Page 27 of A Different Husband

“We men are fools,” Reed put in.

“Yeah, it took me a minute, but I got it. She didn’t owe him that truth and she didn’t want to share it with him. My Nemesis was playing the long game, in a way. It hurt him more to stew on the unknown than it did to face the truth of what was happening between Court and me.”

“I’m sure that was a little of it, but I think mostly it boils down to my daughter being a private person. Pretty sure she doesn’t even tell Hadley about her sex life, and that girl is all about oversharing.”

“Hadley,” I whispered, and then wanted to kick myself for not thinking of her sooner. I turned to look at my father-in-lawwith narrowed, accusatory eyes then. His response was to laugh in the face of my suspicion.

“Yep, figured you’d think of her eventually, but I didn’t want to bring up the possibility of my girl being at her best friend’s place until you were able to talk through some things first. Can’t have you going after her all half-cocked and getting it wrong.” He winked at me, to let me know he was sort of teasing. “I like you for my daughter. There was a time when I confided in my wife that I wished you were the one Courtney was hung up on.” He shook his head as if that conversation did not go well.

“Jill didn’t agree?”

“No, she was hung up on the wrong Robeson for some fucked up reason too. Wasn’t until recently that I realized why, but when I did, it made it all so much worse.”

“What do you mean?” I had a sinking suspicion I knew where he was going, but hoped like hell I was wrong.

“I wanted to put a private investigator on Beckett, because I had a suspicion he was stepping out on my girl, but my wife wouldn’t let me.”

“That’s weird, isn’t it?” I asked.

Reed nodded and looked sick about whatever he was going to reveal to me. “I think she was afraid the PI might focus on her as well. I’ve suspected she’s having an affair for a while now, too. I was more concerned for my daughter than finding out the truth for myself, though. It was the other reason I wasn’t sure about Beckett being in her life in a romantic way. I thought maybe I was projecting my own relationship issues onto my daughter’s.”

“You don’t think they were getting together, do you?” I asked, feeling sick. Courtney would not recover from her mother fucking someone she had been engaged to.

“No, but I think maybe it is someone close to him. She all but panicked when I brought up the idea of using a PI.”

“My uncle,” I guessed.

“That’s my guess. We’ve always been close friends, but in recent years Jill and Marty have been closer.” He cleared his throat and looked away. “I should have said or done something sooner, but I didn’t want to taint my daughter’s relationship with everything. Little did I know, that prick was all too happy to rid himself of my girl.”

“A move I think he regrets now.”

“Only because he thinks he will lose her forever,” Reed said. “He has always been a weak spot for my daughter. His problem is that he assumed he always would be. He also doesn’t know how to work for anything worth having, and that includes my a relationship with my daughter.”

My father-in-law stood and looked around the room before he spoke again. “You should take a couple of these with you, so when you bring my daughter home, there’s no question that your future is together.”

I nodded and glanced around. “Any clue which are her favorites?”

He chuckled. “If they’re hanging on the wall, stands to reason, they’re her favorites.”

“That narrows it down,” I muttered sarcastically. My wife had so many canvases on the wall that you wouldn’t know the walls were white underneath it, unless you took a peek behind something.

“Anything worth having is worth working for,” Reed reminded me. “Especially when it involves my baby girl.”

“I’ll take a few of the smaller ones, but I want her to pack the rest up herself. I’ll do more harm than good if they end up damaged because I didn’t protect them properly while moving them.”

“There it is. The reason I always liked you better,” Reed laughed as he walked toward the door. “ You use your brain sometimes.”

An hour later,I pulled up to the apartment building where Hadley lived and made my way inside. She didn’t live in a place with a fancy doorman. My wife’s best friend was a teacher without the family money to fall back on. I was able to walk right up to her third floor apartment and knock on the door without anyone stopping me.

When the door cracked open ever so slightly, Hadley peeked up at me from the little space available. “What do you want, Flynn?”

“My wife,” I demanded.

“What if she doesn’t want you?”

“Then I would like to hear that from her. If she doesn’t want to talk to me right now, needs some space, or whatever then I will respect her wishes, but I need to hear it from her. I need to see that she’s okay.”

Hadley sighed as a piece of her black hair fell into her eyes from a blob of hair on top of her head big enough that it could have been used to smuggle a small child. She rolled her bright green eyes at me and then closed the door to remove the chain latch before she pulled it wider to let me in.

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