Page 39 of Neglected By Her CEO Husband

So we ate, some of it, the food arriving quiet and very good, and he asked about the upcoming show. Then he did the thing I still wasn't used to, which was stay in the room for the answer.

I told him about my trip. About the gallery I'd been painting in, and the work that sold. He asked which painting sold first and I told him. What shocked me was the fact that he was actually interested in what I had to say.

When the plates were gone he set his napkin down, and I watched him decide to begin.

"I'm not going to ask you to come home tonight," he said. "I haven't earned the sentence. I want to be clear about what tonight is so you don't have to spend it braced. You're owed an accounting, out loud, to your face. Then I have one question. Whatever you answer, I'll walk you to the elevator."

"All right," I said, folding my arms and leaning back in my chair. "Account."

He kept his hands folded on the table where I could see them.

"For eight years I treated you like the thermostat. You ran my house, my family, half my company, and I decided not to see the work because not seeing it was cheaper. You asked me for one trip. I canceled it twice, and that magazine sat in the kitchen drawer for two years, and that was just one out of countless failings." He ran his hand through his hair as he spoke, the way he always did when he was genuinely distressed about something. I'd just never seen it be me.

"The night the crisis broke, you found the right question in thirty seconds in the car," he continued. "I dismissed you. Chastised you. And when it came to that room, I looked at what was a human, empathetic moment and saw a liability. And I let Emily humiliate you while you stood there waiting for one word from me. I'll see your face from that minute for the rest of my life. I should."

The wind moved the lemon trees. I didn't help him. I'd promised myself that much on the drive over, even if it was getting harder to keep the tears at bay. I told myself it was just because I was remembering that moment and there was truth in that. But not all of it.

A part of me had been longing to hear him say these words for so long that it hurt now that it was actually happening. I'd already given up on it.

"But that night was far from my first mistake where she was concerned." He paused, and I could hear what the next part cost him. "I never should have hired her to begin with. And the fact that I didn't talk to you about it was so callous I'm even more ashamed of that. And then, when you had perfectly reasonable objections, I dismissed those too."

"You did," I finally said, my voice steadier than I'd expected. "You've been good at that over the years."

He took the words and didn't argue or defend himself. "I have," he said in a somber tone that made me believe him far more than theatrics would have. "Emily lied to me and she'll answer for it in court. But I gave her the ammo for what she did. I let her work her way in, I let her erode boundaries. A hand on the shoulder here, standing too close there. I swear to you, it never went beyond that. I never would have let it. But I don't expect you to believe me about that either, and the fact that I let her into our lives at all is a crime."

His words took me by surprise, not because they weren't true but because they were. I'd just never expected Damon to be the one to see it.

"I believe you," I finally said, and it was true. Because I knew this man. Eight years and you knew when someone was lying. I knew what he was capable of, and what he wasn't. Which was why I'd left.

But then, I'd never thought he was capable of this. Of taking accountability. It was small, but it was a stat.

"You said you had a question," I said quietly. "Ask it."

"I'm not asking for forgiveness, and I'm not asking you to come home, and I'm not asking you to love me," he began, his hand twitching like it wanted to reach for mine from habit. But it was a habit we'd never formed. "I'm asking for the chance to earn the right to ask. Time, on your terms, at whatever distance you want. Let me show up, small and boring, for as long as you'll allow. That's the whole request."

I sat with it. The old reflex came up, the pull to soothe him and make this easier, and for once it had no work to do. The decision was mine and nobody needed me to hurry it.

"You had Emily," I murmured. "She would have taken you back. I know she would have. And I need to know the truth. Did you reject her this time because you knew what she'd done? Or because you truly didn't want her?"

I saw the surprise written on his face. And I braced myself for the answer. "The latter," he said with such earnestness I believed him, not only because it was the answer my heart wanted but because I knew my husband's voice when he was lying and this wasn't it. "I only saw those messages because she left the room. Because I'd told her the closeness, the inappropriateness had to stop. She was angry, but she heard it. She heard the words I should have spoken to her months ago. Again, I don't expect you to believe me. But it's the truth."

I knew it was. I knew it, but I just didn't know if it changed anything. If it was enough.

While I was deciding, he stood, took the small box from beside my plate, came around the table, and went down on one knee.

We were married. Married men don't kneel unless they're starting the whole machine over, and if there was a ring in that box, he had learned nothing. I was already working out how I'd leave when he opened it.

It was empty.

I looked at the velvet slot where a ring should sit, and then at him, and waited, because I had no idea what was happening.

"When you walked in still wearing it, I forgot everything I'd planned," he said quietly. "I'd hoped you were still wearing it, but I doubted it. And I don't have the right to that ring being on your hand. It's a promise I got from you before I'd earned it, and I'm not going to kneel here and let it keep working for me. May I?"

I gave him my hand, still confused. What had this man done with my husband?

He slid the ring off my finger. Eight years, and it came off with no resistance at all. He set it in the velvet, closed the lid, and put the box in my palm.

"It's yours," he said, closing my fingers around it. My skin warmed at his touch and my heart fluttered in that familiar way in spite of myself. "The ring and the choice. Keep it in a drawer. Wear it on a chain. Never look at it again. Sell it. Do whatever you like, but if there's ever a day I've become a man you'd hand it back to, you'll know it without me saying a word, and it'll mean what it should have meant the first time. I don't deserve to be worn, Maddie. But I want to earn it. I want to earn the right to be the husband you should have had from the beginning. Will you give me the chance?"