Page 37 of Against The Tide

“Only that you were married and that you have the worst taste in women.” I try to inject some levity into the latter part, hoping that it will make him relax again.

Even though Rhett laughs lightly at my remark, it’s not his usual deep baritone that makes my heart sputter and my stomach fill with butterflies.

And it’s so odd that I’m only now noticing the things his laugh does to me. In this moment where I have somehow ruined them.

“I was married,” he ventures with a sigh. “It was a long time ago, and I was a very different person. Or at least I had lessons to learn, you know?”

“Yeah, I do.” I’ve learned quite a few the last month.

“And maybe my taste in women wasn’t exactly all that great, but I’m sure others could say that their taste in me wasn’t good either.”

“Oh.” My heart pinches for a beat before it hangs somewhere between my chest and my stomach.

All I know of Rhett is good. His big heart and generosity. His softness and patience. The immeasurable kindness that he has shown me and Iris. I’ve never felt anything but safe with him, yet something tells me I’m not going to like what he’s about to tell me.

“I was young, stupid, and had more money than sense. Not to mention I was a cocky shit who thought I was a gift to the world. When I decided to become a doctor, I saw the glory side of it—wealth, success, and all the trappings a guy could want. And I got it all.” Pausing, he draws a line in the sand with his finger, dotting either side of the line so that it looks like a scar. “I had it all, but it wasn’t the life I imagined. It didn’t make me happy like I had envisioned myself to be. There was always something missing.”

Falling to my stomach, my heart breaks for him. The sadness in his eyes resonates with every fiber of my being. It’s the first time I’ve looked into someone’s eyes and found my desolation looking right back at me.

“It made me miserable, and I became an asshole. I slept around on my wife, and it got ugly.”

I clear my throat, trying to ignore the way it swells, threatening to choke me. I’m not even sure why I’m so disappointed by this new knowledge. It shouldn’t hit me as hard as it has.

“Why? Why cheat?” I hiss, blankly staring at the way his hand claws into the sand, squeezing as hard as my chest is pulverizing my heart. “Was she horrible? Terrible? Was she a bad wife? Is that why…?”

Carl said I was a bad wife, didn’t he? He wanted me to be better. Maybe if I had been…

“Avery, I don’t know what you’re thinking, but my past has no bearing on what your husband did to you. Sarah and I were unhappy. We married for the wrong reasons, and…” Rhett stops, reaching toward me. When I pull back, he drops his hand. “Don’t cry,” he groans.

The pained sound cuts through me deeper than anything he’s told me.

“I’m sorry.”

His lips tip up a tad, barely a smile. “Why are you apologizing?”

“I-I don’t know.”

Something inside me is wrecked by what he’s told me. Since Jo first said that he’s divorced, I’ve gone over every possibility in my head. Another thing that I don’t understand—why I’ve thought about it so much. I shouldn’t care at all.

Except, I thought he was different. All the sides I’ve seen of him until now have been so perfect.

There’s no such thing as perfect, and if it seems too good to be true… My father’s voice taunts me.

Maybe it’s better that I steel myself. I need to trust myself. Stop entertaining hopes and ideas when there is nothing to them. My life is a big enough mess as it is without adding more feelings and hopes to it.

“I should go make sure Iris is doing okay,” I tell him, fully aware that she is more than okay. Iris is in her element, but I need to put some distance between me and him.

Rhett nods, offering me his hand to help me up. It’s the first mistake I make, because his touch wreaks havoc through me. The current reaches every nook and cranny of my being. It takes every ounce of my strength to pull back and hold myself together.

And like that first mistake, I already know that there’s going to be more.

CHAPTER 12

RHETT

Shit! I’ve never wished I could be someone else more than I do right now, watching Avery walk away. A heaviness sets in my chest, like all my fears and anxieties are congested in my lungs, suffocating me. All the while I watch her talk to Jo, the weight getting greater by the second, the sun getting hotter.

For the first time since I left Boston almost ten years ago, I want to fucking run like a pussy from everything I’m holding back.