Flipping on the lights, he forced himself not to call out for Kristin like the desperate man he knew he was.
He headed straight for the garage, flipping on lights as he went. He took a deep breath as he strode by the kitchen, everything clean and perfectly in place. When he yanked open the door to the garage, it illuminated automatically, and his heart sank.
Her car was gone, and his SUV sat exactly where it belonged.
“Fucking hell!” he cursed, slamming the garage door closed and pulling off his jacket. He tossed it on the counter, not giving a shit about whether he hung it up.
It wasn’t like Kristin was going to be on his ass about being tidier. In fact, she wasn’t going to get on his case about anything ever again.
Bypassing the refrigerator, he went straight to the bar in the family room and poured himself a glass of Scotch—minus the water or the ice. He downed it in a couple of gulps, slamming the glass down when he was finished and refilling the glass.
“She’s gone. She fucking left,” he growled. “I was the idiot who gave her the choice. What did I expect?”
What he wanted, what he really needed, was for her to pick him. Not because they’d accidentally gotten married and were trying each other out. But because she chose to stay with him because that’s what she wanted.
“She didn’t pick me,” he said huskily, taking another gulp of his whiskey before setting it down on the coffee table and wandering back into the kitchen.
Before he knew what was happening, his sorrow turned into anger and he punched the French doors that led out to the patio, venting his frustration on the glass and small trims of white wood. It felt so good that he did it again.
And again.
And again.
His knuckles were bleeding and throbbing before he finally stopped because he’d shattered most of the small, separated plates of glass, and beating up the door wasn’t helping his rage much. And it sure as hell wasn’t mending the huge gaping hole in his heart.
He went back to the family room and picked up his drink painfully and took the last gulp of his Scotch, setting it down again to flex his bloody hands. Glancing at the damage to the door from a distance, he rasped, “Fucking idiot!”
His outburst of fury wasn’t really with Kristin. He’d asked her to make a choice, and she had. She just hadn’t picked him. He couldn’t blame her. He’d pretty much lied to her, and he hadn’t exactly picked the best ways to show her how much he cared. From the very beginning, he hadn’t handled his intense attraction to her very well. Neither of them had. But he’d known what was happening. She probably hadn’t.
His gut was aching as he went and got another drink, uncertain what to do with himself.
The house was too quiet.
He’d gotten way too accustomed to spending his evenings with Kristin, arguing, laughing . . . or both.
Either way, it always ended the same: with his cock inside her and both of them finding the kind of ecstasy that they never knew existed.
Now, there was only silence and the knowledge that the joy that he’d found in this house was never going to be present here again.
He flopped on the couch and tried not to think of all the things he could have done differently, but it came down to just one thing.
She didn’t choose me.
Julian’s only consolation was that Kristin had made a decision that would obviously make her happy.
It was like déjà vu of another relationship in his life. Why was it that women wanted to fuck him, but they didn’t want to be with him? Except, his other relationship hadn’t hurt nearly as much as this did. In so many ways, he’d made a lucky escape from the female who had rejected him so long ago. But Kristin was different. The only thing he felt was totally annihilated.
Knowing that at least one of them would be happy was the sole reprieve for a guy who’d just had his heart and soul completely destroyed.
He downed his drink, wondering if he should just get the damn bottle as he put the tumbler on the table.
Running a hand through his hair in despair, he realized that he was probably streaking his face with blood. He wiped his throbbing hands on his jeans, then let them rest on the top of his thighs, allowing his head to drop back to rest on the sofa and closing his eyes.
He might be slightly buzzed, but nothing could take away the relentless pain of knowing he’d never hold the woman that he loved again.
Maybe tomorrow he’d change his mind and hound her until she relented.
But right now, and probably tomorrow, too, he just wanted her to be happy.
Yeah, her decision made him miserable. But wasn’t real love more than selfishness? Wasn’t it more than bullying someone into something they didn’t want just because he wanted it?
Yeah. For him, love was so much more, and he knew he’d never want to make her stay if she didn’t want to. Not anymore.
He knew he had to find the will to move and go clean himself up.
But he sat unmoving on the couch for quite some time.
CHAPTER 24
The lights were all on when Kristin pulled into the driveway.