Page 59 of No More Love Songs

“How can you say that?”

Her shoulders bounce gently. “I spent so much of my life searching for someone to love me the way he loved my mom, and not nearly enough time trying to sort out why I felt like I needed that in the first place.”

“You don’t think everyone needs that?”

She stares up at the stars. “You don’t.”

I reach for her hand and gradually turn her toward me. “I do need that.” Though I’ve never admitted it out loud. Hell, I’m not sure I’ve ever fully admitted it to myself. “Why do you think I fill my life with every possible aspect of joy I can grab ahold of? Sure, day to day, I feel content. I’m at peace. My life feels full.” I drop my head back and exhale what remains of my resolve to maintain as I have, alone. Unattached. To her. “But it gets to me too, Sky. And the longer I go on this way, the more restless my nights, the harder it is to shut out the emptiness that comes with the dark.”

“I’m scared. Scared that if I don’t figure out a way to not want it, I’ll just end up with someone equally desperate who can no longer tell the difference between love and an end to loneliness any more than I can. Or worse.” The look in her eyes is enough to break something inside of me. She’s more than scared. She really believes it’s possible she could end up that way. She has no clue.

“You never talk about your husband,” I go straight for the one piece I’m still missing, the one part of her history she’s kept to herself. The key to unlocking her fears and healing her trust has to be hidden with him.

“That’s because I prefer to forget I was ever married at all,” she mutters darkly as she turns away from me again. “Not too hard really, when one considers my husband wasn’t even real, just a collection of nicely assorted lies.” She laughs, trying to brush it off as meaningless but her entire body tenses in my arms.

“Don’t do that.” I hold her closer, tighter. “Don’t put up a front. Not here. Not with me.”

She takes in a long breath, and I sense it’s one of conviction. Then, she lets it all out. “I don’t talk about Zayne, because it’s easier. And not because talking about him is painful, but because it’s complicated.” She sighs with frustration, but her body softens again, and her head even leans back to rest on my shoulder. “I assume you know he was part of my security team when I met him.” She doesn’t wait for an answer, she just goes on, “Of course you know, the media ate that shit up like it was all you can eat crab leg buffet. Skylar Thompson falls for her bodyguard, just like the movie.” She scoffs. “I think he loved the story even more than they did.”

“What happened?” Gray’s implied the man was a top of the line asshole on a few occasions over the years, but he never disclosed more than that. Not that I expected him to. It’s not who he is. And finding out about someone’s most intimate heartbreaks through another person isn’t mine.

“Mostly, he just lied. All the time. From the very start. Took me a year and half to really wrap my head around it, but once I did, it was hard not to see it.” She shakes her head. “Looking back, it was so fucking obvious. I just didn’t see it. I didn’t want to.”

“You were married for eight years. How does that add up?” Hopeless romantic or not, Sky wouldn’t have decided to intentionally blind herself to his dishonesty for the sake of a fake happy ever after.

“Well, here’s the thing,” she pauses. I feel her try to move away from me. I don’t even think she’s doing it consciously, but I don’t let her either way. “He’s my nephew Finn’s biological father.”

Holy Shit.

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