“If it doesn’t mean anything, why was it in your bag? When you said you were coming to Oakwood I thought you were going to feed the cat. I hadn’t realized you were leaving me. It would have been helpful to know.”

She was consumed by panic. This wasn’t what she wanted, and now the situation felt out of control.

“I didn’t leave you! Not in that sense. I needed space, Sean, that’s all. I needed to think.”

She’d envisioned herself having time to plan what she was going to say, so that her words were thought out and meaningful. And now she felt trapped and defensive. Also tired, and that wasn’t good.

“If you’d needed to think about our marriage, don’t you think I should have been involved? Even an accused person should have a trial.”

“I’m not accusing you of anything, Sean.”

He’d picked up the remains of the bottle of wine. “Mind if I finish this?”

“Go ahead.” She fetched him a glass and he poured the last of the wine.

He’d always been steady. It had been one of the things that had first attracted her to him, and that had never changed. He’d been steady when the twins had been born prematurely, and steady when her dad had died. At that moment he hadn’t seemed steady at all.

“All the way here I was planning this great speech, but now I’m here and I can’t think of a single damn thing to say.” He looked at her and his eyes were tired. “It’s never been more important to say the right thing, after so many wrong things. I was so busy living life I never paused to examine how I was living it.”

She understood that, because in her own way she’d been doing the same. “You look exhausted.”

“It’s been a long week and the traffic was bad.” He drained his glass. “Friday night.”

“Yes.” Friday night. And she’d been having dinner with Finn. And she knew that this wasn’t the time to talk about everything. She needed to think, and he needed to rest.

“It’s late, and you’ve had a long drive. Why don’t you go to bed while I clear up here, and we can talk properly tomorrow.”

“Seriously? This is possibly the most important conversation of our marriage, and you want to delay it?”

“I want to delay it simply because it is quite possibly the most important conversation of our marriage. Probably not one to have when we’re tired and stressed.”

“You don’t look tired or stressed. You look energized.” His gaze traveled from the skinny straps of her red dress to the heels of her shoes. “You look—incredible. Different.”

“I treated myself to a new dress.”

“It’s not the dress. You look different.”