Page 58 of The Fate of Us

“She said she would be back.”

“Well that’s good news.”

I shrug.

“So now lay on mistake number two,” he says, crossing one leg over the other.

“I blew up on Claire. She was spouting this nonsense about court documents and her contesting everything.” I look up to meet Carson’s gaze. “She says she had contested the divorce.”

“She didn’t show up for one court date.”

“I told her that. She was so pissed at me. Like it was my fault she left and that I moved on. I told her to get out. I think she wants to take me to court over all this.”

Carson nods as he looks me over. Sometimes I forget I’m older than him because he does seem wiser than me more than half the time.

“And now I am waiting for mistake number three.”

“Fuck,” I mutter into my palms. Once again scrubbing my face for clarity. “She kissed me.”

“And let me guess, you kissed her back.”

“It was an accident.”

Carson guffaws. “I’ve never heard of a kiss being an accident. A mistake maybe but not an accident.”

“The memories flooded back, man. The good ones. But it didn’t take long for me to push her away.”

“You know you are going to have to tell Anna that.”

“I’m well aware,” I growl.

Carson sighs as he takes the seat next to me, throwing a hand on my shoulder. “Look, I can’t do much for what’s going on between you and Anna. You need to fix that. But you also need to know something.” He pauses. “You still have love in your heart for Claire. Hell man, it took you five years to get over her. And it’s going to be hard to fight those feelings. Fight off what you have been trying to forget. But you need to if you want to keep the woman that’s right for you. Unless you want to make it work with Claire.”

“Fuck no,” I spit out. “I need Anna. She keeps my heart beating.”

Carson smiles. “I know, brother. I know. You are going to have to fight through this. Because this might be a tough battle.”

My eyes snap to his and I can tell he his keeping something from me. “What the fuck does that mean?”

He looks over to his office door that is slightly cracked and gets up to shut it. He moves back over to his desk and sits down, rubbing his palms over his face. “I fucked up too.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

He takes a moment to compose himself. “I could lose my license for this.”

“What did you do?” I growl.

“I did what was necessary to get you out of that marriage.”

A million thoughts float through my head. And all of them lead back to Claire telling me that Carson was lying. “She said you were lying to me.”

“I didn’t lie, per se.”

“Just tell me what the fuck you did!” I shout at him. My knuckles turning white as they grip the chair I’m sitting in.

He stands up and walks over to his safe, pulling out a manila folder of documents. “The day the judge filed your divorce, I came back to the office. My secretary left a pile of mail on my desk a few days beforehand but I was so involved in that homicide case, I ignored anything that didn’t pertain to it.”

I don’t like where this is going.

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