Present day
We pass the resort, and then the estate. Another mile beyond it, Lincoln approaches a third gate that I’ve never seen before. It’s not as ornate as the black wrought iron and gold accents of the resort and the estate. It’s more understated, but every bit as forbidding.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this is Lincoln’s house, and my decision to come here already feels like the wrong one.
“I should’ve had you take me home,” I whisper as the gates swing open.
“I want you here,” he replies as he drives through them. “But if you want me to take you back to your aunt’s, I will.”
As he navigates the Range Rover up the long driveway, we disappear into dense forest dotted with lights. A brighter glow comes from farther beyond, and when we round the last bend, I finally see the house.
It’s not a gargantuan mansion or an over-the-top monstrosity.
No, of course not. Because this is Lincoln we’re talking about. Instead, it’s just fucking perfect.
For some reason, that puts me over the edge.
“Okay, then take me home.”
Lincoln turns to face me. “Why? What’s wrong?”
“I can’t do this. Not here. Not anywhere so fucking perfect. You don’t get it!”
“Get what, Whitney?”
I spin to face him. “You don’t get what it’s like to never be able to do anything right! For everything you try to fix to go horribly wrong instead. I came home because Cricket begged me and I didn’t have anywhere else to go. But instead of making her wedding dreams come true, I’ve made everything worse. I’m a fuckup. A joke. The goddamned black widow who killed someone by trying to divorce him!”
Tears stream down my face, and I don’t care if I sound completely and utterly hysterical.
“Right now, I can’t be rational. I can’t be reasonable. And I can’t keep having your perfect fucking life shoved in my face to show me just how screwed up mine is!”
Instead of backing out of the driveway, Lincoln kills the engine, unbuckles his seat belt, and opens his door.
“Take me home,” I tell him, my voice creeping toward shrill.
He doesn’t listen. He rounds the hood and opens the passenger door.
I slap at his hands as he unbuckles my seat belt. “I want to go home! You said you’d take me home.”
But he doesn’t stop. He lifts me out of the SUV and carries me toward his perfect freaking house while I beat on his shoulders. Then he puts me down right in front of the door.
“Shut up for two fucking seconds and listen to what I have to say.” He points at the glass, and I can see straight through to the darkness on the other side of the floor-to-ceiling windows that must make up the back of the house. “You see that?”
“What do you want me to see? It’s a perfect fucking house to go with your perfect fucking life!”
“Wrong. It’s just a goddamned house. It has no meaning beyond walls and windows and doors. There’s no laughter. No family. No love. Only wood and glass and rock that means absolutely fucking nothing in the grand scheme of things.”
I blink twice as I try to comprehend the point he’s making.
“You think your life is so fucking screwed up? Try having everything you could ever want but never being happy. Never having someone you can trust to love and share it with. You think my life is so fucking perfect? Well, it’s not, Whitney. Perfection walked out of my life the day you married another man.”
We stand in front of each other, our chests heaving, and my tears fall harder.
“So I ruined your life too?” I snuffle in a sob, and I’m close to full-on bawling.