Page 32 of Six Nights in Paradise

She scoffed, staring down her nose at me. “Isn’t that what they all say? He told me everything.”

Lies, I’m sure. If she was this mad at me, then he’d definitely fed her a line of BS.

“Did he tell you that he never once mentioned you to me?” Her eyes widened fractionally, giving me the answer she wasn’t willing to voice. “Or that he never wore his ring on campus?” Her lips pinched into a flat line. “I had no idea he was married.”

“Lies!” she croaked, her chin quivering. “He told me you knew and that you still went after him, that you cornered him in his office.”

I flinched, stepping back as though she’d slapped me. “That lying son of a bitch,” I mumbled to myself.

She watched me, her eyes wide like a scared cat. Her body vibrated with rage, but she was visibly uncomfortable and a little frightened. It was obvious she didn’t typically confront people on the street. Here she was, ready to bring a child into the world, coming face-to-face with her husband’s mistress. Anyone in her position would be unsettled, and considering the circumstances, she was keeping it together pretty well.

“I’m sorry,” I began. “This is not a conversation I ever expected to have, and I really don’t think we should be having it here,” I said, gesturing around us with my open hand. “Can I buy you lunch or a coffee or something?”

Her mouth dropped open and her eyes widened in shock. “Why would you do that?”

“Because despite the fact I didn’t know Jason was married, I still made a mistake and you got hurt because of it. I’d like the chance to clear the air with you, and honestly, I’m kind of afraid you’re going to go into labor if we keep arguing in the street.”

She surprised me by huffing out a laugh. “I’m kind of afraid of that, too,” she admitted, rubbing a hand over her stomach.

She agreed to talk to me over lunch, so we walked a few doors down to a little bistro that served gourmet coffee and food. There was no way I could go back into Francesca’s and risk being humiliated in front of my possible future employer and peers. We found a table tucked into a corner where we could have some privacy to hash things out.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she said once we were settled.

“Same,” I replied, just as surprised as she was. How the hell did we get here? I was about to have coffee with the wife of the man with whom I’d had a seven-month long affair. This was beyond awkward.

“I know I’m a stranger to you and you have no reason to trust me or believe anything I say,” I began, jumping right in, “but I never once suspected Jason was married.” She winced, pain flashing in her crystal blue eyes as she shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “I never saw a ring. There weren’t any photos of you in his office.” I would know. I’d spent plenty of time in there.

Her chin shook, but she kept the tears at bay. I wished I could take that last part back, knowing it hurt her even more than the sharp sting of his infidelity already had. He erased her from his life while he was on campus, pretending that he’d never vowed to honor and keep her in sickness and health, for better or worse. He portrayed himself as a bachelor, unbound to any woman. He certainly never let on that he was about to become a father.

“I would have never agreed to a relationship with him if I’d known,” I assured her, projecting as much sincerity into my declaration as I could. I felt sick when I saw her and realized who and what she was to him. The fact that she was pregnant with his child made this even more unbearable. How could he do this to them?

A waiter came to take our orders before she could respond. We both glanced over the menus, making our selections quickly so he’d leave us to continue our conversation.

“Why should I believe you over him?” she asked. Her guard was back up and she eyed me with suspicion.

“I can’t answer that for you,” I stated simply. “He’s your husband. He’s the person you chose to spend your life with, which means you must love him and have great trust in him.”

She swallowed hard and glanced away. There was a crack there, one that was growing by the second. She knew I was telling the truth. Woman’s intuition was hard at work here, and she was fighting it valiantly. I continued before she had a chance to close that gap, wedging a fact that would be hard to swallow into that tiny sliver.

“But I have no reason to lie to you. I have nothing to gain from it. You’re going to hate me either way, but I’m not the one who has to face you every day knowing that what I did was wrong. I’ll walk out of here and quite possibly never see you again, but your husband is in a far more precarious position.” Hewouldhave to face her again, potentially every day for the rest of his life, if he was lucky enough to keep her.

“Then why do you care?”

“I can’t leave here without at least giving you my side of the story,” I replied. “Because I think you deserve to know the truth.” I didn’t know her, but I knew she didn’t deserve what he’d done. Cheating wasn’t okay. Ever. If they were having problems like he claimed, he should’ve done everything in his power to work it out with her instead of stepping out with me. And I wouldn’t let him continue to deceive her. I couldn’t let him get away with the lies.

Her body sagged, her shoulders slumping in defeat. “How did it happen?” Her voice was so low, I barely heard her above the din of the lunch time rush. I winced and blanched, unsure if I could reveal to this already heartbroken woman how her husband had pursued me. It took me laying myself bare to Dalton to realize that was what happened, not the other way around. I’d put so much of the blame on myself that I didn’t see how skillfully he’d orchestrated the events surrounding our affair.

“It started out just as any other relationship would. There was flirting and catching each other’s eye when no one was looking. He pulled me aside after class one day to go over an assignment, telling me how well I’d done. After that, he gave me a lot of personalized attention, helping me with the things I struggled with and praising me when I did something right.” She sat stoically, absorbing every word as though committing it to memory. “He asked me to stop by his office one evening because he’d forgotten to bring the assignments to class. It was Thursday and he wanted to go over it before the weekend so I would have the correct answers for our test the following week.”

Her jaw tightened and her nostrils flared. The ruse was obvious to her, but I’d been so enamored with him, I didn’t realize what he was doing. Or maybe I did, but was so willing to go along with it that I simply didn’t care. After all, I never suspected I was in danger of becoming the other woman, not just his forbidden love interest.

“That was the first time he kissed me,” I confessed. Thinking about his lips on mine once made me giddy with excitement, my body flushing with heated anticipation. Now it just made me sad and a little nauseated. He kissed me, then probably went home to kiss her.

“Let me guess,” she gritted out, her hands gripping the edge of the table so hard her knuckles turned white, “he asked you to become his teaching assistant so he could keep you close.”

It wasn’t a question. No, it was a statement of fact. Did he tell her how he’d seduced me?

“Yeah, how did you-”

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