Page 48 of Embrace Me Forever

He pauses, his gaze distant as if visualizing the past. “Yet my career in the Anchorage PD was as stale as day-old bread. I was in my late twenties, finally hitting my stride, finding ambitions I didn’t know I had. I wanted more, but I held back, all for her. It drove a wedge between us. I buried myself in work, took on more cases than I could handle, was hardly ever home.”

I catch the shift in his tone and brace myself for what’s coming.

“And right under my nose, she had an affair with my neighbor,” Blake admits, his voice dropping to a near whisper.

“Oh, Blake…that’s awful,” I respond, unable to mask my shock. He asked me to keep an open mind, but infidelity? There’s just no bright side to that. It’s simply heartbreaking.

He looks away, a shadow crossing his features. “This is how much I trust you, Georgia-May. No one alive on this planet knows about it except me.”

“You’re safe with me, Blake. You have my word.”

He scoffs lightly. “Rob and Clay say I’m a one-woman man. Sounds noble, right? But they don’t know the real story. I’ve shielded her from judgment. Flo strayed because I couldn’t give her what she wanted, what she needed. Please don’t hold it against her.”

I shake my head, unable to hold back my words. “I’m sorry, Blake, and I swear your secret’s safe with me. But honesty matters to me too much. If I vowed to be faithful to someone, nothing would make me stray.”

He mellows with a reluctant understanding. “I see your integrity, Georgia-May, and that’s why I trust you.” He shifts in his seat, angling toward me, slightly closer. “But we’re all different. Flo and I, we tried, really tried, to find common ground. Love is complicated, messy. I’ve come to believe it was my fault she found comfort elsewhere.”

I exhale, staring at the ground for a moment. There are so many things I want to say, responses and reassurances bubbling up inside me, but I hold them back. This is his time to speak, and I will have my moment later.

He goes on. “But we got over it. We even started talking about starting a family, and I left my detective gig to work as a local PI. It wasn’t as fancy as mixing with Hollywood’s elite, but it paid well. We managed to upgrade our place. You know, add a few more rooms for our future kids, perhaps build a treehouse one day.”

His face lights up the same way when he’s around Coco. Right there, I see him as a family guy who’s always been tough on himself.

He goes on. “Then, this job came up in California. Just one case. I couldn’t pass it up. It was for my buddy. He really needed my help. I begged her to let me go.”

He pauses, looking down at his lap for a moment.

Glancing skyward, he adds, “I went against her wishes. The morning I left was the last time I saw her alive.”

He sighs and turns to face me. For the first time, I catch the raw openness in his eyes. I’m still struck by how similar our shades of gray are, but his? They hint at a treacherous landscape, one I might regret venturing into. But it’s too late.

Undeterred by any caution, I meet his gaze, watching as he lays bare the terrain underneath. It’s like he’s handing me a map, inviting me to explore the contours of his heart. His expression is sincere and unguarded. As he starts to speak, he offers more than just a glimpse into his feelings, beginning with, “It all started with a promise of ‘just this once.’”

17

BLAKE

Los Angeles – twelve years ago

This is exactly the kind of conversation I want to avoid when I’m on a case. Being reminded of the emotional storm brewing back home. I’m here to find a senator’s missing wife, but my own wife is hot on my heels.

“I need you home, Blake,” Flo says. “Not making your own decision to jet-set somewhere of your own will, breaking your promises.” She reminds me of my promise to come home to Anchorage last night.

“We booked the wrong suspect, Flo.” I sigh. If only the LAPD had heeded my advice that the linkage between the suspect and our evidence was tenuous at best. “I can’t leave until we find her. You know how unpredictable these cases can be,” I reason.

She scoffs. “You haven’t gotten over it, have you?” Flo hammers me with the all-too-familiar line. “Is this your way of punishing me?”

“Flo, we’ve agreed to move on. This trip has got nothing to do with the past. I want this. Ineedthis,” I plead, trying to keep my frustration in check. Her affair had shattered me, shattered us, but my love for her remains. I knew affairs didn’t just happen.They were a symptom of deeper issues. It takes two to dance but also two to stumble. I had played my part.

“Forgive, but not forget? That’s your motto, right, Blake?”

“There’s nothing left to forgive,” I assure her. “And even though I can’t forget, we don’t look back, so we don’t keep seeing what we never forget. We’re in this together, are we not? I need you to be on board, Flo. Otherwise, this won’t work.”

“Then why do you keep trying to leave? You want a taste of the big league in California, don’t you?” Flo argues. “You know I won’t move there with you. You’d be free to do as you please.”

Her accusation hangs heavy between us. Alaska used to feel like this huge, endless place, but now it’s starting to suffocate me when it comes to my career. The excitement of the chase, solving the unsolvable—it can’t sustain me if I’m bound to one place.

“Flo, I want to be with you,” I reassure her.

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