After the Sun Sets (18+)

CHAPTER 21 - Exodus

Lora's fingers hesitated three times before they finally rested on the doorbell. The sweet ding-dong sound made her stomach churn. Owen opened the door and greeted her with a smile which she didn't have the heart to return. He moved aside, allowing her to walk in before he turned to kiss her on the cheek, but she hadn't waited for him to close the door. She walked straight into the kitchen.

The irony hit her like a strong gush of hot air as her mind went back to their first time, right there, by the breakfast bar.

"What's wrong?" Owen asked walking up behind her.

Again she hesitated. She looked at him, his thoughtful eyes filled with worry, his lips pursed. She let out a shaky breath. She couldn't go through with it.

"I can't go through with it," she confessed.

Owen felt the floor give way underneath his feet. "What do you mean you can't go through with it?"

She closed her eyes against the alarm in his voice. She wanted to hold him, touch him. His face, his frown. But instead, her fingers went straight to her mouth and she started biting away on her nails. Owen immediately closed the distance between them and pulled her hand away. He kissed her palm softly and set it on his heart. It was hammering like a machine gun.

"Talk to me, Lora," he said in the gentlest of voices.

She looked up at him through her lashes, the guilt and the pain levelling in her chest so equally she didn't know which emotion was more powerful. "I can't sign the separation papers. I gave them to him and he said he'd sign them if that was what I really wanted, but..."

Her voice faltered and her eyes filled with tears and it did nothing to soothe the trepidation in Owen's lungs. "But what?"

Lora drew in another shaky breath. She had to be strong. "But he said he's willing to forget everything. He said if I stayed, he wouldn't interfere with my life anymore. He wants to stay married for the sake of the kids and for mine."

Owen blinked and blinked and shook his head but he could not bring her back into focus. It was like he was frozen in a world that spun twice as fast.

"For your sake? How is... uh... How does this benefit you?"

Lora felt herself shrinking. She knew the words to say. She practised them over and over in the car, where she sat a full thirty minutes until she found the courage to get out and walk up to his house. And yet, as she spoke them she felt like a fraud. She knew she was doing the right thing but she was wretched.

"It would make things so much easier for Aiden and Siena," she said, her answer directed at herself just as much as it was at the man in front of her. "They wouldn't even know anything. You know how close Siena is with her father, and Aiden is just starting to form a bond with Jona. Jess and Krista are finally giving their relationship with him another go-"

"No, Lora. How does it benefit you?" Owen interrupted, his voice strained with control. "Is it so people don't talk?"

She looked at him for a long time, still as a statue. Then her body trembled and she hugged herself for stability. Owen couldn't read her expression. She could have been angry or offended or worse, ashamed that she'd been caught out. But when her gaze dropped to the floor, he realised she was carefully considering his question. She hadn't even thought about it before. When she opened her mouth, her voice was a mere broken whisper, uncertain and yet full of resignation. 

"I can't be the woman who leaves her sick husband for another man. I can't break up my marriage for my own gain."

Owen felt something akin to rage bubbling inside him even though he knew he had no right to be angry at her. He always knew this would be hard for Lora. She was always black and white. Right and wrong. Never in between. But he never thought her faith so deep-seated to the point of crippling her. She was a logical person after all. She could rationalise anything. Anything except her own interests, apparently.