Page 237 of The Reason I Married Him
“Yes, she’s crying. Now tell me what you did.”
I let out a heavy sigh, trying to reason with the guard dog standing in my way. “Hattie, please let me just check on her and settle things with her. I appreciate you protecting her, but I need to talk to her myself.”
Hattie purses her lips, thinking on it, then by the grace of God, she says, “In the back, up the stairs to the apartment.” I move toward the back, but she stops me before I can move past the door. “Ryland is aware you hurt her, and so is Hayes. Watch yourself, Wyatt.”
And with that, she steps aside, and I move past her up the stairs to a closed door. I don’t bother knocking. I just let myself into what looks like a small apartment with slanted ceilings and a queen bed pushed up against the wall. That’s all I notice before my eyes land on Aubree, who is curled up on the bed, her back toward me.
My stomach plummets as I shut the door behind me.
“Aubree,” I say quietly, and I watch her back go stiff.
In a sniffly voice, she says, “Go away, Wyatt.”
Yeah, like that’s going to fucking happen.
I move into the room and sit on the edge of the bed.
“I said leave, Wyatt.” She sniffs, and it feels like everything in me shatters because I brought on those tears. I’m the one who hurt her when I told her I never would.
I’m supposed to be her rock, her comfort, and here I am, hurting her.
“Aubree, baby, please can we talk.”
“A little too late, don’t you think?”
Yeah, I deserve that.
And I know it will be really hard to break through to her, but I have to at least try.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
She lifts up from the bed and scoots away from me. She pulls her knees into her chest and holds her legs tightly as she looks back at me. I’m met with red eyes, tear-stained cheeks and an expression of hurt.
It guts me.
“Why are you sorry?” she asks. “For hurting me? For not telling me the truth about Cadance? For lying? Or are you sorry that you got caught?”
“I’m sorry for hurting you,” I say, wanting to reach out to her, but I know she won’t allow it. “Back there, that was something you never should have been a part of.”
“Why?” she asks. “Because you didn’t want me to know?”
“No,” I say. “You didn’t need to find out like that.”
“You’re right. I didn’t,” she says. “I should have heard it from you. You should have told me about her when I asked. You should have told me more about you, but as I’m sitting here, staring at you, all I can think is . . . I don’t know this man at all.”
“Aubree, that’s not true.”
“It is true,” she shouts, then scoots off the bed and stands. “I know nothing about you, nothing beneath the surface, nothing that I can’t learn from your author bio. You haven’t shared anything with me. I mean, Jesus, Wyatt, you were going to be married to someone else. Don’t you think you should have shared that with me?”
“I was going to,” I say in a panic. “I was just trying to find the right time.”
“You mean you were trying to get over her first, right? Use me as a distraction to squash the hurt she caused. Meanwhile, I’m over here, falling in love with a man who can’t even be honest with me when asked.”
Falling in love?
She grips her forehead. “I mean, what the hell am I even doing? I’ve gotten so lost, so caught up in the fanfare of someone actually giving a shit about me that I lose all sense of myself?”
“Aubree—”
