Avery’s POV
The air in the cabin dropped with sudden chill as Gideon froze at my question. I resisted the urge to slap my hand over my mouth. I hadn’t really meant to ask the question, and so early in our trip too… I felt as though I had already ruined everything before it even got started.
But there my question hung, as though it had frozen solid in the frosty air that had rushed into the gaping abyss between us.
“Why did you refuse to divorce me?”
I regretted the question, not because I didn’t want to know the answer— in fact I was keenly interested in what Gideon had to say— but I did regret that this felt as though I had taken the frail, fragile thing that was trying to grow between us and crushed it beneath my heel.
There was a long delay during which I found it hard to look a
