He Gave Her The Best So I Left Him With Nothing Chapter 18
Aidan acted as if Cormac weren’t even there. Holding Sam’s hand, he skirted the cabinet parked in the middle of the yard and came straight to my workbench.
“Sam wanted to see what real woodworking looks like,” he said, his voice easy.
Sam scooped up a discarded scrap of wood, his eyes wide with curiosity, while Aidan casually collected a few tools I’d left scattered across the table.
I smiled and sat down beside them, turning the piece of wood over in my hands. “See this grain? Doesn’t it look like a little mountain?”
Cormac was left stranded on the sidelines, a man in a bespoke suit hopelessly out of place in a yard full of sawdust and paint. The three of us talked about the scent of different woods and the grits of sandpaper, and he couldn’t wedge in a single word.
Then Aidan reached over and gently brushed a smudge of sawdust from my cheek with his thumb. “You’ve got something right here,” he said, his touch natural and close.
I saw Cormac’s expression darken, his jaw tightening. Without another word, he turned on his heel and strode out of the yard.
But he didn’t give up.
Over the next several days, he kept coming back. Sometimes he brought a new designer handbag. Sometimes an expensive-looking jewelry box. He would plant himself stubbornly at my gate, repeating that these had been “picked out especially for you.”
I never accepted a single thing.
“It’s too late, Cormac,” I told him through the closed gate.
After a while, he stopped bringing gifts. He’d just park his rental car at the corner and watch my studio from a distance.
Until one evening, just as I was about to close up, his patience finally snapped. He rushed in and grabbed my wrist, his eyes bloodshot.
“I don’t believe it,” he growled. “After everything we had, how could you possibly fall for him this fast?”
The harsh rasp of sandpaper in my hand stopped.
I slowly straightened and looked at him.
“You knew I’d loved you for years, didn’t you?”
