Page 44 of A Lesson for Laurel

Did he think Rachelle slept with her coworker? He wasn’t sure. She claimed she didn’t. He wanted to believe it was just an emotional affair and she ended things when she was falling in love with Connor.

He supposed she thought she was doing the right thing. She probably did. But it didn’t make him feel much better that he couldn’t measure up either.

“You must have a big place if you both were working from home.”

“About twelve hundred square feet. Not huge. Three bedrooms and two were offices. Two baths and just our living areas. It worked for us. Or more like for me.”

“Did she put her touch on the place?” she asked.

“A little,” he said. “I never said she couldn’t.”

“But you didn’t tell her she could,” she said, angling her head.

He frowned. “I guess not. That doesn’t stop a lot of women,” he said. “At least in my experience.”

“I guess it depends on the woman. I might add some pillows or blankets, maybe a picture here or there if I moved into someone’s house. I wouldn’t do anything else that couldn’t be taken away or put away if they didn’t like it. I think I’d even ask though.”

“She never asked,” he said. “That’s the difference. If she had, I would have said sure. Looking back, she didn’t.”

“Because she wanted you to just tell her she could,” she said.

“Most likely. My mind doesn’t work that way. I asked her to move in. To me that was her house too.”

“Can I ask, did she pay for anything? Or did she like to be taken care of?”

He let out a sigh. “I paid most of the bills. It was my place.”

“Which is why I would feel as if I couldn’t do anything.”

“That is you,” he said. “And if you felt that way, I bet you’d bring it up to talk about.”

“I would,” she said. “I’d want to feel like an equal. Not that I think I’d be an equal with an attorney.”

“What about you with Philip?” he asked. “Did you live together?”

“Nope,” she said. “It was a good thing too. I stayed at his place but didn’t move in completely. Remember, everything was fast with us. He had a townhouse but wanted us to buy a place together.”

“Wait,” he said. “Back up. You called the wedding off like days before and yet didn’t live with him? Didn’t even move your stuff in yet.”

She started to laugh. “See, all these flags that I was blind to.”

“I’m serious,” he said.

“Me too. I still had my lease on my place. We were looking at houses. I didn’t have anywhere to store my furniture. We were going to get serious about house hunting when we got back from our honeymoon. We just figured it was best to keep my place for a few months. I had moved over most of my clothing, but not all. I was going back and forth. Is that better?”

“A little,” he said. It made sense.

“And it was easy when I left him. I went right to his place, packed up my clothes, pretty much just shoving them in my car on the hangers and anything else that was mine and was out the door with him trying to explain.”

Easton would love to have seen that sight.

“I’m sure you would have gone to your father’s if you had to,” he said.

“I went there anyway with my car loaded up. I know where to go when I need someone. But then I had to hold my father back from breaking Philip in two. I said it wasn’t worth it.”

“Not from what I could see of the guy,” he said.

“Back to Rachelle. She’s living with you and working from home at times. You see each other a lot when that happens. What caused you to break up? It’d been years living there by the sounds of it, so it couldn’t be she missed the action of the city.”

---