“What do you say to your best friend when she’s clearly not herself? You needed to come to this conclusion for yourself, not hear it from me, or the girls. You would never have listened if we came to you with this. You’d shut us out of your life, and I for one didn’t want that to happen. I wanted you to see the problem for yourself.”

Ivy was right. Sutton would have gotten her back up and told them all to go to hell. She’d defend Ethan to the death, even if she was furious with him.

She deflated. The pain and worry overwhelmed her, and she slumped into the chair. “What do I do?”

Ivy didn’t hesitate. “That’s easy. You leave.”

“He won’t let me go. He won’t let me walk away. Divorce is not in the cards.”

“Then you’ll have to figure out another way.”

American Woman

AMERICAN WOMAN

Now

Sutton was a liberated woman. Smart, sexy, confident. Systematically broken down by the events of the past year, yes, but she was all these things, and more.

But the second she ran off after Constantine, her narrative switched. She became the same weak, mewling cunt her mother had turned into when she’d run off after the dogs she called “husband material.”

Sutton didn’t know why she did it. Revenge on Ethan wasn’t enough to debase herself like this. To bed someone she knew she didn’t truly want. It took her back to a time she’d rather forget, a time when she was indiscriminate, looking for attention and popularity any way she could find it. It had gotten her in a huge mess then and she had the same sneaking instinct that her actions of the past few days were going to have the same effect.

She was losing her nerve.

After everything she’d done to assure herself a clean getaway, a fresh life, a break from the world that intimidated and threatened her, lying under Constantine’s straining body all she could think of was going home. Slinking back to Nashville with her tail between her legs.

It wasn’t worth it, this. There was no medicine in the world, psychotropic, alcoholic, or sexual, that would fill the empty, gnawing hole in her.

She wanted her baby back. She wanted her husband back. She wanted her career back. She wanted her life back.

She wanted. God, she wanted. She’d spent her whole fucking life wanting. As a child, wanting to create. As a teen, wanting to fit in. As an adult, wanting to land the perfect man. And she’d finally achieved all the things she wanted, and she’d thrown them away. It had taken this empty affair to show her the way.