Hold On (Page 96)

“I don’t need to take a breath. I cannot believe you’re humiliating me this way,” she snapped.

They weren’t going to do this.

Not now, not ever if it came out angry.

“This is not the time or the place,” he stated. “Like I said, we gotta talk. But it’s not happenin’ now when you’re pissed and I’m not feelin’ like bein’ pushed into a bad mood.”

“Well, fuck that,” she bit out, shoving him again, this time with both hands so his whole torso swung back.

He took a step to the side and warned, “Watch your hands, Mia. I don’t want them on me again.”

She tipped her head to the side. “You don’t? Oh. I would guess you don’t, considering you got the good stuff direct from a professional all weekend.”

He took a deliberate step away from her before he purposefully locked his body.

After he did this, he dragged in a breath that was supposed to be deep and calming, but it came in shallow and did not one thing to ease the fury he felt building.

“Watch your mouth,” he whispered.

“Fuck you,” she shot back. “Swank’s was bad enough. Swank’s. That woman and you at fucking Swank’s. But a football game? You took her to a fucking football game? In the ’burg? For everyone to see?”

“You need to leave. Now,” he returned. “I calm down, you calm down, we’ll talk.”

“About what?” she asked. “How you’re testing me? How many tests do I have to pass, Merry? I mean, you shit all over our marriage. You shit all over our future. Then you shit all over me for years. And now you’re dating the town slut, rubbing that in my face when—”

He advanced, she retreated, and neither stopped doing it until he had her pinned against the living room wall.

He didn’t touch her and kept his distance, but she felt him. He knew she knew she’d pushed too far. He knew this because she pressed against the wall and didn’t move.

“You ever fuckin’ talk to my face or I even hear you spewed shit like that about Cher again, Mia, so help me God, the over we’re already over will be history. You won’t even be a memory, good or bad. I’ll erase you so completely, I see your fuckin’ face, you’ll think I have no clue who you are.”

“Merry,” she breathed, eyes big, his name coming out pained.

“I wanted to sit down and talk about this, but you’re here and you’re like you are, which means I’m not big on seein’ you ever again, so this is happenin’ now,” he declared.

Then he gave it to her.

“I fucked up. I fucked us up. You’re right. I shit all over our marriage. I did that and I own that. It sucks I hurt you because…once, I loved you. Once, you meant everything to me. But I was fucked in the head. I fucked us up because I was terrified of what it would do to you if somethin’ happened to me and you lost me. I’ve felt that loss and know it’s an empty that never gets filled and I didn’t want that for you. I should have talked that out with you. I should have worked that out with you. I didn’t. And that was my fuckup.”

“I—”

He didn’t even let her get started.

“I’ve had a chance to think and as shit as that was, me doin’ that to you, and as shit as it was, me continuing to fuck you even after I made us over, you didn’t have it in you to deal. You don’t have it in you to deal. You lost me in a way you could’ve gotten me back. You knew it, fuckin’ everyone knew it, but you didn’t do it. So I fucked up. You fucked up. We’re even and we’re movin’ on.”

“But I want us—”

“I don’t give a fuck what you want, Mia. I made this plain. I wanted us to sort our shit so we could move on without it fuckin’ up the memory of what we had. I told you we were over. I start somethin’ important with a woman who means a good fuckin’ deal to me and you come to my home, shovin’ me and gettin’ in my face, sayin’ jacked shit about that woman. So now that memory is gonna stay fucked. And not because I made it that way.” He lifted a hand and jabbed a finger toward her face. “You did.”

He stepped back and to the side but kept his eyes locked to her.

“Now get the fuck outta my house and do not ever come back. We are done, Mia.”

She didn’t move an inch, not even her gaze from his.

“I love you,” she whispered.

The last five years, he’d lived for her to say those words.

Now they meant nothing.

He shook his head.

She had no clue.

“Love is facing head on somethin’ that threatens it and not bending, sure as fuck not breaking, when that thing leans on you to let go. You don’t have that. In your way, I know you loved me. My way of lovin’ you was just as fucked up. We screwed that up so badly, there’s no goin’ back. At this point, the best we got is not jackin’ our shit again with someone else. I got every intention of not makin’ that same mistake twice with what I’m starting with a good woman who means somethin’ to me. I’m pissed as hell at you right now, but I hope you find you got it in you to do the same with your man. The one thing I’m certain about is that there’s nothin’ left between you and me.”

“I refuse to believe you mean that,” she replied earnestly.

He stared at her.

Yeah, she had no clue.

And at that point, he had no options, so he put his hands on his hips as he looked to the floor.