The sentence landed like a punch to the chest.
I blinked.
“I’m sorry—what?”
He stared at the marble coffee table instead of my face. The same one I’d helped him choose when Isabella decided their old furniture looked “unsophisticated.”
“Isabella’s parents are coming,” he muttered. “And they’d… prefer if you weren’t here.”
My fingers went numb.
“They’d prefer,” I echoed.
“It’s just easier,” he said weakly. “They’re very particular about traditions.”
His voice shrank with every word.
I looked around the room—the silk curtains I paid for when Isabella complained about privacy, the hardwood floors financed through my second mortgage, the crown molding that pushed my credit card to its limit.
Every inch of that house carried my fingerprints.
My sacrifice.
My love.
“Their way,” I said slowly. “And what way is that?”
