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A Husband's Regret (The Unwanted Series)(13)

By:Natasha Anders


"Yet you feel comfortable enough telling me about it now?" she asked, curious, and he snorted.

"I can't hear them anymore," he pointed out, and she tensed. "So getting  self-conscious about any sounds you produce while we're making love is a  little pointless."

"Are you going to tell me what happened to you, Bryce?" she asked  faintly, and it was his turn to tense up. "Or are you never going to  afford me the opportunity to defend myself?"

"You were there," he reminded grimly, and she frowned irritably.

"Why do you keep saying that? What do you mean I was ‘there'?" she asked angrily. "Where the hell was I?"

"There when I had my goddamned accident!" he snapped before launching  himself out of bed and stalking around the bedroom angrily, looking for  his clothing. She leaped out as well and walked around his back until  she was facing him again. She was stark naked, but she no longer cared  about anything except getting to the bottom of this strange accusation.





  

"I was not there when you had your accident!" she retorted indignantly.

"I saw you," he forced the words out between clenched teeth.

"What?" She was completely baffled now. "Saw me where? Bryce I don't  even know when you had your accident. Please just tell me what  happened!"

"It burns me to have to tell you something that you already know,  Bronwyn," he gritted. "You're playing me for a fool and I don't like  it!" He moved to step around her but she put her hands up against his  broad chest to stop him. He felt about as immovable as a block of  granite.

"Please, just . . . just . . ." Her eyes begged him when words failed her.

"I went after you that night, when you raced out of here like a bat out  of hell," he said so quietly that his lips barely moved. "As you knew  that I would. You were going so fast that I was terrified you would get  into an accident." His lips twisted at that bit of irony. "It took me a  few minutes to get my car out, so by the time I headed out in the  direction you had gone, you'd disappeared. I was frantic and wasn't  paying attention to anything around me. I was so focused on trying to  spot your car that I didn't see the couple crossing the road until it  was almost too late. I swerved to avoid them and the car rolled. I was  drifting in and out of consciousness, trapped in the car, when I saw you  standing there amongst the crowd, staring at me with nothing but  ice-cold contempt on your face . . . you heartless bitch!" He hissed  viciously. "You turned around and walked away without so much as a  backward glance.

"I wasn't even surprised when I woke up three days later in Intensive  Care to be informed that you hadn't even bothered to visit or call. I  couldn't have cared less if I never saw you again but for the fact that  you were having my baby. You were having my baby and you had simply  disappeared off the face of the earth. Is it any wonder I hate you? Not  only is my accident your fault, but you walked away from me when I was  at my most vulnerable, when I needed you most, and you took my daughter  along with you!"

Bronwyn's face was ashen with shock at his story. She ached to think of  the agony he must have gone through in that hospital, wondering about  his baby, but she was also filled to the brim with fury and offense that  he dared to think she could do something so awful as walk away from him  while he lay injured and bleeding. Not to mention his ridiculous  statement that the accident had been her fault when he had caused the  entire sorry situation.

"I concede," she began quietly, with barely repressed sarcasm, "that  maybe the accident was my fault because for some crazy reason I saw fit  to flee after you drove me out of the house right when I needed you  most. But I absolutely refuse to listen to this nonsense about me  standing impassively by the side of the road while you lay bleeding and  trapped in a car. Or, worse, walking away while you were still in the  car!

"I didn't know that you'd been in an accident until the day you walked  into my hospital room. I would never have stood there watching you  suffer, and if I had known you were in the hospital, no force in heaven  or hell would have kept me away from your bedside, because, even though  you had treated me like something to be scraped off the bottom of your  boot, I still loved you so damned much!" He started to say something but  she held up her hand.

"No. You've had your turn; it's only fair I get a chance to defend  myself against this . . . this insult! I did not think you would  immediately come chasing after me-you were so irrationally angry that I  knew you needed time to calm down. I headed straight for the beach house  in Knysna. I stopped only for brief bathroom breaks and drove the  distance in just under five and a half hours. I was confident that once  you had time to calm down and think, you would change your mind about  the baby."

"I saw you," he maintained, clearly not believing her. "Saw you with my own eyes!"

"You were sliding in and out of consciousness; you were in shock and in  pain . . ." she pointed out reasonably. "You don't think that maybe you  were delirious as well? Seeing things that were not there?"

He frowned and shook his head.

"No, of course not," she scoffed. "Not Bryce Palmer, he never makes mistakes."

"God damn you," he growled. "I know what I saw . . . you were standing there looking impassive and completely uncaring."

"This?" She waved her hand back and forth between their naked bodies.  "This thing that just happened between us? It was a mistake that  shouldn't be repeated. I should never have let you touch me, but you got  me in a moment of complete weakness. That ends now. I won't allow a man  who just hours ago said I made his skin crawl use me like this again.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I need a shower," she informed him unsteadily.  There was really nothing she could say or do right now to prove that  she hadn't been there that day. She didn't know if she'd ever be able to  convince him that she hadn't been there. He seemed so convinced.





  

That a man she had once thought loved her could believe something so  unspeakable about her was incredibly painful. Bryce was completely  wrapped up in his thoughts and did not even seem to notice when she left  the room. Bronwyn escaped to the en suite bathroom and locked the door  securely behind her, afraid that he would come in and bombard her with  yet more reasons he did not believe her. She ran the shower as hot as  she could stand it but shivered beneath the relentless spray. God, if he  had spent the last two years believing something so awful about her, it  was no wonder he hated her so much. It was an obstacle that could not  easily be overcome because he had it firmly in his head that she had  betrayed him in the worst possible way by leaving him literally broken  and bleeding.

She knew how her stubborn ass of a husband's mind worked. To his way of  thinking, all of his sins were now superseded by her "unforgivable  betrayal." How very convenient for him. It made complete sense that he  would believe something like this about her. It was easier for him to  blame her and hate her rather than deal with the fact that due to his  own thoughtless actions he had lost his wife, his child, and his hearing  all on the same night. Unfortunately he didn't doubt what he had seen  that night, and while Bronwyn could understand why his mind had  fabricated this bizarre coping mechanism, she couldn't forgive it.

She hunched over and clasped her arms around her midriff, afraid that  she would be sick. She swallowed down the nausea and leaned back against  the tiles of the shower stall, sliding down against the wall until she  was sitting on the floor with her knees raised to her chest. She had her  face buried in her knees and her arms covering her head.

She did not know how long she sat there shivering, unable to get warm,  unable to even cry as she tried to deal with the shock of knowing how  very much her husband despised her. The needle-like spray suddenly  stopped and Bronwyn raised her head hesitantly, a bit disorientated by  the sudden cessation of water. She looked up to find Bryce standing at  the entrance of the shower stall and was baffled by his unexpected  appearance.

"But I locked the door," she murmured in a small voice that he might not have caught if he'd had his hearing.

"You forgot to lock the other door," he pointed out quietly, able to  read her lips despite the steam, and she groaned, remembering that the  luxurious bathroom was shared by two bedrooms. "Come on, Bron . . . you  need to dry off. You'll make yourself sick again." She noticed, for the  first time, that he had a huge, fluffy, white bath towel draped over his  hands. She nodded but didn't move, and Bryce shocked her by stepping  into the wet stall, uncaring of the fact that he wore socks and was  dressed in clean boxer shorts and a T-shirt. He hunkered down in front  of her and draped the bath towel around her shoulders, helping her up in  the process.