Chapter 38

Shea~

I wasn't sure what time it was, and I wasn't even sure if it mattered anymore. My sleep schedule was completely screwed up, and I knew that I needed to get back on track if I had any hope of being worth a damn when I went back to work. I needed to regain my strength, get some solid sleep, eat a decent meal, then put the broken pieces of my life back together.

Getting up, I grabbed some clean panties and a t-shirt, then I walked into the bathroom, took care of business, washed my face, brushed my teeth, then lastly, inspected my wounds. The stitches were doing their job, and I knew that Lochlan planned on taking them out in another week or two. All in all, I was healing nicely, and if people would just stop trying to kill me, everything would be fine.

When I stepped out of the bathroom, my heart skipped a beat when I saw Noah standing in the middle of the room, shirtless. He was standing shirtless in our room, and it hit me hard how much I didn't want anyone else seeing him like this. Whether I'd wanted it or not, Noah was my husband, and pushing him into the arms of another woman would turn him into something else, and I hated that it bothered me more than it should.

I also hated that I felt something for him.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, needing to clear my throat. "I mean…I…I just assumed that you'd be staying…"

"With my new mistress?" he asked, but the words had flowed in his accent, reminding me of what Keavy had said about Noah's accent only coming out when he was being sarcastic or at his wits end.

Ignoring that, I said, "I just didn't think that you'd be back tonight."

"Well, even though ye'v made it clear as ta wha' kind o' marriage ye want, I thought tha' I'd be in charge o' when I'mma break my vows, lass," he drawled out.

"Noah-"

"Dona say my name," he ordered, and I felt the command like a bullet to my chest. "Ye dona get ta do tha' ta me. Ye dona get ta ruin our marriage an' still call me by my name. Ye can go back ta callin' me Mr. Murphy."

This final standoff was the end of our marriage, and I felt it in the marrow of my bones. Noah was back to being Mr. Murphy, and I was back to being the woman that he'd never wanted to marry. We were back in the parking lot of the hospital, where we had sized each other up, the both of us dissatisfied with our new futures. Like a hypocrite, I'd been making it all about how he hadn't wanted me, never giving any thought to how Noah was very aware of how I hadn't wanted him, either.

I kept throwing it in his face that he hadn't wanted me, and instead of throwing the truth about me not wanting him either back at me, he'd told me that he loved me and wanted no one else. He'd told a woman that hadn't wanted him that he loved her, making me the biggest fool on the planet.

Accepting my part in this goddamn Greek tragedy, I asked, "Since my condo wasn't put on the market, I think it's probably best if I just move back home."

Noah's eyes took on a dangerous glint. "Move back home?"

I nodded. "Yeah."

"And where's home, exactly, lass?" he asked, his voice eerily calm. "Because the last time that I checked, this was your home."

I fisted my hands at my sides, wondering why he was being so difficult when me moving out would solve a lot of our problems. This way, if we didn't have to witness the mess that we'd made every day, then it'd be easier to live with the mistakes. Yeah, it was taking the coward's way out, but that seemed like the least of my problems right now.

When I didn't say anything to that, Noah began walking towards me, and I immediately stilled, wondering what more could he want from me. I had nothing left to give, and even if I did, why would he want it? We were toxic together, and the attempts on my life were proof of that. Even if Noah really hadn't ordered the hit, he'd said enough out loud to make Craig believe that he'd been doing him a favor by getting rid of me.

As soon as he was standing in front of me, he grabbed my chin, pinching hard between his fingers. "I love you, Shea," he said, making tears immediately spring to my eyes. "And though I might have to live my life without you in it, if you think that I'll ever forget what I feel for you, even if I'm balls-deep in another woman, you're wrong. In fact, I made sure that I'll never forget."

"What…what do you mean," I said, tears clogging my throat.

"Nothing that you'll care about, I'm sure," he answered, making the tears fall.

Suddenly, anger reached up to grab me by the neck. "How is this my fault?" I snapped, pushing at his chest. "How is this all my fault? What did I do that was so wrong?"

"You don't love me back!" he roared. "You fucking refuse to love me back!"

I took a step back, shaking my head. "That's not fair. Even if I wanted to open myself up to loving you, who in the hell falls in love with someone after only a couple of weeks?"

"Somebody that's not a fucking coward," he shot back.

"How dare you call me a coward after everything that I've been through since I married you," I hissed. "If I've proven anything, it's that I'm not a coward."

Noah let go of my chin, then straightened to his full height. "You think dying makes you courageous? You think that taking a bullet demonstrates bravery? Oh, baby, if that's what you think, then I've got news for you. Dying is the easiest thing that a person can do when it's by the hands of someone else. There's no thought in any of it when the choice is taken from you." His blue eyes looked like they belonged on Satan himself, and Noah never looked so formidable as he did now. "Lass, I've lost count of how many people I've tortured, and I've lost count of how many of them beg for death after only a few hours in my company, and do you want to know why they did that? Because dying is easier than living with the consequences of their actions. Because dying makes all their troubles go away, and that sounds a lot more peaceful than having to face the people that they let down." His eyes raked me up and down before he added, "Brave was when you ran from me with nothing to your name. Courage was when you came back with me to avoid a war. Taking a couple of bullets when you didn't even see them coming? Baby, that was just part of being a Murphy."

"That still doesn't explain how this became all my fault," I replied, ignoring all his valid points.

"Because I'm the only one that gave us a chance," he went on. "Even knowing that you didn't want me, I still took you and my vows seriously, and it started during our wedding."

"How do you figure? You didn't even kiss me," I reminded him.

"Because knowing how much you didn't want to marry me, I wasn't about to let anyone else see just how much you didn't want to," he shot back. "I wasn't going to take a chance on my wife pulling away from me just to prove a point, which is exactly what you would have done."

I shook my head. "You humiliated me."

"I granted you mercy," he countered. "And because being a coward in this situation is easier than loving me, you'd rather push me into another woman's bed just so that you'll have a reason to continue to hate me. You need to feed your anger because if you don't, you might just find yourself believing me and falling in love with your husband, and we can't have that now, can we?"

He wasn't wrong, and I hated that he wasn't. "You talked about me so horribly that one of your men thought he'd be doing you a favor by getting rid of me. How can you not see how fucked-up that is?"

"I know," he said, relenting a bit. "And because of my carelessness, I can barely stand to let you out of my sight, something that's going to torture me for the rest of my living days. So, believe me when I tell you that I'd turn back time if I could. You think I enjoy losing my fucking mind every time that I don't have eyes on you?"

"That's only touching if it's the truth," I pointed out.

Noah stepped to me again, making me have to crane my neck back to maintain eye contact. "Shea, the only reason that I'm allowing you to keep your job is because I don't want to give you another reason to not love me. If it were up to me, I'd tether you to my side with barely a foot of rope between us."

"You said that you didn't care how I felt," I reminded him. "You said that my feelings didn't matter."

"When it comes to divorce, they don't," he clarified. "When it comes to everything else, your feelings matter more than you can possibly imagine. Why in the fuck else would I allow you to sleep alone while I made a life with someone else?'

I flinched at that reminder.

I couldn't help it.

It was also exactly what Noah needed to go in for the kill. "Say the word, and I'll sleep beside you every night, Shea. If you want me to beg, then I'll beg. I'll do whatever I have to, so that you stop trying to fucking destroy us."

"I don't know what I want," I finally confessed.

"Yes, you do," he countered. "You're just too afraid or too prideful to say it."

Once again, we were back to this being all my fault.