Conviction (Consolation Duet #2)

by Corinne Michaels

  “Unreal,” I huff. “You went through hell over there. I hate that you were hurt. I hate that you ever had to endure one ounce of pain,” tears stream down my face. He’s been through so much. We both have. Now we have to hurt even more. “But it doesn’t erase our past. There are no free passes because you’re holding up the argument that what I did is the same. Me moving on and finding love again doesn’t equate to cheating. I can tell you don’t want to tell me everything. I see it in your eyes that there’s more.”

  Aaron steps closer and grips my shoulders. “Damn right there’s more. But it’s in the past. She’s in the past. I went through more hell than you can fathom. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. You. Not her. You!”

  Confusion sweeps over me as I soak in what he says, conflicting emotions rioting within me. I have no doubt he went through a lot. I also don’t doubt him when he says that it is me he loves. That’s the part that kills me. But it’s not enough.

  “I know you love me. And if I’m being honest, I love you. I will always love you. You were the first man I ever loved. But you’re not the only one anymore,” I reply somberly. “I let Liam into my heart, and he and I share something special. I never meant for this to happen. I had no reason to expect you were alive. But things failed way before then, Aaron. Were you happy? Because I wasn’t.” I let out a deep breath. “We have to let each other go.”

  “So because of what I suffered, I get to pay even more? How is that fair? You even said yourself you love me.”

  I shrug out of his hold and walk toward the end of the deck. “I don’t want to make you suffer. No matter what you think, this isn’t easy for me. And there’s no ‘fair’ here. I would never intentionally hurt you.”

  “But I am hurt.”

  “Well, so am I.”

  The silence lingers between us. Years of love and trust are gone. They’ve washed their way out into the sea, leaving behind shells of who we were.

  Aaron blows out the candles, and I can’t help but feel like the light inside of him just went out too. He walks over, grabs the dishes, and starts to head inside. I turn toward the ocean and wait for the calmness it usually brings, but instead, I feel cold and alone. Both of us have had to deal with so much in one year.

  The plates crash to the ground, and when I turn around, Aaron is already in front of me. He grips my face, and before I can say anything, his lips press against mine. My mouth stays still and he pushes hard. It’s painful, like this entire situation. He holds me against him as my hands shove against his chest, Aaron just holds me closer. His tongue sweeps against the seam of my lips, and I turn my head. As our lips break apart as he stares down at me.

  “Why can’t you love me again? I would do anything for you.”

  “Then tell me the truth.”

  “You want to know everything?”

  I stare at him, waiting. “I don’t think we can ever move forward if I don’t know everything.”

  “I told you everything that matters.”

  “That’s just it. Everything matters.”

  “I choose you, Natalie. I’d choose you every day until the day I die. I want you. I need you. And I don’t know how else to make you see that. Everyone and everything else is in the past.”

  “And so are you. You’re living in the past where I’m your doting wife. I lived the last year of my life knowing what it’s like without you. I found out the truth about who we were—hell, who I am. I’m not the same woman you fell in love with. I’ve changed.” I touch his arm and he flinches. “I’m not that girl anymore, Aaron.”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine?” I ask skeptically.

  “It’s done, Lee. You want me to go back to her?”

  “I thought it wasn’t about her?”

  “That’s right,” he sneers. “It’s about Liam.”

  I don’t say anything as he turns and heads into the house.

  We don’t mention the kiss. We barely acknowledge each other’s presence. It’s awkward and it’s as if we’re walking on eggshells. I cleaned the stuff from outside while Aaron looked through photo books of Aarabelle.

  “Do you want to sleep in the bedroom? I can take the couch,” I offer.

  “No, I think I’m going to head to Mark’s. Maybe spend the night there. Jackson offered the condo he owns as well.”

  “Oh,” I reply. I can’t fully explain why this bothers me at all. I should be happy, but it saddens me it’s come to this. He just got home, and I’ve already displaced him. “You can stay here, Aaron. I mean, if you want to spend time with Aarabelle. I know things are . . . strained . . . between us, but this is your home.”

  “My home is where you are. You’re not here with me,” he says and then goes back to the picture book.

  The reactions play out in my mind, but my mouth stays closed. I could tell him he’s wrong, but he’s not. I could give him false hope, but I won’t. “I don’t know what to say.” Which is the only honest thing I can reply.

  He closes the book and I sit next to him. “You can say you’ll try. Maybe you can forgive me, see how much I love you. Are all the years of marriage worth so little to you?”

  I look over as tears begin to fall, painting my face with the pain in my heart. “It was never easy for me to let you go. I struggled so much with it. Even at my angriest, I never wished you dead.” Aaron brushes the tears from my face. “But you hurt me so badly. Even if you had only slept with her once, you did it on one of the worst nights of my life. She loved you, Aaron. I could see it in her eyes. She came to your memorial.”

  “She’s irrelevant to me. It’s you who has my heart. It’s you who has my world.”

  I don’t acknowledge his statement, because right now, I don’t believe him. I know what it’s like to be someone’s world.

  The bruise on the side of his face is starting to fade, and my hand reaches up to feel it. I try to remember what his skin felt like beneath my fingers. How his clean shaved face would allow the pads of my fingers to slide down with no resistance. The way our bodies would come alive at each other’s touch. His head leans into my hand as if I’m comforting him. How long did he endure pain? How much was he awake for, and how did he suffer?

  “Did they torture you?” I don’t respond to his statement because all I can think about is his marred skin. The way the Aaron I knew is gone in every sense of the word. His body, which was once strong enough to lift me even when I was pregnant, doesn’t look like it could lift much more than Aarabelle.

  His eyes close. “I can’t talk about that. I was badly injured and barely holding on. It wasn’t until the end that anything really happened, and then Charlie got word out.”

  “But they hurt you. Why did she wait so long?”

  Aaron grips my hands. “I think it looks worse. Remember I was in an explosion. Some of these are injuries that didn’t heal right. There was a medic on site of the extraction and he said I’m really lucky. She had a job to do, exposing me would’ve sacrificed everything she’d worked for. Her helping me was a huge risk. I respect her mission. I feel like I need to tell you something.”

  I brace myself for whatever it might be. “I don’t know how much more I can take.”

  “I’m going to fight for you. I didn’t live for nothing. I’ll be damned if you think I’m going to fade away. You and I are for life, Lee. You, me, and our daughter. We have a lot of adjusting and a lot to work through, but we make sense.”

  “I need you to stop and listen to what I’m saying,” I plead hoping he won’t make me say it. I’m battling everything inside of me to not tell him I went to Liam’s last night. I’m fighting to not tell him I want to be there right now. But I know it’ll break him, and no matter how badly he hurt me with Brittany, I know that this will wound him deeper.

  Brittany was a nobody in my life. Liam is his friend. The man who went and rescued him and then brought him to me. They share a bond that I never had with her. I try to imagine what it would feel like if I still loved him the wa
y he claims he loves me and it were Reanell. I would be devastated.

  “I told Liam the same thing.”

  “What?” That stops the words that were forming on my tongue.

  When the hell did he talk to Liam? Did Liam tell him we spent the night together? Oh my God, maybe he knows.

  “Liam and I talked today. I told him the same thing—I’m not giving up. I asked him to step aside and let us have a chance to fix this.”

  The color drains from my face and my throat goes dry. “W-what did you . . . ? Why?”

  “Because you’re my wife. Because you’ve been my girl since we were kids. He understands that this isn’t just some relationship. You and I, baby, are the real deal. We don’t quit because someone died.”

  My eyes snap open. “I didn’t fall in love with him because you died. That might have been what forced us together, but I love him in a way you can’t understand,” I say and see the way his jaw ticks.

  “You can’t convince me you love him more. I know you. I know your heart and your soul. I can see everything you’re feeling before you say it. So I told him to step aside before he destroys us all.”

  “How dare you?” I rip my hands from his and stand, needing to dispel some energy. “You don’t get to make that decision for me.”

  “We made vows.”

  “You broke them.”

  “Is this your whole argument? That I broke promises? You did too, babe. You promised to love, honor, obey. You fucking fell in love with someone in under a year. What does that say?”

  Anger rips through me as I clench my fists. If I were a violent person, I would’ve punched him by now. “What does it say, Aaron? It says we weren’t happy. It says we had problems. It says that I met someone, fell in love, and moved on. It says that you met someone while we were married and did the same.”

  “Well, we’ll see, because Liam and I have an agreement,” he says smugly.

  Fuck him.

  “I hope he told you to go to hell.”

  Aaron stands and walks away. He stops and turns toward me. “He said he would give us time.”

  My heart plummets. “Of course he did.” I nearly choke on the words.

  “I’m not a fool to see that he loves you. But he knows we have a life, a child, a home.”

  Liam and I are going to have words. His text message now makes sense. He’s giving up on us. After all we’ve shared and how far we’ve come. All the promises are lies, just like those of the man who stands in front of me.

  “Had,” I say and stare into his eyes. “We had. You keep forgetting what we had is now past tense. Right now, we have a mess to clean up. Do you even want to acknowledge the fact that you were going to leave me for your whore?” I bite back the nasty retort floating around in my mouth.

  “I’m not with her now, am I?”

  “And if we don’t work out, will you go back to her?”

  “Is that what you want?” he asks, watching my reactions.

  I huff, “I can’t even believe you. You sit here telling me you love me, spouting off how we have a love no one can ever understand, but you can’t even answer me honestly once. Are you going to admit what your relationship was with her?”

  His story has too many holes. There are too many nights I remember being alone or wondering. The times I pushed down my woman’s intuition and smothered it. Ignorance is a beautiful place sometimes, but I don’t plan to live there anymore. The hardest part in all of this is that I’m going to be the one to hurt Aaron. I was supposed to be his lifeline. Just as Liam has become mine.

  Then I think about what Aaron said about him stepping aside.

  Fuck them both.

  I get a say in who I’m with, and they’re both going to learn that quickly.

  “Who knows?” Aaron says and then shakes his head. “What is the truth anymore?”

  “Then I’ll be sure to talk to Brittany tomorrow. She doesn’t have any issues saying what happened between you two.”

  “You love my fucking best friend! She’s nothing compared to that,” Aaron’s voice trembles.

  “How can you say she’s nothing? You were with her for a long time. You went to her many nights, didn’t you? What about the time you stayed with Mark for two nights? What about all the times I would call your phone and it would go to voicemail? The late nights you’d come home so tired you’d fall asleep on the couch. I remember them all, Aaron. Clarity isn’t something I’m lacking.”

  He can play dumb as much as he wants, but he’s a master at deceit. I always believed he kept his work away from home, but as the truth unravels, it reminds me it’s a part of who he is. He worked to get information from others, concealed himself and the truth from those he had to. Aaron can withstand torture, injuries, and this to him is probably a walk in the park. I was a lovestruck idiot, hoping my husband was the man I wanted.

  “Jesus Christ,” he groans and throws his hands up. “She means nothing to me! Nothing.”

  “I don’t believe you. She sobbed and cried saying how in love you were, but you still can’t be honest.”

  Aaron looks to the left and shakes his head. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Then tell me! Tell me the truth. You want your chance . . . this is it!”

  His face becomes stone. “I told you what matters. I was with her more than I ever should’ve been. I hated myself. I thought I could stop, but I was too weak. I didn’t deserve you then and apparently I don’t now. But we’ve had a year that we’ve been apart. I can be better. I don’t want her anymore.”

  Even though we’re not together it hurts. The word ‘anymore’ hangs heavy in the air. I’m the runner up. When he wanted her, he had her. Now, for whatever reason, I’m his choice but what happens when things get tough? When our lives aren’t filled with laughter, but we’re swimming in tears . . . does he go back? Too much has happened.

  His hand extends, but I move before he can touch me. “This is why I didn’t want to tell you. I knew you wouldn’t understand.”

  “Understand? I can’t even look at you. I don’t know how you can say this is what love is. I need to leave,” I start to move back. “I’ll be home later. Or maybe not,” I say grabbing my purse. There’s no way I’m staying in this house with him. I’m hurt, livid, desolate, and more than anything, I’m devastated that Liam would cast me aside so easily.

  “Don’t leave,” Aaron begs.

  “Don’t lie anymore.” I grab my keys and head out the door.

  Once in the confines of my car, the need to scream overwhelms me, so I let it go. I punch the steering wheel and scream at the top of my lungs. Nothing coherent comes out, just yelling, trying to cleanse my body of all the confusion. I look at the window and see him standing there. He watches me lose it in my car and the contrast between him and Liam is glaring in this moment. Aaron chooses to let me go while Liam would’ve been at the car already.

  Speaking of Liam, I turn the key and back out of the driveway while my husband watches me leave to go to my boyfriend’s house.

  The drive isn’t long, but it allows me the time to form a plan. I’m so hurt that he would just toss me away. We need to talk and figure things out. I’m not either of their doll and they can’t pass me off to the other. Aaron and I may be married legally, but he’s been dead for a year. He and I aren’t married in any other way.

  I knock on the door and hear a woman’s laughter.

  Please, God, don’t let him have another woman in here. I can’t handle it.

  Liam opens the door smiling and it falters when he sees me. “Hey,” he says, closing the door behind him, pushing us out into the hall.

  “Wow,” I say in disbelief.

  “Wow?”

  “You’re kidding me, right? You have someone else here? Not only do you tell Aaron you’ll step aside, but you move on so quickly.” I’m so beside myself I can’t think. I push his chest and slap him. “I hate you all!”

  Liam’s arms wrap around me and stop my phy
sical assault. “What the hell are you talking about? Calm down,” he commands as I struggle to get out of his hold. “Natalie, stop.”

  “How could you? I trusted you!” I begin to cry.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I heard a girl laughing, and you pushed me into the damn hall.” Tears fall like rain as he refuses to let me go.

  “It’s Quinn and the girl he’s talking to.” He releases me a little so I can look at him. “Did you think I had another girl in there?”

  My eyes meet his with drops streaming down my face. “I don’t know what to think anymore.”

  “Only you. I wouldn’t be able to be with anyone else.” Liam holds me close, and I try to melt into him. His words soothe me, and being in his arms allows me a sense of comfort.

  “Don’t give me up so easily,” I cry against his chest and he lets out a deep breath.

  “Let’s go inside?” he offers.

  I nod and he pulls me to his side.

  As we enter, I see no broken bottles and everything is cleaned up better than when I left. It’s been not even a day since I was here. So much has happened in the last few days, but my mind and body feel as if it’s been a lot longer.

  “Hey, Lee,” Quinn says and looks at Liam then sits. “We’ll get out of here and let you guys talk,” he offers and grabs his date’s hand. She stands and smiles at me.

  “I’m sorry to run you off.”

  “You didn’t. Ready, Ash?” I look at her and she looks familiar.

  Liam juts his head toward the kitchen, and Quinn nods and heads there. “I just need to talk to Quinn a second,” Liam quietly tells me in my ear before kissing the side of my head.

  She walks over and waves awkwardly. “Hi, I’m Ashton Caputo. We kinda met, but didn’t really, because well, it wasn’t the time for introductions. However, I think that may be our thing,” Ashton rambles. “Anyway, I’m Catherine’s best friend from New Jersey.” It takes a second, but I remember she was with Catherine. She’s absolutely stunning. Her long, red hair flows down her back and her eyes shimmer.