My mother insisted on being present when I called Scarlett.  She didn't trust me to go through with any of it on my own.

I had no opportunities to warn Scarlett, to try to make it better, to do anything but what I was instructed to, which was brutal and swift. 

I went a little numb as I made the call. 

I knew just what to say.  That part was simple.

It was too easy to convince her.  She was always waiting to be abandoned, to be thrown away.  I knew that.

"This doesn't work anymore.  We don't work," I heard myself saying at one point.  Nonsense like that rolled out of my mouth, my eyes on my mother all the while. 

Her freedom or her love.  Those were my choices.

It was no choice at all, but it broke us all the same.   

CHAPTER

THIRTY-FOUR

"A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her."

~Oscar Wilde

PRESENT

DANTE

We'd lapsed into some semblance of normal faster than I could have hoped for. 

We had our issues.  Of course we did.  Our history was long and destructive.  I knew we'd be working through some of it for years.  I'd never been naive enough to imagine otherwise.  Not for one second had I ever been that delusional. 

I tried my best to be patient.  I tried my hardest to stay hopeful when I saw her internalizing everything when what was needed between us, now more than ever, was communication.  I let things slide, let issues drop that perhaps I shouldn't have, all with the assumption that she just needed more time. 

It wasn't easy, though. 

And it wasn't natural, or right. 

I thought I was showing some rather impressive restraint with her and her boundaries, but sometimes I just could not take it. 

It was when I caught her face in the moments when she didn't realize I was near.  It was what I saw when she wasn't trying to hide that made me realize how much she was keeping bottled up inside. 

The haunted look in her eyes, the pain embedded into her every unguarded expression.  All of it spoke of the burdens she was carrying.  Alone. 

That I could not take.  That I could not let slide.   

It was dark out.  I'd just come home, but she'd beaten me to it, for once.  They must have wrapped up early for the day. 

She was out on the balcony attached to our bedroom, wearing a bathrobe, her hair still wet.  She was hugging herself like she had nothing else in the world to hold onto, her posture one of defeat, her face set into stark lines.  The eyes she aimed out at the night were full of vile things, old memories, old nightmares.

My God, where did she go when she did this to herself?

I could hardly stand to even guess it. 

And I could not take it.  Could not take another day with her doing this to herself. 

I joined her out on the balcony, loosening my tie as I moved. 

She started when I opened the door, turning to me.   

She schooled her face when she realized she wasn't alone, but I'd seen it, every last ounce of the despair still written on her.

I held out my arms to her, but she wouldn't even take that. 

She shook her head, turning back to stare out at the night. 

"Don't be like that, tiger," I teased her, pressing myself against her back, mouth at her ear.

She was in no mood to be teased.  "Listen," she said, voice tense and brittle.  "I'm not saying this to pick a fight, but sometimes I just need to be alone.  I don't want to be comforted.  I just want to be alone."

That was foreign and wrong.  "Not anymore.  That's not what we're doing.  We never used to hide things from each other, and we're not going to do that now.  If you have a burden, you share it with me.  We take the weight together.  That's how this works.  Whatever's troubling you, we'll get through it."

"No," she said, and I could feel the way her shoulders set stubbornly against me.  "I'm in no mood, Dante.  Not right now."

Just as she could stir my desire with a glance, she knew how to invoke my temper just as quickly.  There was an edge to my words as I responded, "Yes, I know.  You prefer being alone.  Let's try anyway." 

"You don't know," she said, her voice soft.  "You really have no idea."   

Soft or hard, it was the last fucking straw.  I was tired of hearing it, the same words spoken for different reason, all with a meaning known only to her.  I was sick of her saying it, but even more sick of her using it as a shield against me.  "What don't I know?  Let's have it.  About the men?  I know about every single one.  And frankly, if there's something that could hurt me more than them I can't imagine it." 

That set her off.  Of course it did.  It was unfair of me to mention it, even if it was only the absolute truth.

She shrugged me off, moving a few angry strides away to glare.  "What about you?  Do you really have the nerve to go there?  You were no saint when we were apart."

To tell or not to tell.  Which thing was more hurtful?  More lies or the savage, unbelievable truth?

"A saint?  No.  Of course not.  Not for a day in my life."  I took a very deep breath, let it out.  This was going to be bad, but I was done dealing with her in lies.  "But there were no other women."  I rolled my tongue around my mouth and added, "Not one."

Simple.  Complex.  Hurtful. 

She sent me a look that was as crushed as it was disbelieving.  "What?  What are you saying?  I saw you.  I fucking saw you!  What the fuck are you talking about?"  She was close to screaming by the end.