Page 264 of Steamy Ever After

“Okay…”

“I wasn’t crazy about Kade Butler.”

This was news. Her mother had never said a negative word about him or Lang. Even when he left her and the boys, she didn’t defend him, but she didn’t disparage him, either.

“This isn’t like you, Mom.”

“I know it isn’t. I’ve always believed you were capable of making your own decisions, for your own reasons. I can’t pretend to know how you feel inside.”

“Why didn’t you like Kade?”

“It should be obvious, Peyton.”

“Well, it isn’t,” she snapped, tired of her mom’s cat-and-mouse game.

“We rarely saw you when you were with him, sweetheart. That’s a red flag. There were others. I don’t know if he was always honest with you.”

“Alex said the same thing the other day. Only, she said he wasn’t the man I thought he was.”

“Did she elaborate?”

“Yes.” She wasn’t ready to tell her mom what Alex had said about Kade. It really didn’t make him seem any different in Peyton’s eyes. It hadn’t changed the way she saw him. Maybe because she’d sensed it about him.

“Peyton?”

“She told me he was going to work for the CIA. She said he kept it from me because he was afraid I wouldn’t like it.”

“Do you agree?”

“I don’t think he intentionally kept it from me, but she’s right to say we never talked about it.”

“He discussed it with your dad.”

“What? Seriously? Why didn’t Dad say anything?” Peyton asked her mom.

“Kade asked him not to.”

“Then, Dad isn’t any better than Kade was.”

“Peyton!” her mother gasped.

“I’m tired of men keeping me in the dark about things that affect my life. Lying, sneaking around, cheating—I’m sick of it.”

Her mom shook her head. “Your father didn’t do any of those things.”

“He didn’t tell me Kade spoke to him about things I was unaware of. That’s lying.”

“No, it’s waiting. Kade asked him to wait.”

“For what?” Peyton asked.

“He was going to ask you to marry him.”

Peyton sat down on the ground and put her elbows on her raised knees. “It would’ve been important for me to know that before I gave him my answer.”

“Your father would’ve told you, but then Kade died, and there was no reason to.”

“We never discussed marriage, Mom. Never. Brodie said something about how things might have been different after we were married. That I’d get to know the rest of his family better. I told him that Kade and I weren’t as close as he thought we were.”

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