Before His Wedding, the Good Girl He Used Quietly Vanished Chapter 03

Before His Wedding, the Good Girl He Used Quietly Vanished Chapter 03

I knew it was the one thing he never wanted to hear. I said it anyway.

The same way I knew he was lying every time he promised to stop bringing girls home, but I believed him anyway.

Nobody was better at selective amnesia than I was.

His face shut down. Right on cue.

I’d seen that look before. Every time I asked if he was coming home for dinner. Every time I asked who the new woman was.

It was his way of telling me I’d gone too far.

Three years of that look, and I’d learned to stay inside the lines.

“Willa.” His voice dropped. “What did you just say?”

I looked into his eyes.

Amber. Beautiful in a way that wasn’t fair.

But whatever softness had been there a moment ago was gone. All I saw now was cold impatience.

“I said, if you won’t let me marry someone else, then marry me yourself.”

I held his gaze and didn’t flinch.

My heart hammered violently against my ribs. But I kept the smile.

He caught my chin again, harder this time.

“What are you fantasizing about?”

Fantasizing?

The word sat in my skull like a splinter.

What had I ever fantasized about?

A real place in his life? A commitment?

Maybe I’d wanted both.

Maybe I’d gotten neither.

But that was a long time ago.

“I know,” I said. His tight grip on my jaw made the words come out muffled.

“Then why’d you say it?” His thumb dragged across my lower lip. “What we have—isn’t that enough for you?”

“Have I ever left you wanting? You live in this house, you have everything you could possibly want. When have I ever been anything but good to you?”

I shook my head. “No.”

He’d never been cruel. Not in any way I could point to.

He gave me the best room, the softest bed. The fridge was always stocked with my favorite yogurt. Money showed up in my account every month without me asking.

He taught me how to make his coffee. How to handle the women who came sniffing around.

When he came home drunk, he’d put his head in my lap and let me rub his temples until he fell asleep.

He was good to me. He really was.

But his kindness was a well.

The water was cool and sweet. But once you were down there, the walls were too slick to climb.

“What we have is enough.”

He let go of my chin. His hand slid down my cheek, settled on my shoulder, and gave it a dismissive pat. “Stop thinking about things that’ll never happen.”

“…Okay.”

I smiled.

Still so good that no one could say a word against me.

My eyes burned. I blinked the sting away.

He saw me smile and took it as the answer he wanted.

A good girl doesn’t ask questions she already knows the answer to. And when she’s told ‘no’, she nods and says okay.

Then she goes back to making coffee, watering the flowers, and waiting for him to walk through the door.

Light crept through the windows.

He turned and headed downstairs.

I stayed where I was, watching the back of his head until the staircase took him out of sight.

I pulled out my phone and texted Miss Holloway.

[I’ll do it. I’m in.]