“Haven!”
Andrew’s smoky voice wrapped around my throat, squeezing the last remnants of my sanity free. I whirled around, guns blazing. He slid to a stop half a block away. His shoeless feet and pajamas pants spoke to the fact he’d run out of the apartment in a hurry. For a half second, I was concerned he would catch hypothermia until it dawned on me his well being wasn’t my responsibility anymore. It was Camilla’s, his wife’s responsibility. My knees grew weak.
“You heard?” Andrew asked but it wasn’t a question. “Haven…” my name dropped from his tongue as a desperate plea. “I fucked up, please….”
I laughed bitterly. “You really think that’s all you have to do? Mutter a few apologies and the trust you destroyed will be regained. You’re MARRIED?!”
The people walking past gave us a wide berth. I was just another stupid girl who’d given her heart away to the wrong man.
Andrew shuffled a few steps forward, his palms pressed together. “Camilla and I aren’t married. We stop being married as soon as she stepped onto that plane.”
“Did you sign legal documents stating that fact?”
“No, but….”
I cut him off. “Then you are married.”
“I wanted to make our divorce legal but after what happened….” His voice grew thick and he cleared this throat. “It didn’t seem right to bring more heartache upon her—upon us.”
“What happened, Andrew? What’s the real story?” He crossed his arms over chest, shivering. The sleet had morphed into below zero snowfall. Sympathy broke through the anger. “Go upstairs and grab a jacket. I’ll wait here.”
“Come with me,” he said.
My eyes flicked upwards where Andrew’s wall-to-wall windows offered a view into his living room. Camilla sat on the couch, sipping a cup of tea. Her legs tucked underneath her, she looked relaxed and at home. Technically it was, making me the guest. A knife slid into my chest. My legs stumbled backwards and I glanced down, surprised there wasn’t a gaping hole.
Andrew reached forward as if to steady me. “Haven. Are you ok?”
The longer I stood here, staring at the only man who I’d ever trusted, the only man I’d ever loved, the deeper the pain cut. Whatever happened between Andrew and Camilla didn’t change anything. Andrew had built our relationship on a foundation of lies—there was no recovering from that.
“Go home.” Spinning around on my heels, I headed in the opposite direction. “Your wife is waiting for you.”
“That’s it?!” Andrew called after me. “You are just going to leave? From the beginning of this relationship you’ve had one foot out the door.”
I should have been the bigger man and kept walking but he had no right to place the blame on me. I was upfront with my faults from the beginning.
“And you were any different?!” I shot back, eyes blazing. “This entire time you kept a piece of yourself locked away. I thought maybe I was imagining things. That your words were proof enough that you cared for me, maybe even loved me.”
“I do love you!” Andrew declared. He ran forward and sunk to his knees. Folding my hands in his, he looked up at me with desperation. “I love you so much, Haven, that it scares the crap out of me. Camilla doesn’t own my heart, you do.”
Every ounce of my soul wanted to believe him and rewind this past hour. That’s not how it worked though.
His touch created a barrier from the mind numbing cold. Except that cold was the only thing tethering me to the sidewalk. Otherwise, I would have floated away in sea of heartbreak. Breaking our interlocked palms, Andrew’s lips thinned.
I breathed deeply, finding the words I didn’t want to utter. “You have been dealt a tremendous blow this year, Andrew—losing your wife and child. If anybody understands grief, it’s me but that doesn’t excuse the fact that you were dishonest. You made a fool out of me. Your whole family, Matthew, and your stupid frat brother knew you were married.
Andrew spoke. “My family understood the situation. They knew why I hadn’t divorced yet.”
“That doesn’t matter! It’s humiliating. You had a million chances to tell me, like last night for example. I’m guessing when Matthew came by it was to warn you that Camilla had returned.” Andrew’s gaze fell to the snow dusted ground, which said everything and explained nothing. A hollow laugh rose from my throat. “You know what’s the worst part? If you were upfront and honest, I would have broken every single rule I believed in because my love for you was blinding. Now that I can see again, it has become obvious to me we were just two broken people trying to find comfort in each other’s arms.”
Soaking in one last look at Andrew, I committed to memory the single freckle on the left side of his nose and the way his eyes changed color on a dime. Although I didn’t need to. His handsome face would be haunting my dreams from here on out.
I choked on a mouthful of tears. “Goodbye.”
Andrew slumped forward, raw devastation heavy on his shoulders. I lifted my chin and picked up my suitcase. Not looking back was the hardest thing I ever had to do. Halfway around the block, I ducked into an alleyway and slid down the brick wall. Sobs racked my body as my happy ending came to a resounding close.