Conviction (Consolation Duet #2) by Corinne Michaels Page B

we fought so hard for. She was everything I wanted, but you weren’t there. It was the end of me feeling sorry for myself. I found strength and determination. I was still sad, lonely, and missing you terribly, but you were gone. When I had the memorial, it was horrific, but again, I did it. I had to get up each day because she needed me, but that was about all I could do. Then Liam came to Virginia.”
    “No,” Aaron cuts me off. My eyes snap up, and he rips his hand back. “You’re not going to sit here and tell me about how Liam put you back together. Natalie, you’re my wife.” He leans forward with determination in his eyes. “We have a child. We have a life people only dream of. You and I are meant to be together.”
    “You slept with another woman. You keep forgetting that. And I don’t think we had a life people dream of. I think we were comfortable and content. You were seeking what I wasn’t giving you! You said it yourself.”
    “It was a one-time thing, a fucked up night,” he says, and my retort dies on my tongue.
    “One night? You can look me in the eyes and tell me that?” I ask hesitantly.
    Aaron stands and comes around the table. My heart falters as I look at my husband, my best friend since I was sixteen. He stands over me and pulls me to my feet. “One horrible night after we’d lost the baby. After I had to watch you lie on the bathroom floor begging for God to kill you. You held your stomach and prayed that someone would just end it all because you weren’t good enough. I was broken after that. I didn’t know what to do, so I left.”
    “I remember. I came out and you were gone. You left when I was in the middle of pure torture.” I look at him recalling that night.
    It was the last failed procedure, and I was distraught. I thought that baby was the one. I was ten weeks, we were so close to the safe zone. I started cramping and then I saw blood. I sat there trying to convince myself that it wasn’t really blood. That it wasn’t a sign that we were going to lose the baby, because I was so close. The pain was unlike anything I’d ever felt. I would cry and clutch my stomach as the life I’d been desperate for left me.
    I told myself that if the pregnancy didn’t stick, I would stop trying. I needed to move forward and stop hoping for something I wasn’t meant to have. We’d spent so much money and energy. I was consumed by everything regarding fertility.
    Aaron’s hands hold my face. “I couldn’t watch. I felt like I failed you as a husband. I couldn’t watch you like that. I went to the bar, got drunk, and I fucked up.”
    Turmoil boils in my body as I try to figure out if he’s lying. None of this makes sense. “Brittany said it was months. She said . . .”
    “She lied,” Aaron says, so sure.
    “Why would she lie? What does she have to gain? We all thought you were dead. So it makes no sense for her to be vicious and mean to me. But you lying right now would make sense,” I say, feeling angry that I don’t know what the damn truth is.
    There’s so much between us, so much history, and throwing it all away isn’t something I take lightly, but I think about Liam. How far we came. How much we loved. And how hard it would be to lose him. I’ve already lost Aaron once, I know I can endure it. Besides, this man in front of me isn’t the same man I loved. I look at him now and see betrayal and deceit.
    “Why would I lie to you, Lee? I always told you the truth!” he exclaims and turns his back.
    “You didn’t lie? You think for one second even if it was only one night with her, that’s okay? Do you not see how disgusting that makes you? On the night we lose a child, you sleep with someone else. The night I had to crawl into bed on my hands and knees because the cramping was so bad, you were fucking someone. While I was in horrific pain, you were enjoying the night of your life?” I spit the words, hoping he feels the knives embedded in them. I hope they tear into