“Why do I want your forgiveness?” she asked. “Because I left you. Because I didn’t give our marriage a chance. Because I told you that you weren’t a part of my life when you visited me. Because I let you believe I didn’t care for you.”
Did you? Did you care for me?
The words perched precariously on the tip of his tongue, but he forbade himself to ask, to sink to that level of humiliation—begging her for crumbs that were blown away years ago.
Suddenly he felt angry. He didn’t want to hear her apologies or grant her some late-game forgiveness so she could walk away with a clear conscience while he tried to put the pieces of his broken heart back together. It was flaying him open just to be in the same room with her, because the seminal fact remained: she was here to sign divorce papers.
Just get it over with.
“It doesn’t matter anymore.” He opened his drawer and pulled out the stack of papers, laying it on the desk between them, then placing a pen on top of them. “You don’t need to say you’re sorry, Elise. You don’t need my forgiveness. You don’t owe me anything.”
She flicked her glance to the papers, then back to his face. “What I said to you in L.A. wasn’t true. You asked what we were. And the truth is that we were lovely, Pres, but we were so much more than that. We were in love, but we were premature. We happened too fast, too soon. We frightened me.”
“If you had stayed, we could have figured it out together.”
“I don’t think so,” she said, her voice so melancholy it tugged at his heart. “At the time, I felt panicked. I felt lost. I ran toward something safe rather than staying somewhere that scared me.”
He knew this was the truth. He’d known it on their wedding day. He’d known it the morning after. An epic night of sex had obscured it, but not eliminated it. But she’d still left. She’d still placed her fears and career over him, above their marriage.
“Did you love me?” he demanded, the words just as surprising to him as they appeared to be to her.
“Completely,” she said, her voice thready with emotion. “But it wasn’t just about love. It was about our lives, my career, your career. I didn’t know how to weave the two together. I didn’t know how to share my life with someone, how to give up the control I’d fought for. And Pres, when you came out to see me in L.A., I was still exactly where I’d been when I left you in New York. Still confused. Still frightened by us. Still running.”
He flinched when she mentioned L.A., and felt his face harden. “Do you remember what you said to me?”
“I’m so sorr—”
“Do. You. Remember?”
She spoke slowly, tears streaming down her face as she recited the same words she’d said then, owning them all over again, but with regret instead of anger this time. “You’re making me un-unhappy. I can’t be your wife. I don’t ch-choose you. This is my life, and you’re not a part of it.”
She finished in a whisper and Preston realized he’d been holding his breath as he listened, waiting for something—anything—to soften the pain of hearing them again, but the only thing he had ever wanted was her, and the papers between them proved she didn’t want him.
Finally he dropped her eyes. He couldn’t bear it. He couldn’t stand to rehash the most painful days of his life in the name of granting her peace and forgiveness.
“Sign them,” he whispered, pushing the papers toward her.
“Forgive me,” she begged him, her voice strangled.
He looked up at her, at her beloved face slick with tears.
“I can’t.”
She stared at him for a long time, her eyes soft and sad, beseeching him, then dropping to her lap.
“I understand,” she murmured.
“You need to go,” he said. “Please, Elise, just…go.”
Without another word, she stood up, walked to his office door, opened it, walked through it, and closed it behind her.
Chapter 16
Talk
Just because you ask for forgiveness doesn’t mean you’re going to get it.
She heard her mother’s voice in her head as clear as day: short on comfort and long on common sense. And really, it wasn’t that Elise had expected him to forgive her, but she’d certainly hoped, and she couldn’t deny it hurt her that he wasn’t able to.