we would have never stayed together or gotten married if you hadn’t gotten pregnant.”

“No, I don’t know that!” she cried and wiped miserably at her face.

“Liv, you refused to see me. You wouldn’t let me see our son. You didn’t want to live with me . . . you and I hadn’t loved each other for a long time before we got married. It had nothing to do with Tate or you not being able to have more kids.”

“That’s not true! I love you! I do.”

“You don’t. Olivia, I want a divorce.” A loud sob left her, and her face hit her hands. “We’re both miserable,” I continued. “We can’t keep doing this to each other. Let’s just end this on good terms and go our separate ways.”

“You can’t just stop loving me all of a sudden!”

“Olivia, this isn’t sudden. How haven’t you noticed that we haven’t even been going through the motions of being married? Do you even see that I’ve been sleepwalking through the last five years of my life?”

“I don’t care—”

“And that’s just it,” I said, interrupting her. “You don’t care. You don’t care about me, you don’t care about my life, you don’t care about what I want. I want to be able to live my life, Olivia, and you and I both know you’re happier without me too, so this is the obvious thing for us to do.”

“I’ve lost everything! I lost Tate, I lost the ability to have more children . . . I can’t lose you.”

I ground my jaw at the umpteenth reminder of Tate that night and shut my eyes.

“Our baby is gone, Brody. You’ve already taken everything. Don’t take you from me too. Don’t tell me I lost you with Tate.”

Goddamn it; stop bringing up what I did! “Olivia—”

“Please, Brody. After everything you’ve done, you owe it to me to stay with me.”

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I tried to hold back the tears that had begun forming. “I can’t, I—”

“I’ll die without you, Brody! Do you hear me? I. Will. Die. Do you want my death on your hands too?”

“Olivia, stop!”

“You promised you’d help me! You promised you were on my side. No one else knows what it’s like to go through this, no one else knows that I can’t deal with this pain. And you swore you were going to get me help. And now you’re just going to leave me?” she shouted. “How could you do this to me? After everything else you’ve done, Brody?!”

“I have tried, Olivia,” I said, exhaustion coating my voice. “I have tried so many times to get you help. You say you want it, but I know you don’t.”

“It’s because of this! It’s because I know once you put me in that fucking mental institution you’re going to leave me there forever. You’ll never come back for me. You’ll never check on me. You won’t love me anymore; you’re going to leave me. I know it! You’re just trying to throw me in there so you don’t have to deal with me anymore.”

“No, what I’m trying to do is make sure that you get the help you need so that when I leave you, you won’t kill yourself, Olivia!” I shouted before I could stop myself.

Olivia’s eyes and mouth went wide, and her tears fell impossibly harder. “I knew it! You’re going to leave me as soon as I’m in there! I won’t go. I won’t fucking go! And if you leave me, I swear to God I won’t be alive the next day! Do you hear me?”

My shoulders sagged in defeat and my breath came out in a hard rush. “Liv—”

“How do you think Daddy’s attorney would like that?” she asked, her lip curling in disgust.

My eyes narrowed on her for a long moment before I shook my head and stood. With a hard swallow, I turned and walked toward the hallway. “Go to bed, Olivia. You’re drunk.”

“No! You’re going to leave—”

“I’m not leaving you. You’re fucking sick. I’m gonna get you help. Just like I said I would.”

15

Kamryn

July 5, 2015

THE BELL CHIMED, and I made my way to the front of the bakery. After Aiden had gone home last night, I’d barely been able to force myself through a shower before falling asleep. Yesterday had been draining in so many ways, and for the first time since I’d opened the bakery I didn’t want to be at work.

We should have put up the MONDAYS SUCK board this morning.

A beautiful woman not much older than me was talking on her phone when I walked out, and she did a double-take when she saw me, her eyebrows drawing together as she studied me. I pulled off my glasses and realized I probably looked weird to her with flour on my face and glasses. I looked around for a napkin so I could clean them off.

While I was cleaning my glasses, she stopped her phone conversation abruptly and pointed at me. “Do I know you?”

“Uh, no? I don’t believe so.”

“Huh.” She gasped and snapped a couple times. “Are you a member at the Stockton Country Club?”

“No.” Lord no, no more country clubs for me.

“What’s your name?”

“KC.”

Her eyes widened with recognition, and her glossed lips formed a perfect O. “Oh, this is your bakery?”

“Yes, ma’am. Do you know what you were wanting?”

Her head was still tilted to the side as she looked at me. “I’ll just take two. Anything chocolate.” She rummaged around in her massive Coach purse as she hissed into her phone, “No, I swear I know this girl. Anyway, so like I was telling you. He may have been planning on leaving before, but he’s definitely not now. Not after last night.” She handed me her card, and all the blood left my face.

Olivia Saco. Olivia . . . oh, my God! My boyfriend’s wife is in my bakery, and she recognizes me! How does she know who I am? Has someone seen Brody and me together? Did she know Brody was having an affair? As the room swirled around me, I was positive this was what Barbara was going through when she had hot flashes. Somehow I managed to stop staring at the credit card, and my eyes shifted to watch Olivia’s back as she stood next to the window whispering on her phone.

I suddenly hated that my shop had amazing acoustics.

“. . . with him lately. He’s different. But I played the whole guilt-trip thing . . . Of course, he bought it, he said he wasn’t leaving me, didn’t he? God, it really is pathetic how easy he is to sway, though . . . Oh, I know, right? How he hasn’t realized by now that I can cry at the drop of a hat is beyond me. I never wanted the damn kid anyway. Shit, I’m probably going to hell for saying that, aren’t I? . . . Ha! Love you too, bitch. Be there in thirty . . . I know, I know, I’m getting you a cupcake too.”

My throat burned and my hands shook as I grabbed a little plastic container and put two cupcakes in it. It took everything in me not to scream at her and break down in the middle of my store for Brody’s sake as I realized the amount of guilt and manipulation he’d lived with for years. I’d heard enough stories from Brody’s family and Kinlee, but my God I’d had no idea. Three minutes in her presence and I wanted to get Brody as far away from her as possible. And what did she mean he said he wasn’t leaving her? My gut churned as I replayed Olivia’s words: “I never wanted the damn kid anyway.” I have to tell Brody. I have—

“That’s not your natural hair color.”

I jumped at the sound of her voice so close to me and looked up at her. “Excuse me?”

“Your roots are starting to come in. You’re not naturally a brunette, are you?”

Thank God for my appointment tomorrow, I didn’t realize anyone could see the blond. I couldn’t even see it. “Um, no. I’m not.” I swiped her card and handed it back to her. When she didn’t take it, I looked up.

“I swear I know you, but I would remember that accent of yours.”