Page 2 of In Love with My Secret Husband

He knew that even though she was babbling now, it wasn’t for lack of practice.

Because his wife...

She would make a good athlete, actually, because she was a big believer of practice.

So he knew she had practiced for hours before this, but because she was now terrified of him, her husband...

She had ended up babbling while telling Troy about this new life that she intended to start without him.

“I don’t foresee any problems—”

A better man than him would have eased her burden by telling Laina that it was okay. That she didn’t have to try so hard. Because he got it.

Too bad for her, though, Troy was not a better man.

He was just a man whose wife of seven years was about to leave him for good, and he was not the kind of man to just accept it without a fight.

“Laina.”

And so he cut her off.

“I want you to say all of those things to my face.”

She managed to turn to his direction. But her gaze only got as far as his collarbone, the place where she used to press her mouth when he came to bed late after a road game, half-asleep andreaching for him in the dark because Laina reached for people even when they pushed her away.

Even when they forgot to reach back.

"I...”

His fists clenched. He prepared himself to hear the words all over again—

“I d-don’t love you anymore.”

But instead, his young wife succeeded in doing something that his opponents had always said was impossible to do, and that was to catch Troy completely off guard.

Did Laina just say...she no longer loved him?

He stared at her.

Saw the way she had paled.

And he just...

He just couldn’t tell.

This wife he had once thought—arrogantly, he now realized—he knew inside and out...was now someone whose words had become something he couldn’t discern. And it made him suddenly think...he really might lose her for good.

Troy wanted to say something.

But for the life of him, he just didn’t know what to say.

And when she sensed that he was about to speak—

Laina suddenly ducked under his arm, and a moment later, she was gone, the front door closing behind her.

And Troy...

It was as if he was frozen in place as he listened to her car start in the driveway, the engine sound getting smaller and smaller until the house was quiet in a way it had never been quiet before. Not empty quiet, but gone quiet, the kind that gnawed at Troy all the way to his soul.