“I don’t know—I mean, I guess I do. I knew you were supposed to be off work and you went in for a few hours, but that’s it. All I really remember from that day was going to tell my family later that night that we’d gotten married.”
“Yeah,” Rhys said on a sigh. “In that meeting with Chief, I was asked to change jobs in the department for one assignment. He told me some things about the job, and I immediately accepted it. I knew it was important, I knew it involved getting some bad people. I had no idea until after I’d agreed that I would no longer be able to have a relationship with you. For some reason, I never once realized the seriousness of this job until two detectives came in to talk to me about it. Your dad and uncle.”
I sat there staring at him with wide eyes. “My dad and uncle? What . . . what was the job?”
“To go undercover,” Rhys responded immediately. “Your dad and uncle were going to be the ones training me over the next few months because of the work they’d done while they were undercover. At the end of that meeting and their going over what we would be doing for training and when . . . they told me to start cutting ties with everyone. They said I couldn’t tell anyone, but I had to start distancing myself from even my family.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not, Kennedy.”
“I had my dad look for you in the department after you left me, and he said you just disappeared! He said you stopped coming in for work and no one could get in touch with you!”
Rhys’s eyebrows rose, as if he were trying to get me to understand what I was saying. “Exactly. They knew where I went, but I couldn’t have any contact with them, just as they couldn’t have contact with me or act like they knew me if our paths crossed. But that night, when I got home, you were so freaked out about telling your family about our marriage that I don’t think you even noticed how dead I felt. Knowing that I’d have to leave you, and fighting with myself over whether or not I should tell you why. I didn’t want to go to your parents’ house after that, but realized that we needed to. I knew your family needed to see me—the guy who would soon be leaving their daughter—so they would have a face to go with the name of the person they blamed. And I needed to see them to know that you would have people there for you once I was gone. Imagine how much worse it got when you and I walked in, and there was your dad expecting you and wanting to know where you’d run off to for the past few days . . . the same man who just hours before had told me to cut ties with everyone in my life.”
I couldn’t say anything once he was finished. I couldn’t remember how to speak, and wouldn’t have known what to say if I could.
When minutes passed without a word from me, Rhys cleared his throat. “The assignment ended almost two weeks ago, and I had to go through some debriefing and tests to make sure I was . . . well, to make sure I was still me. The minute I could, I found your dad and asked about you. And now I’m here.”
“So . . . what? Now that you’re here, things just go back to how it was? We get married again on a whim and see what happens? I had three months with you, Rhys. Three! And in those months, you took everything I knew and turned it upside down in the most incredible way before tearing my entire world apart! I waited for you for two years before completely giving up. I kept thinking that you would show up and it would be okay again. Or that it really had all just been some horrible nightmare and I would wake up in your arms again. But there was nothing. And you can’t come in here after four years expecting us to go back to how we were and try to make me believe that you still feel something for me.”
“Kennedy, I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry for leaving you, but I love you. I have always loved you. I have never met anyone—”
“No, you don’t and you didn’t. If you ever had, you would have turned down the job.” I stood from the chair and turned, but Rhys’s whispered words stopped me from leaving.
“Your dad was so sure that you would be waiting for me . . . that our marriage was something you still wanted.”
I looked back at the mixture of confusion and hurt on his face, and shook my head slowly, ignoring the tears streaming down my cheeks. “He was wrong. You shouldn’t have come back here, Rhys.”
“Kennedy!” he called when I began walking toward my room, and I whirled back to face him.
“You ruined me!” I screamed. “Don’t you get that? Leave!”
I didn’t wait to see if he did. I just walked into my room and locked the door behind me before sliding down it until I was on the floor. I sat there crying for hours with my heart torn now that my past had just collided with my present.