I thought of all the things Chase said last night. He obviously didn’t want to let me go, but was it fair of me to hold on to him knowing how much it could cost him? “Do you think it’s selfish of me to stick around knowing I’m just adding to the pressure he’s under?”
“Does that mean you’re thinking about coming back home?” Dev asked, his eyes lighting up with enthusiasm. “We’d all love to have you back, but is that really what you want, hon? You were so miserable leaving him the first time. Do you think you can do it again?”
I didn’t want to, but I wasn’t sure I had a choice. “Last time I didn’t think I was ready. This time, I’m not sure he’s ready.”
I considered how I would feel in Chase’s position. Stressed. Anxious. Confused. I didn’t want to do that to him.
“I mean, I think he loves me, and if he weren’t already a dad, I have no doubt we’d be making plans for the future by now, but…” I propped my chin in my palm with a sigh. “This just feels like a no-win situation. I can’t stay here, working for the man I love, living across the street from him, wondering if we’ll ever be together the way I want us to.”
“Are you saying you’d actually marry this guy given the chance?” Dev asked, gaping at me.
Our friends had all joked they’d eventually have to drag me down the aisle kicking and screaming. “I’ve imagined what it would be like, being married to him.”
“And?” Dev asked, rolling his hand.
“I was never step-mommy dearest in my fantasy. I imagined the kids and I would get along great. I thought we could all be happy together. Maybe even expand our family someday.”
Dev slapped his ear. “Hold on a sec. Did I just hear you right? A baby? You’d consider defiling that perfect body with stretch marks?”
I laughed when I remembered my sister’s horror stories about stretched skin and how all the vitamin E oil in the world hadn’t helped. She also said she wouldn’t have traded being pregnant for anything, so I supposed the trade-offs were worth it. “What’s so crazy about wanting a baby with the man I love?”
“Nine years, Cat. We’ve been friends for nine years,” he said, raising his index finger. “And not once in all that time have I heard you talk about marriage and babies. Where is all this coming from?”
I looked at the empty booth across from us. The waitress was wiping down the table, preparing it for another group of diners.
“Seeing him with his kids makes me realize what a great dad Chase is. Even though it’s the single biggest thing standing between us now, it’s also one of the things I love most about him—his capacity to love unconditionally.” I traced circles on the paper placemat in front of me as I imagined helping a little one color between the lines with crayon. “How could I not want a baby with a man like that?”
My parents had always told me when I met the right man, I’d change my mind about having kids. I’d argued that plenty of people were happy without children and I intended to be one of them, but Chase had changed that. He’d changed me. In ways I never could have imagined when we met.
“Sweetie, if he loves you as much as you love him, it’ll work out.” With a broad smile, he said, “Look at me and Jeffery. We’re as different as two people could possibly be, yet we make it work.”
“Yeah,” I said, returning his smile. “Maybe you should teach a class ‘cause I sure as hell could use some pointers.”
***
“He stayed with you all goddamn weekend?” Chase asked, slamming my office door behind him.
I was sure his booming voice carried through the paper-thin walls to the accountant on the other side. She was a sixty-something gray-haired spinster with glasses around her neck and had probably never been confronted by a raging jealous lunatic at nine o’clock on a Monday morning.
I glared at him. “Will you keep your voice down? This is a place of business.”
“This is my business,” he said, fisting his hands on my desk as he leaned over it. “And don’t you dare tell me to keep my voice down! His car was parked in your driveway all weekend. What the hell, Catia? You sleep with me, then you’re with him less than twenty-four hours later?”
I jumped up so fast my takeout coffee nearly toppled over. “Who the hell do you think you are?” I shoved hard against his chest. He was as solid as a brick wall and, judging by his scowl, just as dense. “You come into my office, making all kinds of accusations, implying I’m a slut, without even asking me to explain. Who the hell does that?”
“I wasn’t implying that,” he said, looking chagrined as he leaned back. “I could never think that about you.”
“You just said you thought I slept with you one night and someone else the next,” I said, poking him in the chest. “Even after I told you how I felt about you. Didn’t you believe me?”
He released a trembling breath as he rubbed his hands over his face. “I want to believe you.” His eyes scanned my face, and I knew he was searching for lies, not the truth. “You don’t know how much I want to believe you.”
“But you don’t believe me, do you?” I was shocked when tears burned my eyes. I wasn’t a crier. In fact, Chase was the only man who’d reduced me to tears since college. I bit my lip to keep from cussing him out. My head demanded I tear a strip off him while my heart pleaded with me to try to put myself in his place.
“Just tell me why he was there.”
I turned away from him, wishing I could erase the doubt in his eyes with the truth. But even when he realized he had no reason to fear my relationship with Dev, I knew there would always be another man to remind him women couldn’t be trusted. “Is this the way it’s going to be from now on? You punishing me for your ex-wife’s sins?” I curled my arms around my body as I turned back around and watched the color drain from his face.
“That’s not what this is about.”
“Yes, it is. We both know it.” I raised my chin, determined to remain poised—at least until he left my office. “For what it’s worth, Dev is just my friend. He’s gay, not bi, and has been in a committed relationship for years.”
“Really?” He obviously wanted to believe me, but I could tell that little voice in the back of his head wouldn’t let him.
“Yes.” I nodded at my cell phone, which was sitting on the desk behind him. “You’re welcome to call him if you don’t believe me. He’ll verify everything I just said.”
“I don’t have to do that.” He raked a hand through his hair. “Jesus, Cat, I’m sorry. I don’t know why I assumed the worst.”
“I do. You’ve been burned. You’re determined not to let it happen again.” I laughed, even though it scraped my throat. “Funny, I thought I was the one with all the issues. Turns out you’re the one who isn’t ready for a relationship. Ironic, isn’t it?” Only if irony was a cruel bitch disguised as gut-wrenching love cloaked in desperation.
“You’re wrong. I am ready for a relationship. I do want this.” His voice was strong and determined, as though pure will could convince me.
“You may want it. So do I. But we can’t always have what we want, can we?”
“What are you saying?”
I couldn’t say the words without breaking down, so I shrugged instead.
“You don’t want me anymore? You’ve decided I’m not worth the effort. Is that it?” he asked.
The fact that he couldn’t see what I’d been willing to give up to be with him broke my heart. “You need to figure yourself out before you can be part of a couple. You have to decide whether you’re going to let your past define your future, and you need to make your daughters understand that you’ll love them no matter who else is in your life. When you figure out how to do that, maybe we’ll have something to talk about.” I reached into my desk drawer for my purse.
He watched me throw my phone and keys into my bag before he asked, “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” I asked, slinging my purse over my shoulder.
He grabbed my w
rist when I walked past him and drew me between his legs as he sat on the edge of the desk. “It looks like you’re trying to leave me again. But you can’t. I can’t let you.”
I closed my eyes, letting my head fall forward. I was so tired of fighting. For the past year, I’d been trying to find the strength to come back. Now I had to find the strength to leave, and I couldn’t. “You think this is what I want? It isn’t.”
“Then don’t give up on me,” he said, wrapping his hands around my face. “Please, baby. Just give me a little more time to sort things out.”
I rested my hands on his shoulders as I resisted the urge to collapse in his arms and let him soothe me. “You need more than time. You need help.”
“What does that mean?”
I was almost afraid to suggest it because I knew a man like Chase could take offense. “Maybe you should consider family therapy. It’s obvious, even to someone who knows nothing about children, that yours are having a hard time with the divorce. I think maybe you and Karen need to figure out how to be friends again, for the sake of your kids. And maybe in the process, you can let go of the animosity you’re harboring.”
He let his hands fall as he considered my suggestion. “If I agreed to that, would you stay? Keep working for me?”
“Chase.” I brushed the backs of my knuckles against his jaw. “You’re a good man. I have no doubt about that. I wouldn’t have fallen in love with you if you weren’t. But you’ve been hurt by the woman you loved most of your life, the one person you thought you could trust.”
“I never felt about her the way I feel about you,” he whispered, turning into my touch as he closed his eyes. “Can’t you see that’s why I can’t lose you? Not again. It would kill me this time.”
I thought back to my first experience with love and trust. He’d been a blip on the radar screen of my life, not a major marker like Karen was for Chase, and it had still taken me years to get over what he did to me and learn to trust again. “It’s not fair for me to expect you to be over what happened with Karen after a couple of years. And it’s obvious given the way you react every time you find me with a man that you’re not over it. Maybe you never will be. I don’t know.”
Stepping back so I wouldn’t be tempted to curl my arms around him, I said, “I can’t live with that uncertainty. I need someone I can trust, who can trust me. In life, there will always be trials and temptations. I can live with those. I’m just not sure you can live with the knowledge that I’ll be facing temptation every day.”
He tried reaching for me, but my resolve would only weaken if I let him touch me, so I stepped farther back. My parents had always taught me to value myself, and I couldn’t knowingly enter into a relationship with a man who wasn’t capable of loving me the way I deserved to be loved.
He sighed. “This is new to me, feeling like this about someone. When I fell for Karen, I was just a kid. Sure, I dealt with juvenile jealousy when I saw her talking to another guy, but it’s nothing like what I feel when I see you with someone else.”
His handsome face was drawn, and he looked so tense, I wanted nothing more than to soothe him. But the demon he had to wrestle lived inside him, and there was nothing I could do to help him slay it.
“The rage actually scares me.” His eyes penetrated mine, and I sucked in a breath as I saw his fear. “When she cheated on me, it hurt my pride. If you ever cheated on me, it would kill me. Just thinking about you with someone else makes me want to—”
“Sssh,” I said, pressing my fingertip against his lip. “That’s not what this is about. I don’t want to be with anyone else.” I couldn’t even imagine wanting to feel another man’s arms around me. “But I can’t be with someone who has all this pent-up fear and rage inside him. It’s not good for you. It’s not good for your kids. It’s not good for me.”
He reached for my hands. “Will you wait for me if I promise to work at making things better?”
“All I want is for you to feel better.” I brushed my lips across his. “Because you deserve to be happy. You deserve to love again, to trust again, to be happy, and to believe the person sharing your bed will still be there tomorrow and the day after that.”
Chapter Twelve
Chase
When I told my mother I was trying to make amends with Karen for the kids’ sake, she did her part by inviting Karen to Thanksgiving dinner since her parents were out of state visiting her brother’s family for the holiday.
As we sat in the backyard, watching our kids rake piles of leaves and fall into them with squeals and giggles, Karen said, “I never imagined we’d have moments like this again as a family. Thank you for including me today, Chase. It means a lot.”
“You can thank my mother. It was her idea.”
“But I know she never would have suggested it had it not been for you.”
I shrugged, unwilling to take any credit. I was only doing what I felt I had to to bridge the gap from the life I had to the life I wanted. “I’d do anything for them. I believe you would to.”
She smiled. “That family therapy must really be helping us, huh? I can’t imagine you saying something like that to me a month ago.”
Our time in the therapist’s office seemed to be helping our kids too. They seemed less hostile, and they laughed more. Of course, that could have had something to do with the fact I hadn’t mentioned Catia’s name again. They thought they’d won that battle.
“Have you thought about talking to Dr. Wyndham on your own?” she asked.
“No, why?” I asked with a sidelong glance in her direction. “You think I need it?”
“I can tell something’s bothering you,” she said hesitantly. “You haven’t been yourself for a while now. Problems with the new lady in your life?”
I closed my eyes to block out the picture of my kids laughing and playing as though they didn’t have a care in the world. “She’s still working for me.” But she barely looks at me when our paths cross, and it’s killing me.
“Are you still seeing each other?”
“I guess you could say we’re taking a little break.”
“I’m guessing she wanted it, not you?”
If I had my way, I wouldn’t spend another night apart from her. “No, I didn’t want it. She felt I had some issues to work through.”
“Is that why you suggested family therapy?”
I frowned at her. “I think we needed it after what went down between us, don’t you?”
She nodded before looking away. “Definitely. Believe me, I’m grateful. I’m just wondering if I have her to thank for all these changes. First you suggest I spend more time with the kids, then you want us to talk to a professional so we can figure out how to get along better. Just doesn’t sound like you.”
She was right. I’d always been the type to storm off and slam doors or jump in my truck and squeal out of the drive instead of staying to talk things out. But that shit would never fly with Catia. She’d track me down and let me have it if I ever pulled a stunt like that with her.
“I’m just trying to figure out how to be a better partner,” I said. “I recognize that I made mistakes in our marriage. I was making a lot of the same mistakes with Cat, and I don’t want to do that.”
Her lips twitched. “I’m guessing she wouldn’t stand for it? She told you to get your act together or you were going to lose her?”
“Something like that,” I muttered, lowering my head.
“Then I’ll say it again.” Karen kissed Emily’s cheek when she ran up and threw her arms around her mother’s neck before running off again. “Maybe you should think about talking to Dr. Wyndham. I really think she could help you work through some of the things that went down between us. Like you said, you don’t want to repeat the same mistakes in this relationship.”
“I’ll think about it.” After weeks of being Catia’s employer and neighbor instead of her lover, I was willing to do just about anything to make things right.
***
&n
bsp; Catia
“I’m late,” I whispered, gripping my sister’s hands. Dozens of people were in the dining room waiting on dinner, but I had to share my fears with her or I would go crazy. “I should have gotten my period three days ago, and I haven’t yet.”
“Oh my God,” Kara said, slapping her hand over her mouth. “You don’t think…”
I turned my back so my mother, who was perched on the edge of a chair at my father’s side, couldn’t read my lips. “Chase and I had sex three or four times. We used a condom every time, but…” My cheeks were burning. “They’d expired.”
Kara’s eyes were wide. “The condoms had expired? Are you kidding me?”
“I wish I was.” I groaned, leaning against the counter. “I’d just tossed them in a box when I was moving, so God knows how long ago I bought them. I never even thought to check the expiration date before I told Chase to use them. What the hell is wrong with me?” I slapped my palm against my forehead. “How could I be so stupid? I was planning to find a doctor when I moved here, to get back on the pill, but I haven’t had time—”
“Calm down,” Kara said, running her hands over my arms. “You don’t know anything for sure, right? You haven’t taken a test yet, have you?”
“No, I’m afraid to.”
She gave me a sympathetic smile. “What made you check the date on the condoms? I don’t think I would have thought of that.”
“When I didn’t get my period, I started googling the effectiveness of condoms, wondering if something could have gone wrong. That’s when I realized I might have a problem.”
“Any other symptoms?” Kara asked. “Aside from being late?”
“Remember I told you I thought I was coming down with something last week…?”
“Oh yeah.” She bit her lip as she sneaked a peek over my shoulder. “Let’s head over to my place and find out for sure. I still have a couple of pregnancy tests stashed in my bathroom.”
Catia (Starkis Family #6) Page 12