Eligible Ex-husband - Marie Johnston Page 0,77
just when I thought we turned a corner, the path is leading us back to the beginning. And he doesn’t see it.
“We’ve done temporary,” I say. “It lasted for years.”
He cocks his head like he didn’t hear me correctly. “I’ve made a concentrated effort to change. We won’t make the same mistakes.”
“Meanwhile, what? I turn down other clients because Gainesworth Equity is dominating my time? And I’m basically your employee again? Then the baby’s born and I’m back to answering your messages while I’m rocking a newborn? Working all through naptime because you don’t set boundaries for your clients?”
“That’s not fair, Natalie. That’s the past.”
“That’s the present,” I snap. Just because he learned to set autoresponders doesn’t mean he wasn’t up half the night answering messages when we came back from the lake. Who knows how much of that weekend Helena sacrificed. “That’s exactly why Helena quit.”
“I get it,” he says from between clenched teeth. “I’ve been telling you for two months that I get it. I’ve been proving it. Natalie. A few months is all I’m asking.”
“No, you’re asking me to use what I’m building for me for you, to turn my identity back to revolving around you.”
He thumps down the plastic cups and I flinch. “That’s not what I’m asking. I gave up my parents for you.”
My jaw drops. Did he go there? “I didn’t ask you to.” My index finger has a mind of its own as I wave it around. “But let’s talk about that. I put up with their shit for ten years. Ten years of being belittled, dismissed, and standing by while your mother tries to set you up with someone else. And you finally have a two-minute talk with them and think it’s all better?”
He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Look… I’m sorry. I’m sorry about them, I’m sorry about working too much. But I’ve built this from the ground up. I worked that hard for us, for the girls.”
And there it is. The excuse he falls back on. When he says it, he thinks the argument’s done, all is explained. “You don’t do this for us.”
His jaw clenches. “How can you say that? Of course I do. There’s no other reason.”
I’ve been quiet about this too long. He asked for straightforward, then he’s going to get it. It’s not just his work hours that affected our marriage—it’s the real motivation behind it. “You have something to prove, and it’s not to me and it’s not to your kids. You’re so stuck on not living up to your brother’s reputation and trying to do something that’ll make your parents say ‘atta boy’ that you couldn’t see what it’s doing to you. Or your family. And you’re doing it again. Do you know how many times I wished Liam never left us that money?”
He braces one arm on the counter, the other on his hip, and gives me a hard look. “Don’t bring Liam into this.”
“He’s been in it from the beginning. You were so driven in college because when you accomplished something your parents pointed out how Liam accomplished more. When he passed away, that money was supposed to be his last gift to you, but it’s like a curse. You want the glory for yourself. That’s why you didn’t expand and hire someone when I first started telling you that it’s too much. It was too much for me, it was too much for you, and it was too much for us. Now you want to go back to that?”
We lock gazes for a few long moments. If the girls can hear us, they haven’t come looking yet. They’ve never witnessed us arguing like this.
He works his jaw before he asks, “Are you asking me to choose between work and you?”
“No, Simon.” Defeat rings in my voice. “I’m not asking you to choose. I’m saying that I’m tired, and I don’t know if I’m willing to do the last few years all over again.” I inhale a long breath and stroke my gaze over his strong jaw and his perfectly combed hair. I miss tousled Simon.
His voice gets thick. “Then what are you saying?”
I roll my lips in and close my eyes. Last night, we connected on a deeper level than ever before. And yet here we are. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I have a lot to think about.”
I leave the dishes and go to the bedroom. It’s early, but I don’t care to rehash the same exhausted discussion