Authors Note: Here is the chapter I least wanted to write as I hate them being mad at each other.
"He was almost undressing you in front of everyone there, including myself and he knows what you are in my life!"
Merteuil threw her hands up in anger. Six months of being desperately in love with one another and they still had large trust issues as they did not believe themselves good enough yet.
"What does that matter? I love you and do not care in any way about how a different man looks at me."
"You were tempted by him, I could see it in your eyes."
She glared at him and started shouting louder, "Whenever you looked at me I was looking straight back at you. I was tempted by you! I do not even know what that Lord's surname was. I wish you understood that since I met you I have not looked twice at somebody like that."
"You said what I am only last with with that Countess. How dare you be so hypocritical!"
Looking at him with tears shining in her eyes she commented, "I don't know where to go from here. This happens every time we are not alone and I cannot bear it. I want to be with you more than I can begin to express in words but this pain is killing me."
"Please do not do this, we are too spectacular together. I love you and I do not believe there is another woman better suited to me as you. I will not let you break us in to two separate entities again."
As he reached out to grab her hand with his own she said, "You have to let us go our different paths now." Tears were spilling down her cheeks openly by this point and he wanted nothing more than to hold her and erase the sadness he could see and hear in her voice, but she had stepped far away from the fireplace and when he tried to get near she moved backwards to the extreme that she had to turn to the left so she would not bang back against the wall.
They stared at the other for a worrying amount of time until he gave in and obeyed her. The second she saw his resolve she wanted to break down right there and then, it was the last thing she could wish for because she only wanted him to have shown his passion for her by standing up to her, but now he was acting like he did not care enough. So she let him go.
What she had said had been true - seeing him woo other women was hard - she just did not expect this part of the once beautiful partnership to feel worse than if she reached inside her body and pulled out each of her organs one by one.
It would be improper of her to chase after a man in her social ranking but oh how she dreamt that he would come back through those open doors. He stayed out though and she knew they had overstepped the line and that there would not be any turning back around from this moment on.
