Winning Back His Ex's Wife's Broken Heart

Richard's POV

I think the first sign something was wrong was when Sarah stopped giving me hell about the coffee machine.

It's been her favorite thing to complain about for weeks, saying it's possessed because it always spills over whenever she tries to make a cup.

But this morning, she just looked at it, sighed, and made her coffee in silence. No snarky comments, no rolling of the eyes-just silence. That's when I knew.

We'd had the kiss.

That kiss that should have set us on the right path. I could feel it was something for both of us, a step toward fixing the mess I made.

But since then, she's been pulling away. Slower at first, then all at once. The warmth between us, the ease, all of it was slipping through my fingers like sand. "Are you mad at the coffee again?" I asked, trying to lighten the mood.

She barely smiled, more of a twitch at the corner of her lips. "It's just a coffee machine, Richard. I'm fine."

Fine. The word people use when everything is definitely not fine.

I watched her walk away, her shoulders stiff and her eyes focused on something far away-definitely not the machine, definitely not me.

I spent the rest of the day trying to figure it out. What was I doing wrong? We had kissed. I thought it meant something, that she was ready to move forward.

Was I moving too fast? Was I being pushy? I tried to back off, give her space, but the more I did that, the more distant she became.

The doubt started creeping in. What if she couldn't forgive me? What if the scars I'd left were too deep?

I didn't blame her for hesitating. I had been a complete mess, selfish, wrapped up in my own world when we were together.

I had walked out on her. I had chosen someone else-Susan, of all people. The guilt was like an old coat I couldn't shrug off, no matter how hard I tried. But I had changed. I *was* changing. Wasn't I?

Sarah's POV

"Why are you still talking to him?" Emma's voice crackled through the phone. "Richard is not the man you want to pin your hopes on, Sarah."

I sighed, pressing my phone closer to my ear. Emma had always been my voice of reason, the one who reminded me that love wasn't all about second chances.

She and my mom were the ones who held my hand through the divorce, through the whole ugly affair with Susan. She had a front-row seat to the wreckage Richard had caused.

"Because I still care about him, Em," I finally said, hating how weak my voice sounded. "I don't want to care, but I do."

"You care about the idea of him, not the reality. Reality? He hurt you. He chose someone else. He left you. Don't you remember that? How many nights did we sit here talking about how badly he broke you?" She was right. Of course, she was right. I could still feel the sting of watching Susan and Richard plastered all over the news.

The engagement, the photoshoots, the interviews where they played house in my house. It was like a nightmare I couldn't wake up from. And now, here I was, letting him back in.

"I know," I muttered. "But he says he's changed."

Emma scoffed. "People like Richard don't change. They just get better at pretending."

***

The next day, when I saw Richard in the office, it was like everything Emma had said was swirling in my mind.

He smiled at me, hopeful, like he was still holding onto something between us. I couldn't smile back. Instead, I sat down and buried myself in paperwork, avoiding eye contact. He noticed.

"Are you alright? You've been a little... distant lately."

"I'm fine." There it was again. The lie.

Richard sat down across from me, concern etched into his face. "Is this about the kiss? Did I push too hard?"

I sighed, leaning back in my chair, not looking at him. "I just... I don't know, Richard. I don't know what I'm doing anymore."

He frowned. "What do you mean? I thought we were making progress."

Progress. The word felt too clean, too hopeful for something that still hurt this much.

"I don't know if I can trust you," I blurted, finally meeting his eyes. "I don't know if you've really changed."

Richard's expression faltered, like I'd slapped him. "Sarah... I'm trying. I've been trying ever since I came back."

"I know," I whispered. "But what if you haven't really changed? What if... what if you do this again? What if you hurt me again?"

The words hung between us, heavy and cold. I could see the pain in his eyes, but I didn't back down. Emma's voice was still in my head, reminding me of all the reasons I shouldn't trust him.

***

Richard's POV

Her words cut deeper than I wanted to admit. She couldn't trust me. And maybe she was right. Maybe she had every reason not to.

I had left her, broken every promise, and walked out when she needed me most. But I had come back. I am here now. Didn't that count for something?

"I get it," I said quietly. "You have every reason not to trust me. But I'm not that man anymore."

Sarah didn't respond. She just stared at the papers in front of her, like they held answers she couldn't find in me.

"I know I hurt you," I continued, the guilt twisting in my chest. "I can't undo what happened, but I want to make things right."

"Do you?" Her voice was barely above a whisper. "Or are you just trying to feel better about yourself?"

I froze. Was that what she thought? That this was all about my guilt? Maybe it was. Maybe part of me wanted redemption, to feel like I wasn't a complete failure. But that wasn't all of it. I still loved her. Didn't that mean something?

"I want to be with you, Sarah," I said, my voice steady. "But I can't prove that if you keep pushing me away."

She shook her head. "It's not that simple."

Sarah's POV

It wasn't. It wasn't simple at all.

Richard had always had a way with words, a way of making everything sound like it could be fixed. But the scars he left weren't the kind that healed easily.

Every time I looked at him, I saw the man who walked out, who chose someone else. No matter how much I wanted to believe he'd changed, the doubt was always there, whispering that it could happen again. "What do you want me to do, Sarah?" he asked, his voice soft, defeated. "Tell me what I need to do."

I didn't have an answer. Because what I needed wasn't something he could give me. I needed to feel safe. I needed to know that I wasn't making the same mistake twice. And right now, I didn't feel any of that. "I don't know," I admitted. "Maybe this was all a mistake."

Richard's face fell, and for a moment, I thought he might argue. But he didn't. He just sat there, staring at me with those eyes that once held my whole world in them. Now they were just sad, lost, like he didn't know how to fix what he had broken.

-Richard's POV

She thought this was a mistake. And maybe she was right. Maybe coming back, trying to rebuild what we had, was impossible.

Maybe I didn't deserve another chance. I had done too much damage, hurt her in ways I couldn't take back.

But as I sat there, looking at her, I knew I couldn't give up. Not yet.

"Sarah..." I started, but my voice trailed off. What could I even say? That I wasn't the same man who left her? That I wasn't still haunted by my own mistakes? She stood up, her chair scraping against the floor. "I need some time."

I nodded, swallowing the lump in my throat. "Okay."

As she walked away, everything settled on me like a heavy cloak. The past, the mistakes, the guilt-it was all there, and no matter what I did, I couldn't seem to shake it.

I had thought the kiss was a step forward, a sign that we could still have a future. But now, it felt like we were right back where we started-standing on opposite sides of a bridge I wasn't sure I could ever cross.