strongest women I know. And I’m not doing this for him. I’m doing it for you,” she said, her voice cracking over the last words. My body shook against his broad shoulder when he took the first step down. Raelynn’s eyes never left mine, even when she spoke to Nico.
“Remember, Nico. I’ll kill you.”
“Noted.”
Thirty-Seven
Nico
Vera scowled out the window the entire ride home. Everything about her body turned away, arms crossed, and clenched jaw screamed that she didn’t want to be here.
But I still caught the quick glances my way like she was just as desperate to look at me as I was to look at her. We’d barely been together, yet I took my first full deep breath when I saw her standing there wide-eyed in the middle of the living room.
It’d been a breath full of fire, but a breath that stretched my lungs past the crippling pressure that’d weighed on them since the lobby.
“Will you walk upstairs, or am I carrying you?” I asked once we parked.
“Fuck you, Nicholas.”
I watched her fumble with the door handle before stumbling out in her high-heeled boots. Her words should have added fuel to the fire, but I was too happy to hear her say my name again that I didn’t care.
Besides, I deserved her ire. I deserved it all.
If she was going to leave me, it was damn well going to be after she heard me out.
We walked up to our top floor apartment, and she slammed the door in my face, shaking the frame. I expected to hear the lock next, but the doorknob turned when I tried it. I pushed open the door in time to watch her brown hair fly behind her as she rounded the corner.
Watching her run from me in our own home had me slamming the door, similar to how she did. Two could play this game of petulance.
“Verana Rush,” I bellowed. “Get back here right now.”
She appeared around the corner like a bull ready to charge. “I am not a child for you to order around.”
“Then stop acting like one.”
“And don’t call me that.”
“Why?” I asked, stalking toward her into the living room. “It’s your name. Because you’re my wife.”
“I am not your wife.”
“Oh, I have the license and a contract that says otherwise. For five more years. A legally binding one at that.”
Her ire grew, and I waited for the smoke to start pouring out of her ears.
Her nostrils flared over her heavy breaths, jaw clenched just as tight as her fists, and her eyes doing their best to incinerate me.
“I hate you,” she hissed.
I flinched, the words a slap to the face. A reminder of all I’d done to deserve her anger and hitting right on the nerves of fear that I’d never get her back to the woman who promised me dinner by the fire in our home.
“How can you file for divorce without even talking to me?”
I shoved my hurt to the side and got to the heart of why I brought her here.
“How can you use me—marry me—to steal my family’s company—my mother’s company?”
Apparently, she was getting to the heart of her issues too. Neither of us held back punches. My anger had been directed at her filing for divorce without even giving me a fighting chance. I hated to lose—but I refused to lose a race I never got a chance to run.
But now that I stood there, ready to get answers to my questions, I realized I had to answer hers too. I knew I always would, but I stood there like a kid who stared at a test he never studied for. I had the answers, but they were jumbled and raw. They floated through my head without structure and came with more honest pain than I’d ever shared with anyone.
The discomfort of them had me pulling back—avoiding until I could control the direction.
“Verana…”
“No. No,” she said, crossing her arms and straightening her back. “Don’t you dare stand there like I’m the one who’s in the wrong. You dragged me here. You put me in this position. You did this, Nicholas, so don’t you dare act like me filing for divorce is the issue.”
“It is when you haven’t even talked to me. There are two sides to every story.”
“So, you mean to tell me there is a side that makes this all okay?” she asked, sarcasm and mock-hope dripped from her words. “There’s a side that makes it okay that you used me, lied to me,