“Why didn’t you say anything?” she accused, leaning away from me.
I was breaking her. I could see it in her eyes. Everything I’d shielded her from during those years we were trying to conceive was crushing her all over again.
I gave her space and swayed my torso back, but I kept my hips between her legs. “Because, if you wanted it, I wanted to be the one to give it to you.”
She chewed on the inside of her cheek, tears streaming from her eyes. “I…I thought we were a team.”
“We were!” I swore. “But, baby, infertility is an impossible sport. Everyone loses.”
“Until they win,” she replied sharply. “You’re standing here, talking about our struggle to get pregnant and how that affected you. But you seem to forget the fact that we beat it. We got Tripp.”
My eyebrows pinched together. I didn’t know how to reply. I’d loved that little boy from the moment Elisabeth had told me she was pregnant. I’d never forget the first time I’d felt him kick. It was the first time I believed in miracles. I’d also never forget the day we found out he was a boy—and then, minutes later, found out about the fluid on his brain and that he probably wouldn’t make it to delivery. It’d felt like I’d been hit by freight train. I wasn’t sure we could consider that kind of tragedy a victory.
She closed her eyes and whispered, “You never connected with him, but I never thought you’d turn your back on me.”
“I never connected with him?” I repeated on a violent whisper. “Have you lost your fucking mind? He died in my arms!”
“And then you left!” she yelled, pushing me back and hopping off the counter. “Like it meant nothing. Like those twelve minutes he was alive weren’t worth it. You woke up the next morning while I was still in the hospital, grieving our little boy, and declared you were quitting your job and starting Leblanc Industries.”
“So I could give you another child!” I roared.
Her face turned red as she screamed, “I didn’t need another child! I needed you!” She began pacing the length of the granite island. “God, Roman. What is wrong with you? You act like I was some baby-crazed woman who wouldn’t stop until I got a basketball team. I had just lost our son. The last thing on my mind was replacing him.”
I stepped toward her, blocking her path. “But you would have wanted to try again eventually, Lis. And nothing had changed. I wouldn’t have been able to give it to you. I couldn’t do it physically, and it destroyed me when we had to borrow money from your parents the first time. That was my job to provide that for you. And I just couldn’t! I started the company, and I did everything I fucking could to earn the money to pay for another IVF cycle.” I pinched the bridge of my nose and stared at the floor. “I fucked up. I fucked up. I fucked up. I know this now. I should have talked to you. But, in the throes of failing the only woman I’ve ever loved, the words didn’t come easily. I take full responsibility for that.”
“God, Roman! You have no idea how often I used to lie awake in that bed, all hours of the night, just praying you’d come home and talk to me.”
I slowly lifted my gaze to hers and admitted, “Yeah, I do. Because I used to sit in my car, down the street, waiting for your bedroom light to go off.”
“What?” she whispered, a sob catching in her throat.
I reached for her hand, but she snatched it away.
“I couldn’t stand watching you cry anymore and I couldn’t fix it. I came home a few times and found you talking to my mom or one of your girlfriends, and for those moments, you were okay. Happy, even. But, as soon as your eyes met mine, they filled with tears. I figured staying away was better.”
She shoved me as hard as she could. “You dumbass. I missed you. I missed our life. I missed being your wife. That’s why I’d cry, because even when you did come home, you still weren’t there!”
I lifted my hands palm up and, at a loss for more words, said, “I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry? You’re sorry? That’s it?”
Was that it?
Not even fucking close.
I strode toward her, but she backed away just as quickly.
“Don’t you dare come near me,” she said. “Keep your hands to yourself and out of my hair so I can actually think for once.”
This was not how this conversation was supposed to go.