Page 73 of Essence of his Soul

I raised an eyebrow. “All good, I hope.”

“Don’t worry, it was,” Calaine said before her gaze shifting back to Mark. “I hear I’ve got a nephew around here somewhere.”

Mark beamed. “Yep. Let me hold Dominique, and we’ll go find him.”

She handed over her daughter, and Mark’s face softened as he held her. “Essence, you coming?” he asked.

I shook my head. “No, you go ahead. I’ll stay here and help Kelly.”

Mark hesitated for a second before Kelly playfully pointed him toward the door. “Go on, big brother. I promise not to embarrass you.”

After they left, I turned to Kelly. “What can I do to help?”

“How about you finish stuffing these deviled eggs for me?”

“No problem,” I said, rolling up the sleeves of a silk candy-striped turtleneck and moving to wash my hands at the sink.

“So, how have things been?” Kelly asked, her tone casual but knowing.

I glanced over my shoulder, smirking. “You mean with your brother?”

Kelly grinned. “Of course.”

I grabbed a spoonful of the egg yolk mixture and started filling the eggs. “Better than I expected,” I admitted. No point in lying.

Kelly didn’t miss a beat. “Does that mean you’ve agreed to marry him?”

I almost dropped the spoon, whipping my head around to look at her. “What?”

Kelly gave me a sheepish grin. “Mark told me.”

I sighed, setting down the spoon and sitting at the table. “No, I haven’t decided to marry him.”

“Why not?” she asked, her curiosity piqued.

I filled egg whites before answering. “Because he wants to marry me for all the wrong reasons. And I think that would be a big mistake.”

Kelly nodded, paused, then asked, “Has he shared his feelings about you?” I shook my head slowly, and Kelly didn’t look surprised. “My brother...he worries me,” she mumbled as she started icing a sheet cake. “He’s been through a lot since Carmen.”

Carmen?My curiosity piqued. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, she really did a number on him.” Kelly glanced up at me. “Didn’t I tell you about her before?”

I shook my head, intrigued.

“They were engaged, but Carmen was only interested in that uniform he wore. I knew what she was about when I met her,but he was so in love I couldn’t tell Mark anything. Then she left him for some Air Force dude. But what really messed him up was when she...” Kelly paused, her voice lowering. “She terminated the pregnancy. It almost killed him.”

“She was pregnant?” I gasped, trying to wrap my head around what Kelly had just told me, and then suddenly, everything started to make sense. Mark wasn’t just scared of love—he had been scarred by it.

I felt a lump form in my throat as I reached for a spoonful of the mixture and filled another egg, my mind swirling with thoughts of the man I thought I knew so well.

“Yep,” Kelly said, her voice heavy with its weight. “Between you and I, she didn’t tell him until after it was over, only to rub it in his face.”

I shook my head in disbelief. No wonder Mark had built up walls so high. He had been burned—badly. Worse than I had ever been. It explained so much about why he acted the way he did and why he kept his emotions locked down.

Before I could process it all, someone called Kelly into the dining room. She left me to finish the deviled eggs on my own. As I sprinkled the paprika over the last dozen, everything clicked into place.

Tyler wasn’t just Mark’s son—he was Mark’s second chance at fatherhood. He wasn’t about to lose another child, and he’d probably do whatever it took to make sure of that, including marrying me. Or worse, someday telling me he loved me when he didn’t really mean it.

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