“Something wrong?” he asked.
She finally looked up. “That night.”
Adair stiffened knowing exactly which night in question. There would never be another night that could ever be that night.
Sabine’s voice didn’t waver. It was low. Even. Cold.
“The night we lost Ariyah. You told me your phone died…you told me you went out with the guys after work and lost track of time. But something about that night…” She looked down at the wineglass, like maybe it would tell her if she was right.
Adair’s mouth parted. “Bine?—”
“Don’t call me that,” she said sharply. “Not right now.”He nodded once. She sat up straighter, placed the wineglass on the end table. “I let it go,” she said. “I stayed in this…even after the worst night of my life, I stayed. For you. For our son. For the family I thought I could still salvage.”
“I know.”
“No. You don’t,” her voice cracked, and she clenched her jaw. “You don’t know what it feels like to hold your daughter in your arms—dead—and still tell yourself to be strong. You don’t know what it feels like to still protect somebody, lie for somebody just to save face for this fucking marriage. To save you so no one would think you were the bad guy. You don’t know what it costs to forgive a man before you even know what he really did. You don’t’ know what it costs to do all of this while losing a piece of you alone…you don’t know shit Adair. So…” she rubbed herpalms together. “I’m only going to ask for the truth once. If in my soul I feel what you say is it, then we can move on, get counseling, whatever because somehow, God won’t let me not love you. My heart won’t stop aching for you. So please,” she literally begged. “Tell me I’m crazy and what you told me the night we lost our daughter was the truth…please…”
Adair moved closer now. Sat on the edge of the coffee table across from her. “I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t add that to everything else…” he breathed in deep. His mouth opened, but the words didn’t come. Not right away because he knew. He knew the moment she said it, the moment her voice broke and she begged for truth like it was the only thing tethering her to breath—he knew she already knew.
Sabine stared at him. Unmoving. Unblinking. A woman on the edge of something dangerous. “Tell me I’m crazy,” she whispered. “Tell me what you told me that night was the truth.”
He couldn’t.
With his silence, everything crumbled and she lunged.
Wine glass flung across the room, shattering against the floor, red bleeding into the tile like a crime scene. She was on him before he could even lift his arms. Hitting. Screaming. Gripping his shirt in fists that trembled with years of swallowed pain.
“You bastard! You fucking bastard! You lied to me!” she sobbed, shoving him so hard his back hit the wall. “You fuckin’ lied to me!”
“Bine, stop—please just let me?—”
“LET YOU WHAT?” she screamed. “Lie again?”
“Baby you gonna wake up Ade.”
“Were you thinking about him when you were doing God knows the fuck what while I was in the hospital, pregnant and FUCKING ALONE! When they had to pry your son from me because I…” she breathed in a shake breath. “I HAD NOONE! I CAME HERE FOR YOU! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE THERE!” she banged her fists into his chest.
Adair pulled her tight, locking his arms around her waist until she couldn’t swing anymore. Until she sagged in his grip, body heaving. “Listen to me,” he pleaded. “Please, just let me explain.”
“Go ahead,” Sabine pushed away from, and stood a couple inches away, arms crossed one foot impatiently tapping the floor ready to tee off on his ass again. “Talk!”
“It…it was a kiss,” he admitted, the words falling like bricks between them. “A kiss and...and I stopped it. I swear to you, Sabine, I stopped it. The second it happened, I left. I left and tried to call you, and my phone?—”
She screamed. Loud. Guttural. The kind of scream that came from the marrow.“Don’t you dare bring up your phone!”
Adair closed his eyes. “I should’ve never gone out. I should’ve come home. I was...I was tired and I didn’t want to face everything. I didn’t want to see how sad you looked. How far we’d drifted. I felt like I was drowning, and that night…I was just selfish.”
“Selfish?” she repeated, mouth open, eyes wide. “Selfish is finishing the last of the ice cream. Buying something we can’t afford when a bill needs to be paid. What you did? What you chose? That’s betrayal. That’s abandonment.”
Adair’s face crumpled. “I hated myself the second it happened.”
“You should.”
“I do…”
“So what else?”
“What do you mean?”