DISCLAIMER: I don't own The OC or its characters.

Author's Note: Please do not take any of my ideas without my permission.

Thank you to the reviewers! You guys are awesome! I'm writing this for you! You deserve to be recognized so here you go:

Thank you for reviewing chapter 3: Panz, Cynthia, Kikistrain, Jen, LittleMissKiki, Kandy4eva, Michelle, FriendsHolic, Ryans-Girl-1, Sunny, Ally

Please let me know what you think of this chapter!

Sandy went over to his wife who stood gazing out the windows at the beautiful view of the ocean. He was hesitant to say anything, so he reached out his hand and touched her arm softly.

Kirsten couldn't move. She never wanted Sandy to find out what she did, but now that he had she dreaded talking to him about it. She hated confrontation and letting her emotions show. Yet, both confrontation and strong emotions were about to take over her. She closed her eyes and bit her trembling lip, trying hard to not let Sandy know she was crying, although she was pretty sure he knew she was.

They stood there in silence for a few minutes until Kirsten said something after gathering some composure. "I thought I lost you," she said in a monotone voice.

Sandy waited before responding to see if Kirsten was going to explain further.

She shook her head as if trying to block out the painful memories, and continued, "You hurt me, Sandy. At first I thought you just wanted to help her, but then your regular work hours went to all hours of the night. You left me alone many nights and even stood me up on Valentine's Day—not that that's a big deal, but considering you left to say good bye to her at 5 and weren't home till 1am without calling when you knew we had reservations and had promised you'd be right back kind of made it a big deal. The worst thing you did though," she said and stopped to regain her composure, "was that you said you didn't trust me." Her voice cracked a little and she put her hand to her cheek to wipe a tear, not once turning around the entire time as she finally told Sandy how had been feeling the past few weeks.

Sandy, meanwhile, listened intently as his wife poured her heart out to him. It hurt him to see her like this and to hear her say that he hurt her. All this time he was helping Rebecca he never realized that he was hurting his and Kirsten's marriage that had been so strong all these years. He wished that he'd realized it long before it came to his wife taking off her wedding ring.

"You doubted my trust, so I began to doubt yours. After all, a marriage is built on both people trusting one another. Even though you came "home" both literally and figuratively on that rainy night I was still hurting. I doubted that you loved me after everything that happened over the past few weeks. I doubted that you loved our marriage and that you wanted to be in it. I felt like our marriage was lost. So, I took off my ring to see if you would notice. I wanted to see if you were concerned with both my ring and our marriage being "lost".

As Kirsten finished speaking, she turned around to look at Sandy, a small distance between them.

Sandy noticed that her eyes were red from crying, but that she wasn't crying anymore. He knew his wife didn't like to show emotions but he hoped in this case she wasn't hiding her crying, but instead that she was finished crying and ready to start showing her pretty smile again. He didn't want her to be upset.

"Turns out, you were concerned with finding my ring and with our marriage since you spent all day with my dad looking for my ring and you apologized for everything. That made me feel better, hence the beautiful time we had together last night."

"I think they call that "make-up sex"', Sandy said with a small, hesitant smile.

Kirsten smiled a little, her eyes wandering around the room as she tried to hold back tears. She hated when her emotions got in her way.

Sandy closed in on the distance between him and his wife and pulled her into a long, tight hug. "I'm so sorry, baby. I wish I'd realized I was hurting you sooner. I never meant to hurt you. Things just got carried away. I didn't mean to let them go that far."

Kirsten suddenly got out of Sandy's hug. "What do you mean, 'let them go that far'?"

Sandy froze, realizing that he may have phrased that line wrong.

"Sandy—did you have an affair?"

"No, no, of course not!" Sandy replied a bit too quickly.

"Well did you do anything with her? Did you come close to having an affair?" Kirsten questioned him.

"No…" Sandy said defiantly, but meanwhile was thinking of the kiss he and Rebecca had and if he should tell Kirsten. He didn't want that kiss to somehow hurt Kirsten and his marriage. If Kirsten ever found out about it from Rebecca he knew she would be even more angry with him than if he told her now.

Kirsten sensed he was thinking about something. "Sandy? What are you thinking about?"

Sandy thought carefully about how to phrase it, and said, "While we are being honest...I should tell you this…but please know that it was a mistake…I kissed Rebecca on Valentine's Day." He waited to see Kirsten's reaction before going into an explanation.

"You did…" Kirsten said as if she suspected it.

"Let me explain," Sandy said hopelessly as he grabbed Kirsten's arm.

Kirsten shook her head frustrated and ran out of the bedroom screaming, "I've had enough of this for one night!"

Sandy sat down on the chair in their bedroom. He glanced out the window and saw his wife in the kitchen drinking wine right from the bottle. Even being this far away, he could see the shininess of her rings as he watched her hand holding the bottle of wine as she drank it non-stop. "At least she's still wearing the set," he thought to himself, suddenly getting an idea.

He went through some old stuff from Berkeley and found the phone number of the jewelry store he got Kirsten's rings from. Maybe, just maybe, this would make Kirsten realize how much he loves her. He hoped it would. He dialed the number and hoped the jewelry store had what he was looking for.

I know this chapter wasn't very fluffy but I wanted to depict Sandy and Kirsten's emotions as best as possible without rushing the story along. The next chapter will be very fluffy…hmm…what is Sandy looking for at the jewelry store. I hope you liked this chapter!

Let me know what you think!