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My Mafia Husband Said I’d Never Cheat. The Twins Aren’t His
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For years, while my husband ran his crime family and took other women to bed, I threatened to find a lover of my own. By the hundredth time, Lewis James didn't even look up from the ledger on his desk. “Mrs. James.” A cigarette hung from his lips, smoke drifting across his faint smile. “A hundred threats, and you still haven't fucked another man. Aren't you getting tired of this?” I stood across from him in the study, where men twice his age waited for permission to speak. Behind me, his guards had shut the doors. They knew better than to witness an argument between the boss and his wife. They also knew how those arguments ended. I would threaten to make him regret it. He would leave. I would still be there when he came home. His phone buzzed beside the ledger. He glanced at the screen, and his expression softened in a way I hadn't seen directed at me in years. Then he tilted it toward me, just long enough for me to see her name. “Take your time, sweetheart. My girl's waiting.” He stubbed out his cigarette and reached for his shoulder holster. A moment later, the guards fell into step behind him, and I heard him tell his driver where to go. Not a meeting. Not family business. Her apartment. I watched the study door swing shut. For once, I didn't follow him or demand that he come back. He had stopped believing me long ago. That night, I finally stopped waiting for him to. A month later, Lewis returned to the estate. His convoy rolled through the iron gates just after dark. I was curled up on the couch when he came into the sitting room, loosening his tie. “Well, Mrs. James. Did you finally find yourself a boy toy?” I said nothing. He gave a quiet laugh and dropped his keys onto the table. “Didn't think so.” He leaned against the arm of the couch, utterly at ease. “Letty, after what happened in high school, you can barely stand having a man touch you. I'm the only exception.” His gaze traveled over my face. “You really expect me to believe you could let someone else into your bed?” My phone vibrated against my palm. He was still smiling when I looked down. Letty, we're having twins. Beneath the message was an ultrasound photo. I stared at the two small shapes, my fingers tightening around the phone. Then another message appeared. Give me three days. I'm coming to marry you.
Chapters (4)
第1章
For years, while my husband ran his crime family and took other women to bed, I threatened to find a lover of my own.
By the hundredth time, Lewis James didn't even look up from the ledger on his desk.
“Mrs. James.” A cigarette hung from his lips, smoke drifting across his faint smile. “A hundred threats, and you still haven't fucked another man. Aren't you getting tired of this?”
I stood across from him in the study, where men twice his age waited for permission to speak. Behind me, his guards had shut the doors. They knew better than to witness an argument between the boss and his wife.
They also knew how those arguments ended.
I would threaten to make him regret it. He would leave. I would still be there when he came home.
His phone buzzed beside the ledger.
He glanced at the screen, and his expression softened in a way I hadn't seen directed at me in years. Then he tilted it toward me, just long enough for me to see her name.
“Take your time, sweetheart. My girl's waiting.”
He stubbed out his cigarette and reached for his shoulder holster. A moment later, the guards fell into step behind him, and I heard him tell his driver where to go.
Not a meeting. Not family business.
Her apartment.
I watched the study door swing shut. For once, I didn't follow him or demand that he come back.
He had stopped believing me long ago.
That night, I finally stopped waiting for him to.
A month later, Lewis returned to the estate.
His convoy rolled through the iron gates just after dark. I was curled up on the couch when he came into the sitting room, loosening his tie.
“Well, Mrs. James. Did you finally find yourself a boy toy?”
I said nothing.
He gave a quiet laugh and dropped his keys onto the table.
“Didn't think so.”
He leaned against the arm of the couch, utterly at ease.
“Letty, after what happened in high school, you can barely stand having a man touch you. I'm the only exception.” His gaze traveled over my face. “You really expect me to believe you could let someone else into your bed?”
My phone vibrated against my palm.
He was still smiling when I looked down.
Letty, we're having twins.
Beneath the message was an ultrasound photo.
I stared at the two small shapes, my fingers tightening around the phone.
Then another message appeared.
Give me three days. I'm coming to marry you.
……
Lewis finally noticed I was no longer listening.
“Am I talking to myself?”
The softness he'd worn while reading his mistress's message was gone. He used that tone with his soldiers when they failed to follow an order. Until recently, it had worked just as well on me.
I looked up at him.
Ten years. I'd spent ten years studying that face, learning every shift in his expression, every warning in his silence.
Seven years together. Three years married.
I remembered his proposal. The man who could order an execution without raising his voice had fumbled the ring and started his speech twice. At our wedding, he'd cried as he promised to love me for the rest of his life.
I'd believed him. Even with armed men stationed outside the church, I'd felt completely safe.
Then came the first night he didn't come home.
The argument afterward. His refusal to tell me where he'd been. The bedroom door slamming hard enough to shake the frame.
I'd sat on the balcony until dawn, listening for footsteps that never came.
After that, there had always been another excuse. Another woman. Another promise I'd wanted badly enough to believe.
A hundred chances. A hundred threats. A hundred disappointments.
I'd expected this homecoming to hurt, too. Instead, I watched his mouth move and wondered when I'd stopped needing anything he had to say.
My thoughts drifted to someone else.
Cool lips against my forehead. Hot skin beneath my palms. Hands that had waited for me to reach for them before touching me.
I remembered how easily I'd leaned into him. How, for once, I hadn't needed to brace myself.
I loved every part of him.
Being with him felt more natural than being with Lewis ever had. And he'd loved me for ten years, through all the years I'd spent loving the wrong man.
I stood.
Lewis was a full head taller than me. Usually, this close, I found myself watching his jaw instead of meeting his eyes.
This time, I looked straight at him.
“Lewis.”
“What?”
“The divorce papers are on your desk. Read them and sign. We still have time to get to my lawyer's office before it closes.”
His expression went still.
I waited a moment, then stepped around him and headed for the foyer. Beyond the front windows, one of his guards stood beside the idling car.
I'd need to tell the driver we were making another stop.
As I passed Lewis, I caught the perfume on his shirt.
Gardenia.
Once, he'd had the estate's gardeners plant them beneath our bedroom windows because I'd told him they were my favorite.
I hadn't bought a single stem since I'd first smelled them on another woman's clothes.
I slipped out of my house shoes.
“Oh, and your peace lily.” I glanced back. “I forgot to water it. It's dead.”
His lips tightened.
I knew that look. It usually gave me a few seconds to soften what I'd said before his temper broke.
I reached for my shoes.
“I'm not asking for money. You can keep the estate, too. Everything is in the agreement. Have your lawyer check it if you want.”
He didn't answer.
“The only thing I'm taking is Edamame.”
His gaze sharpened at the dog's name.
“I know you bought him for me. But I'm the one who's been here feeding him, walking him, taking him to the vet. You've barely been home for years.”
I paused, surprised by the small catch in my voice. I could discuss leaving my husband without flinching. The thought of leaving my dog was different.
“I'm not giving him up.”
Lewis remained by the sitting room door.
“I boarded him yesterday,” I continued. “Between the paperwork and moving, I'll be busy for the next few days. I'll collect him once I'm settled.”
Still nothing.
I fastened my shoe and looked up.
Lewis had crossed the foyer without my noticing. He stood close enough to block my view of the front door, studying me as though I'd spoken a language he almost understood.
For a moment, I expected questions. Which lawyer? Where was I moving? Who had helped me?
Then he laughed.
“Baby. Who put you up to this?”
I straightened.
“The threats weren't working, so now you've had papers drawn up?” He shook his head, almost fondly. “You want a divorce?”
I met his eyes.
“Nobody put me up to anything, Lewis. I want a divorce.”
He waited for the condition. The demand that he leave her, come home, choose me.
There wasn't one.
“For real this time.”
第2章
Lewis stared at me for another second, then burst out laughing.
“Baby, come on. Where would you even go?”
I said nothing.
“You don't have parents. You don't have a family waiting to take you in.” He gestured around the foyer, at the marble floors and the guard visible through the glass. “This is your home. Everyone you know is connected to me.”
He spoke casually, as though explaining something I should have understood already.
“And you don't want any money?” His smile widened. “How long has it been since you worked, Letty? What exactly are you planning to live on?”
I curled my fingers around my phone.
“Your paintings?”
There had been a time when he'd said those two words with pride.
“You haven't touched a brush in years. Nobody even knows who you are.” He tilted his head. “You think they're going to buy a canvas because the boss's wife signed it?”
Each question hurt a little more than the last.
I'd once stayed up painting until sunrise. Lewis used to bring me coffee and sit beside the easel, telling me I would make a name for myself.
Now he seemed amused that I might still want to.
He reached out and ruffled my hair. I went still beneath his hand.
“Enough, sweetheart. You've made your point.”
He glanced at his phone.
“My girl's on her period. She's miserable, and I promised I'd keep her company.” He picked up his keys. “I'll tell my assistant to put something extra in your account. Buy yourself something nice. We'll call it even.”
He kissed his fingers and brushed them against my cheek.
Then he left.
Outside, a guard opened the car door for him. Lewis was still smiling when he ducked into the back seat.
I watched until the convoy disappeared through the gates.
He thought I was negotiating. A bigger allowance, a few nights at home, perhaps a promise that he'd be more discreet.
I didn't want any of it.
I opened the conversation with my lawyer.
He won't sign. Can we proceed without his agreement?
The reply came a few minutes later.
Yes. Come in this afternoon. Bring the records we discussed, including anything documenting the affairs.
For the first time that day, I could breathe properly.
After leaving the law firm, I called Althea Pruitt and asked her to meet me for lunch.
She was already waiting when I reached the restaurant, her bag on the chair beside her. I sat down and told her everything.
By the time I finished, her eyes were red.
“Letitia. Are you fucking serious?”
“Thea.”
“No. Don't ‘Thea’ me.” She leaned across the table. “You're leaving your husband, and I'm only finding out now? What did you think I was here for?”
“I needed to be sure.”
“About leaving that asshole?”
Her voice rose. I glanced toward the other tables.
“I knew something was wrong with him. All that charm, all those promises.” She shoved her untouched plate aside. “And now he thinks he can parade some girl around and talk to you like that?”
She reached for her bag.
“Where is he?”
I caught her hand.
“Sit down.”
“I mean it. I don't care how many men he has carrying guns for him. I'll kill him myself.”
Despite everything, I laughed.
“Please don't. I have enough paperwork to deal with.”
She didn't smile.
“Thea, I'm done. I don't care who he's with anymore.”
That was what finally made her cry.
“Ten years, Letty.” She wiped angrily beneath one eye. “I was there. I watched you build your whole life around him. You don't get to say it like it cost you nothing.”
“I didn't say that.”
“Do you remember what you went through for him? That competition alone, what happened when you went there because he asked you to—”
She stopped.
I had lowered my eyes to the table. My hand was still wrapped around hers, but neither of us moved.
“Forget it,” she said quickly. “We don't have to talk about that.”
I nodded once.
“But he doesn't get to do this to you.” Her voice shook. “I don't care who he is. I'll find a way to make him and that woman regret it.”
My throat tightened.
Lewis had stood in our home and told me I had no one.
Across from me, Althea was crying into a napkin, furious that I hadn't let her help sooner.
I held her hand a little tighter.
“Okay. Enough about him.” I managed a smile. “I have something good to tell you.”
She sniffed.
“What?”
I brought her hand around the edge of the table and rested it against my lower stomach.
“You're going to be a godmother.”
She stared at me.
Then her face changed.
“You're keeping his baby?”
“Thea—”
“Letitia, he cheats on you. He treats you like furniture. You cannot seriously be thinking—”
“It isn't his.”
“What?”
The couple at the next table stopped eating. A waiter looked over from the bar.
I pulled gently at her wrist.
“Lower your voice.”
Althea sat back, blinking at me. For several seconds, she seemed unable to decide which question to ask first.
Then she leaned forward again.
“You need to start talking. Right now.”
“Do you remember Frederick Pruitt? From high school?”
“The genius?” Her brow furrowed. “Obviously. Same surname, none of his brains. I spent four years explaining we weren't related.”
I smiled.
For the first time all afternoon, thinking about the future didn't frighten me.
I opened my mouth to tell her.
“Letitia.”
The voice came from beside our table.
My smile faded.
Lewis stood outside one of the private dining rooms, a young woman tucked against his side. His hand rested at her waist. Two of his men lingered in the doorway behind him.
He looked from me to Althea.
“What are you doing here?”
Althea turned.
“Oh, you son of a bitch.”
Her chair scraped across the floor.
Before I could catch her, she grabbed the ketchup bottle from our table and strode toward him.
“I was just talking about you.”
She squeezed a streak of ketchup across his shirt, then slapped her open palm against his chest, smearing red into the expensive white cotton.
One of his guards stepped forward. Lewis raised a hand, stopping him.
Althea didn't even look at the man.
“Do you have a conscience?” she demanded. “Or did you lose that when everyone started calling you boss?”
The girl tightened her grip on Lewis's arm.
“You actually brought her here?”
“Thea,” I said, getting up.
But she was looking straight at him, tears still bright in her eyes.
“Do you have any idea what Letty gave up for you? What she went through while you were building all this?”
Her voice broke.
“She stayed through everything, Lewis. What the hell have you ever done to deserve her?”
第3章
“I swear to God, Lewis, I'll ruin you.”
Althea's voice carried across the restaurant. At the nearest table, someone quietly set down a wineglass.
Yolanda stepped in front of him, putting herself between Althea and the ketchup smeared across his shirt.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” she snapped. “Keep your hands off my man.”
“Your man?”
Althea gave a short, incredulous laugh.
“He has a wife, sweetheart. She's standing right here. Sleeping with her husband doesn't make you his wife. It makes you the woman he's cheating with.”
Yolanda glanced at me, then back at Althea.
“He doesn't love her. How is that my fault?”
Behind her, Lewis's guards watched without moving. He had ordered them to stand down, and neither seemed willing to guess whether that order still held.
“Lewis wants me,” Yolanda continued. “She's the one clinging to a marriage that's already over.”
Her gaze settled on me.
“Have some dignity. You're embarrassing yourself.”
Althea moved before I could reach her.
She caught Yolanda by the hair and pulled her forward.
“You don't get to talk to her like that.”
Yolanda screamed, grabbing at Althea's wrist. Her heel slipped, and she went down beside a chair, dragging Althea with her. There was a sharp rip as the neckline of her blouse tore in the struggle.
“Lewis!”
She clutched the fabric closed with one hand, reaching for him with the other.
“Get this crazy bitch off me!”
Lewis seized Althea by the shoulder and shoved her away. She stumbled against our table, rattling the glasses.
“Enough, Althea.”
He hauled Yolanda to her feet and tucked her against his side.
“You couldn't keep your own husband faithful. What makes you think you're qualified to interfere in my marriage?”
Althea went white.
Her mouth parted, but nothing came out.
Lewis knew exactly where to hurt her. He'd sat across from her at our dinner table. He'd heard the things she'd trusted us enough to say.
I stepped between them and slapped him.
The sound carried through the sudden silence.
One of his men moved instinctively. Lewis stopped him with a sharp look.
“You have no right,” I said. “You don't get to use that against her.”
A red mark spread across his cheek.
He slowly turned his face back toward me. I knew what it meant for him to be struck in public, in a restaurant where the staff knew his name and the owner paid for his protection.
For once, I didn't care.
He stared at me, his jaw tight, and said nothing.
Yolanda wasn't nearly so restrained.
“You bitch.” Her voice shook with outrage. “You think being his wife means you can hit him? I would never treat him like that, and you just—”
I slapped her, too.
Her head turned. For a moment, she stayed perfectly still, one hand pressed to her torn blouse.
Then she touched her cheek.
“You hit me.”
“You've been insulting me while holding on to my husband. What response were you hoping for?”
She looked at Lewis, waiting for him to intervene.
I kept my eyes on her.
“You're standing in front of his wife, in a restaurant full of people who know we're married, and somehow you think I'm the one who should be ashamed.”
Her face flushed.
“If you want him, keep him,” I said. “But stop acting as though you've won something worth having.”
Yolanda's expression changed.
The tears were still there, but something mean and eager came into her eyes.
“You really think you're better than me?”
“Yolanda,” Lewis said.
She ignored him.
“I know what happened to you in high school.”
Everything around me seemed to recede.
The tables. The waiters. Althea's hand reaching for my arm.
Yolanda saw that she'd hurt me and kept going.
“You were assaulted. You got pregnant. Lewis had to scrape together the money for your abortion.”
My fingers went cold.
He'd told her.
The man who'd held my hand in that hospital had taken the worst thing that had ever happened to me and shared it with the woman in his bed.
“He stayed with you for over a month,” she said. “After everything he did, you ought to be grateful he even—”
“Shut up.”
My voice barely sounded like mine.
She lifted her chin.
“Why? It happened, didn't it?”
I grabbed her hair.
She cried out, both hands flying to mine. I could hear Althea saying my name, but all I could see was Yolanda's mouth forming those words.
“You don't get to talk about that.”
“Then stop pretending you're so much better than everyone else!”
I raised my hand.
Lewis caught my wrist.
His grip hurt. Before I could pull free, he flung my arm aside, forcing me back a step.
“Enough, Letitia. You've gone too far.”
I stared at him.
“I've gone too far?”
My eyes burned. I hated that he could still do this to me.
“She brought it up. She stood here and—”
“Was she wrong?”
I stopped breathing.
For a second, I thought I must have misheard him.
“What?”
Lewis adjusted his hold on Yolanda. She pressed closer, hiding her face against his shirt.
“Was she wrong?” he repeated. “You were assaulted. You had an abortion. Which part did she make up?”
I couldn't feel my hands.
He remembered the hospital. He remembered how long it had taken before I could bear to be touched, even by him.
Now he stood close enough to see me shaking and waited as though he'd asked a perfectly reasonable question.
My knees weakened. I caught the back of a chair.
Over his arm, Yolanda looked at me.
She was smiling.
A laugh escaped me. Small and breathless, with nothing behind it.
All those years, I'd thought there were parts of me Lewis would always protect. Even after the affairs. Even after I'd stopped loving him.
I looked at him until his expression shifted.
“You disgust me.”
Then I turned away.
I wanted Althea. My bag. The door.
Behind me, there was a quick movement.
Yolanda's hands struck my back.
I stumbled forward before I could catch myself. The edge of the table drove hard into my lower abdomen, knocking the air from my lungs.
Pain folded me over.
“Letty!”
Althea caught my arm as I sank, her chair crashing onto its side.
I pressed both hands against my stomach.
For one terrible second, I couldn't make a sound.
Then I felt warmth between my legs.
No.
I looked down, my breath coming in short, useless gasps.
Not the babies.
Althea crouched beside me. The anger vanished from her face, replaced by something that frightened me much more.
“Letty. Look at me.”
Lewis pulled away from Yolanda.
“Letitia?”
He started toward us.
Before he could take another step, Yolanda cried out behind him.
第4章
“Lewis, I'm dizzy.”
Yolanda swayed behind him, one hand pressed to her forehead.
“I think I've lost too much blood.”
Her knees buckled. Lewis turned just in time to catch her, and she sagged against his chest with her eyes closed.
For a moment, he looked at me.
I was on the floor with Althea's arm around my shoulders, both hands clamped over my stomach. There was blood beneath me. He could see it.
“Lewis,” Althea said. “She needs an ambulance.”
He looked down at Yolanda.
Then he lifted her into his arms.
“Get the car.”
One of his guards hurried ahead to clear the entrance. The other held the door while Lewis carried her outside.
He never looked back.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Althea screamed after him.
The door swung shut.
She fumbled for her phone, nearly dropping it before she managed to dial 911.
“My friend's pregnant. Someone pushed her into a table, and she's bleeding.”
Her voice shook as she gave the address.
I wanted to tell her about the twins. I wanted her to tell the paramedics there were two of them, that they needed to save both.
But the room kept slipping out of focus.
Althea pressed her forehead to mine.
“Stay with me, Letty. Help's coming.”
I remember the paramedics kneeling beside me. A question I couldn't answer. The straps across the stretcher.
Then nothing.
I woke to the smell of antiseptic and the soft squeak of shoes beside my bed.
My hand went straight to my stomach.
“The babies are all right.”
I turned toward the voice so quickly that the room tilted.
A nurse stood beside the monitor.
“Both of them?” I whispered.
“Both,” she said gently. “The doctor will explain everything when she comes back.”
I closed my eyes.
For several seconds, all I could do was breathe. Then the tears slipped down my temples and into my hair.
“Thank you.”
The nurse passed me a tissue and waited while I tried to collect myself.
A thought surfaced through the exhaustion.
“Does Dr. Pruitt work here?”
“Frederick Pruitt?”
I nodded.
Her expression warmed.
“He does, but he's on leave. Apparently, his girlfriend's pregnant. He went home to make arrangements for their wedding.”
I looked down at my hand resting on the blanket.
“He did?”
“That's what everyone says. The man barely talks about his personal life, and then suddenly there's a baby and a wedding.” She smiled. “Quite a few disappointed people around here.”
I smiled, too, though my face was still wet.
Somewhere beyond this room, Frederick was making space for us.
I held on to that thought while the nurse checked my blood pressure.
“Your friend stepped out to make a call,” she told me. “She left her number with the desk.”
Of course Althea had stayed.
I nodded, too tired to speak.
Before the nurse left, she drew the blanket back over my legs.
“When you're discharged, follow the doctor's instructions. Take things slowly, and let someone help you.”
This time, I intended to.
By the time the doctor cleared me to leave, I wanted only to collect Edamame and go somewhere Lewis couldn't reach me without being invited.
I hadn't seen my dog in days.
The boarding facility was a short cab ride away. All through the journey, I pictured his ridiculous excitement, the frantic little dance he did whenever I came back for him.
At the reception desk, the attendant recognized me.
“Oh. Your husband already picked him up.”
I stopped with my hand inside my bag.
“When?”
“About half an hour ago.”
She must have noticed my expression, because her smile faltered.
“You'd brought him in together before. And Mr. James knew his name, so I didn't think there was a problem.”
There was no point frightening her.
“Thank you,” I said.
Outside, I opened Lewis's messages.
Do you have Edamame? I'm coming to get him.
The answer arrived almost immediately.
Come to the house. I'm here.
I stared at it.
His bed was still there. His food, his toys, the worn blue blanket he refused to sleep without.
One trip, I told myself.
Then there would be nothing left for me in that house.
The guards let my cab through the gates without a word.
At the entrance, the front door stood open. I paid the driver and walked inside, calling Edamame's name.
He didn't come.
His bed lay overturned near the doors to the terrace. The cushion had been ripped open, stuffing scattered across the tiles.
At first, that was all I understood.
Then I saw the blood.
It had spread beneath the cushion and dried along the edges. Small clumps of familiar brown fur lay among the stuffing.
Beyond the doorway, on the terrace, was what remained of my dog.
I stopped breathing.
My mind refused to make sense of it. I kept waiting for something to move, for him to scramble out from behind a chair and come running toward me.
A scrap of brown fur landed beside my shoe.
“God, that took forever.”
Yolanda stepped through the terrace doors.
There was blood on her hands.
She glanced at what she'd dropped, then at me, as casually as though I'd interrupted her cleaning out a cupboard.
My lips moved before any sound came out.
“You killed him?”
She shrugged.
“He bit me.”
I stared at her hands.
“Lewis said I could. He knows I'm studying veterinary medicine. I need the dissection practice.”
She said it without hesitation. Without even lowering her voice.
Practice.
Edamame had slept beside me on the nights Lewis didn't come home. He'd followed me from room to room when I couldn't bear the silence, settling at my feet wherever I stopped.
And she'd used him for practice.
There was a wooden plant stake beside an overturned pot.
I picked it up.
“You killed my dog.”
Yolanda's smile slipped as I went toward her.
“I'll kill you.”
I swung.
A hand caught the stake before it reached her.
“Enough, Letitia.”
Lewis stood between us.
I pulled against his grip, but he held the wood steady.
“Let go.”
“Calm down.”
I looked at him, searching his face for something that might make this less impossible.
“You let her do this?”
He said nothing.
“You brought him here. You took him from the boarding facility and gave him to her?”
Behind him, Yolanda stepped closer to his shoulder.
“He bit me,” she repeated.
Lewis glanced toward the terrace.
For a second, his grip loosened. His eyes caught on the overturned bed, and something in his expression faltered.
Then he looked back at me.
“It was a dog, Letty.”
I couldn't speak.
He pulled the stake from my hand.
“Don't turn this into something it isn't.”
“A dog?”
My voice sounded thin and strange.
“He was fourteen years old. You gave him to me when we first got together. We had him for ten years.”
Lewis looked away.
“Ten years,” I said again. “He used to wait by the door for you.”
His jaw tightened.
“I'll get you another one.”
I stared at him.
“The same breed,” he added. “Whatever you want.”
A broken sound escaped me.
“You think I want another dog?”
He shifted, impatient now, as though I were refusing a reasonable offer.
I looked past him to the terrace.
“Even if you found one that looked exactly like him, it wouldn't be Edamame.”
Lewis had no answer.
I went around him and knelt beside the ruined bed.
My hands shook so badly I could barely undo my coat. I spread it across the tiles and began gathering what I could, moving carefully, though there was nothing left I could hurt.
When my fingers brushed the soft fur between his ears, I started crying.
“I'm sorry.”
I kept saying it while I wrapped him up.
I should have collected him sooner. I should have told the boarding facility not to release him to anyone else. I should have understood that Lewis could no longer be trusted with anything I loved.
The bundle was too small in my arms.
I held it against my chest and stood slowly.
“Come on, sweetheart,” I whispered. “Mama's taking you home.”
Neither of them spoke.
I walked through the foyer, past the staircase and the study where the unsigned divorce papers still waited.
At the door, I lowered my face toward the bundle.
“We're never coming back.”
Behind me, Lewis stayed where he was.
He watched until I disappeared beyond the open door. Only then did his gaze return to the empty space where Edamame's bed had been.
His chest tightened.
He waited for the feeling to pass.
It didn't.