4. Wynter

CHAPTER 4

WYNTER

“Wynter!” Lisa snapped, a flush creeping up her high cheekbones. “How dare you?”

“How dare I ?” The anger flared hotter, threatening to consume me. “How dare you do this to me? Whose baby is it?”

The words fell out of my mouth, sharp and bitter, like they had a life of their own. A searing pain throbbed in my chest. An agony that felt worse than a gunshot wound—I should know. I’d gotten hit more than once in the line of duty. The pain I felt then was nothing compared to what was happening inside of me right now.

“I never meant to hurt you.” Tears filled her eyes. Hazel, brownish-green today. But all I could see was the betrayal shining in them. Her lip trembled like she was going to cry, but I wasn’t buying it.

I let out a bitter laugh, raking a trembling hand through my hair. “Cheating on your husband while he was halfway across the world, risking his life for a wife that didn’t even care, was pretty much guaranteed to hurt him.”

Him . As if I was talking about someone else. Someone I barely recognized anymore.

How messed up was I that I couldn’t even say ‘me’? I was referring to myself like I wasn’t there, like I had stepped outside my body and was just watching the wreckage.

The thought clawed at me, made my skin crawl. I strode past her into the kitchen, the rage eating me alive. I yanked open the fridge, grabbing a beer, cracking it open with more force than necessary. If I broke the neck of the bottle, who cared? The cold liquid slid down my throat, but it didn’t douse the inferno raging inside me.

“Wynter…” Her voice was softer now, hesitant, like she didn’t know what to say.

I slammed the bottle on the counter. “What, Lisa? What could you possibly say to fix this?”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice cracking. Her hands shook as she sat at the table.

“Sorry? Sorry ?” I felt the laugh bubbling up, harsh and bitter. “You think that fixes this? You’re pregnant with another man’s child, Lisa. When were you planning to tell me? After the baby was born?”

“I was going to tell you this week. I swear.” Her voice was pleading now, desperate. “It was a mistake. A stupid, reckless thing. I was lonely, Wynter.”

Lonely. The word hit me like a slap. I stared at her, the woman I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with. She was sitting there, asking for forgiveness I wasn’t capable of giving.

“When is the baby due?”

“I’m eight months along.” She bit her bottom lip hard.

I could see the dent she made in her delicate skin. But my heart was too filled with anger to care. “Damn it, Lisa! I’m not even convinced you were going to say anything until I came home and found a baby in the nursery.”

“No! It’s not like that. Please believe me. I swear I was going to tell you. It’s just—it was so—I should have told you before, when I got involved with him.”

Her voice wavered, but I was beyond caring. The fury inside me was a relentless storm, whipping around my chest with a force that made it hard to breathe. If that man were here, I wouldn’t just want to punch him—I’d want to obliterate him.

“Who the hell is he?”

She sucked in a ragged breath, her eyes wide and pleading. “He isn’t a part of my life anymore.”

The words hit me like a physical blow. My chest felt hollow, a cold ache spreading through me as if I’d been struck by lightning. “He left you?”

The sight of her tears taunted me, their shimmer mocking the raw pain clawing at my insides.

“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.” She was sobbing now, her hands covering her face. “I wanted to tell you. I really did. But there was never a right time or a right way of doing it. How could I tell you over the phone that—I was involved with someone else?”

My heart pounded so hard I thought it might break. “It would’ve been better than me finding out like this.”

“You’re right. You’re right.” She chanted the words like a broken record, her head dropping as if in defeat.

Maybe I should’ve felt pity, but the rage swirled so fast through my veins that there wasn’t any room for sympathy. She stood in a church and vowed to love me till death did us part. I’d agonized over thoughts—no, no, no, traces of thoughts—about Taran while Lisa was out there betraying me, creating a new life with someone else.

She cheated on me. She let another man touch her, be with her, while I was thousands of miles away, fighting tooth and nail for the life we were supposed to have together.

How could she do this to me?

“Save the tears.” My voice came out harsh, with a rough edge of finality. “They’re not going to work.”

She flinched, her tear-streaked face hardening in an instant, like a switch had been flipped. Her expression, once full of remorse, turned cold. Defensive. She dared to glare at me, as if I was the one in the wrong. As if I had shattered our life.

Anger flared anew, a hot, bitter taste in my mouth. Shouldn’t she be begging me for forgiveness? Instead, she was expecting me to somehow understand this mess. Well, that wasn’t going to happen.

“I didn’t...” Her voice, barely above a whisper, trailed off.

I shook my head, trying to keep my anger in check. But it was useless. The image of her—of them—together was seared into my brain. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw it. A stranger’s hands on her, their bodies tangled together. It made my stomach twist, the bile rising.

“Every single phone call. Every letter. Was he with you? Did you laugh about me together while I was trying to hold everything together? While I was doing my best to believe in us, in you?” The words were out before I could stop them. Sharp. Bitter. Angry. But it was the truth, the pain clawing at my insides, demanding to be let out.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice wobbled. But sorry wasn’t enough. Sorry didn’t even scratch the surface.

“Sorry doesn’t erase what you’ve done.”

She sobbed again, wiping her face with trembling hands, but it only made the rage build. Each tear she shed felt like another twist of the knife.

I wanted to scream at her. Who was he? Why? Why wasn’t I enough? But the words stuck in my throat like ash. It didn’t matter anyway. Not really.

Her betrayal was a wound I couldn’t heal, nor did I want to. She’d been unfaithful, and now she was carrying another man’s child. Nothing she said could change that.

If she couldn’t even muster the courage to tell me the truth, why should I have any sympathy for her now? I tried. I called when I could, sent messages and emails whenever I had the chance. I convinced myself that her silence wasn’t something more, that she was just busy. Even chalked it up to the stress of my long deployments. But now, I saw it all so clearly. She could have written more, could have taken the time, made the effort instead of letting the distance stretch between us, letting the silence linger. Sure, there were a few calls, a couple of letters—but looking back, they were few and far between, just enough to make me believe everything was fine. Those fleeting conversations, those words of affection—which I now realized were forced—stung more now than they would have if I’d realized it at the time. The love she faked hurt more than the truth of her affair ever could.

What the hell was I thinking? She didn’t just have an affair. Past tense? I let out a humorless laugh, bitter and self loathing. Who am I kidding? She was probably still fucking him, while I stood here, a complete fool.

Why the hell didn’t she just tell me she was done, that she’d moved on? Did I mean so little to her that she couldn’t even give me that?

My mind was spinning in circles, the same thoughts crashing against each other like waves on rocks.

My chest felt like it was caving in, the weight of betrayal suffocating me. God, I was such a fool. I thought I was fighting to protect something worth saving.

But there was nothing left.

“I want a divorce,” I said, the words cold and final. They came out even more detached than I intended. But my heart was a brick of ice, unfeeling, impenetrable.

Her head snapped up. She raised a hand, and then dropped it. “Wyn, please listen. The man—he isn’t in my life anymore.” The panic in her voice was palpable, but it only made my stomach churn. She was desperate now, clinging to the last thread of hope.

But I was already severing it.

“Neither am I.”

Fresh tears pooled in her eyes, her voice trembling with desperation. “I can understand your bitterness, your anger. But I—I’m going to be a mother soon. I can’t do it on my own.”

Mother. A word that struck me to the core. Lisa was about to be a mother to a child that wouldn’t be mine.

I couldn’t believe she had the nerve to say such a thing to me. She was having another man’s baby and she expected me to stay by her side? I didn’t care if this was a mistake or a planned thing. It didn’t concern me if she was genuinely sorry or faking it. All I wanted was to get out of her life and never see her again.

The sooner the better!

There was no way I was raising another man’s child as my own. If she’d told me before, talked, apologized, maybe I might have been able to do it knowing that she needed a fresh start as much as I did. But right now, her needs were very selfish. And I couldn’t handle being with her. How could I help her take care of this child?

“You should’ve thought about it before you got into this mess. This isn’t my problem. It’s yours. Deal with it!”

“Wynter, please. I don’t have anyone else here, at least not anyone I’m close to. The father doesn’t want anything to do with me or the baby. He wanted me to abort. I refused to do it and he—we broke up.”

Not a trace of sympathy stirred in me. Did that make me callous? Good! I wanted her to feel the pain she’d inflicted on me. What did she expect? That I’d accept this and carry on as if nothing happened?

I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.

“So, what am I supposed to do?”

“Please don’t divorce me. I can’t take it right now. I know I’ve been unfaithful and I don’t have any right to ask you to think of me first, but—please, I beg you. Give me some time. I wouldn’t know how to support this baby. I can’t handle it alone. I need you.”

The words hit me like a punch to the gut, but not in the way she intended. This baby. His baby.

Her plea was a mockery. After everything, she wanted me to play the dutiful husband? Who was this woman? Why did I ever marry her? Was I so blinded by her outward charm that I ignored the truth of who she was?

Her deception had shattered me. Now, she expected me to continue giving despite her betrayal.

I wasn’t made of stone. “Shit! Lisa! How can you even think for a second that I’d want to continue this charade? Do you seriously expect me to support this baby? What should I tell everyone? That it’s my child?” The look on her face told me that I inadvertently hit the nail on the head. “You’re kidding me, right? You actually expect me to propagate the belief that this is my child?”

Her face fell, her guilt palpable. “I can’t tell my parents, Wynter. It would kill them. I told them you were only here for a short visit when I conceived. They don’t really count the trips. They believe me, and so will everyone else.”

“Never!” The word exploded from me. “Not happening. You’re going to tell your parents the truth, too.”

“Please, Wynter. I just need a little time. I want to do the right thing, but I need some breathing space.”

“The right thing?” I sneered, taking a long swig from the bottle. “You wouldn’t know the right thing if it hit you on the head.”

“But—”

“I want a divorce, Lisa.” Every time she spoke, it was like another cut to my already bleeding heart. Did she really think I’d fall in line with her plans? She must have been out of her mind.

It would be stupid of me to tie myself to her.

Oh God, were there red flags I chose to ignore when we were dating?

Was this my punishment?

If I could turn back time, I wouldn’t have foolishly assumed she was the best thing to have happened to me. I would have seen Royce and Taran happy and blissfully in love, and stamped down the yearning I’d felt for the same. And resigned myself to the fact that I was meant to be alone. I would have acknowledged that Lisa was there, beautiful, sexy and exciting, but wouldn’t have fallen for her, hook, line and sinker. And I sure as hell wouldn’t have proposed to her.

It was amazing how the mind could make you see certain truths when your life was in crisis. And now I’d come to the realization that there was a part of me that had never envisioned Lisa as the woman I was going to grow old with. And yet, a commitment was a commitment. I’d married her. She was my responsibility. But her deception and betrayal broke me.

And now, she expected me to give and to keep on giving despite her unfaithfulness.

She stiffened, her lips pressed into a thin line. “No.” The sudden steel in her voice caught me off guard. “If you do this, I’ll fight you. I’ll fight you in court.”

I slammed the empty bottle on the table with a thud, my hands trembling as I glared at her one last time. This wasn’t the woman I’d thought I knew. The woman I’d married. That woman was gone, replaced by a stranger standing before me, her eyes cold and calculating.

“There’s nothing left to fight for, Lisa,” I said quietly, the finality of it hitting me like a ton of bricks.