“I know I messed up,” I say. “I know I hurt you. But I need to make things right.” Still behind him, I wrap my arms around his waist.
But he peels my hands away from his torso. “No, you need to go back to England and keep me out of whatever mind games you and your husband are playing.” He punches the bag hard, the sound of his knuckles on the leather as loud as a gun going off.
“I swear to you,” I say, “our marriage is over.”
“Sebastian Walsh doesn’t seem to think so.”
“Well, he and I disagree about a lot of things,” I say. “That’s why I left.”
“Have you filed for divorce?”
I swallow. “No, not yet,” I say. “I was gonna give him a month to get used to the fact that I was gone. So he wouldn’t be mad.”
“So, you don’t want him to be mad or upset or confused,” Ryder says, his punches growing louder, harder, “but how I feel doesn’t matter, I guess.”
“The only thing that matters to me right now is how you feel,” I say. But my words just echo, bouncing off the mostly empty walls of the gym, landing nowhere, eliciting no response. Ryder hits the bag, alternating hands now, not looking at me, not even looking as though he knows I’m still there, an arm’s length from him but feeling very, very far away.
He circles the bag as he punches it, out of my sight now. I slip my sandals on and walk toward the exit.
But as I put my hand on the door, he says, “You know, I came out there last night because I thought you needed help.” I turn to see him walking toward me, his arms crossed, his taped hands resting in the crooks of his elbows. “I thought you might be in danger and I wanted to protect you.”
“I know.”
“I care about you, Cassie.” His voice is firm and strong and sincere. Commanding without being demanding. “And I guess I thought you cared about me.”
“I do,” I say, my voice less controlled. I can feel my throat tightening, my mouth getting dry, my stomach clenching. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I’m sorry about last night, okay? I should have handled things differently, I should have reacted a different way but I’m not used to anyone else helping me or checking on me. I’m used to having to protect myself.”
“Protect yourself from what?”
“From him.” I say it without thinking, but my body reacts to the admission, my heartbeat like rain pattering on a window during a thunderstorm, my breath hitching in my chest.
“What do you mean?” he says.
I shrug and run my fingers through my hair and behind my ears and across my jaw. I glance at Ryder through my long bangs, then look away.
“Why do you have to protect yourself from him?” His voice is quiet, calm and comforting.
“Sebastian can be sort of…” I stop, trying to think of the right way to encapsulate his behavior in a word. “Temperamental.”
“Temperamental,” Ryder repeats. The muscles in his jaw tense. “Like how?”
“Just…” I exhale loudly. “He gets angry.”
“He yells?”
“Not really. Other people might hear that and then they’d think he’s undignified,” I say. I cross my arms. “God forbid they know the truth.”
“What’s the truth?” he says.
I shake my head.
“Did he hit you?
I turn my head and stare at the wall, letting my eyes go out of focus. A second passes or a minute or eternity, I can’t tell, and I can’t look at Ryder. I have never told anyone. “Sometimes,” I say. “Sometimes it was…other things.” I can’t continue.
“I’m gonna kill him,” he says, his tone even but tense, like he’s reciting a well-known fact that no one likes to admit is true. “I’m gonna fucking kill him.”
I wipe away the tears on my cheeks and reach for him, taking his hands. “No, you’re not going to do anything. That’s what he wants. He wants other people to be as angry as he is,” I say. “And I don’t want him to get anything he wants ever again.”
“Is he still in Atlanta?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “After you left, I told him to leave me the hell alone last night and I haven’t seen or heard from him since. I didn’t even know he was here til he showed up at Altitude.”
“If I can find him, I’m gonna smash his face in.”
“I’m telling you, forget him. He thrives on reaction, so the best thing to do is not have one,” I say, my voice breaking as the memories flood back. It took me a lot of bruises to figure that out, and the thing is: it doesn’t even always work. “I just want him out of my life, and if that means ignoring what he did to me, then I’m gonna ignore it. Because then I’m ignoring him. At least until I get a divorce lawyer.”
Ryder tucks my hair behind my ear. “I can make some calls. See if we can’t expedite the papers you need.”
I cock my head. “You know divorce attorneys in London?”
“I know a lot of people, tiger.”