“I really needed you…”
Regret flickered in his eyes like a dying flame.
I shook my head slowly. “Ace, what you’re missing isn’t a wife. What you want is a full–time secretary who never questions your gray affairs, a housekeeper who cooks your meals and swallows every bitterness in silence.”}
“You never truly needed me.”
I wrenched his hand away and tossed the wilted bouquet into the trash, feeling a weight lift from my chest.}
Ace’s voice grew rough, desperate. “No, Everly, it wasn’t like that!”
He spilled out how, at first, his heart ached for Faye because life alone had been cruel to her. But soon, compared to my quiet strength and restraint, Faye’s wild spirit seemed intoxicating, more alive.
He sought excitement in that fake ‘brotherly affection.‘
