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better, you two can't stand each other? Then what happens?”

“I don't know,” he said honestly, looking at her. They both looked ravaged.

“Something must have been wrong, for you to sleep with Becky. Men don't do things like that unless they're unhappy with their wives.”

“Maybe not. I think we were bored with each other. Beth was tired of being poor. I felt overwhelmed by the kids at times. It was more responsibility than I bargained for, or was ready for. Hell, I married her at nineteen.”

“And that's what you're going back to,” Sasha said somberly. “Think about it before you do it. You can take care of Charlotte for as long as you need to, without going back to Beth.”

“Sasha, it's done,” he said. It sounded like a death knell to her. “I have to. She needs me. She asked me. She can't do this alone. She's not that strong.” Sasha nodded. There were no arguments left. She had tried them all and lost. And she didn't have the heart to try to convince him of what she knew was wrong. He knew he had to go back to Beth, only because he wanted to, not because she asked. He would have thought of it himself. Sasha knew that about him now. Outrageous behavior and all, he was a good and decent man.

She offered to make him breakfast, but he only shook his head. He couldn't eat. They hadn't slept. He felt as though he were giving up his life, leaving her. He had wanted so desperately to have a life with her, and it had been taken from them, by the hand of fate, and the fault of neither of them. The hand of God. Destiny. All their dreams had to be destroyed and given up. But it was Beth's turn now, and Charlotte's, and the boys'. He belonged to them. He had made a vow to Beth twenty-two years before, and now he had to live up to it. He felt he had no other choice. Sasha was his dream. And Beth was his life.

He put her gifts to him in the backpack he'd brought, and she looked down at her bracelet and then back up at him. “I'll never take it off. I'll love you forever, Liam.”

“Don't,” he said as tears rolled down his cheeks and fell on hers as he kissed her for the last time. “Forget me. Forget us. Put it away somewhere in your heart, and so will I. You will always be here with me.” He pointed to his heart, and Sasha nodded.

She clung to him as though she would die when he left, and she thought she would. This was the good-bye she had never had a chance to say to Arthur. That night with Liam, they had said it all. He was leaving her, loving her as much as he had for the past year, in fact more than he ever had.

She was whimpering as she walked to the elevator with him, and he pressed the button. She was standing barefoot in her nightgown, with her long dark hair hanging like a child's. The elevator came, he looked at her, got in as her eyes met his, and then the door closed and he was gone. She realized as she walked back into her apartment then, it was Christmas morning.

Chapter 21

Christmas was a blur for her, a nightmare beyond belief. Xavier and Tatianna called to wish her a merry Christmas and check on her, and she assured them she was fine. Although Xavier thought she sounded strange, and called to check on her again that night. He asked if Liam was there and she said he had been, and had just gone back to Vermont. She was in too much pain to share the news with anyone. It was so excruciating, she sat in a chair all day, and hardly moved. She just sat there, staring into space. She was in shock.

The day after Christmas, Sasha was at the gallery at ten o'clock, as she always was, when Marcie walked in and saw her sitting at her desk. Her hair was pulled straight back, she had no makeup on, and her face was an ashy white. She was sorting through some papers on her desk, and there was a rigid quality to the way she sat. As though she were in shock, and when Marcie looked at her and saw her eyes, she was sure Charlotte had died. In fact, Sasha had.

“Oh