Page 98 of Easy Reunion
“Then maybe you can explain why you’re over there looking like we’re coming to an end and I’m over here praying I just have an overactive imagination,” she whispers.
I close my eyes, tortured, and hear her say menacingly, “That’s what I thought. Give me a few minutes and I’ll be out of your—”
I open them just as she’s about to make her way past me. I reach out and hook my arm around her waist.
“Let me go.” She struggles as I angle her to face me.
“It’s not what you’re thinking. I swear.”
Shoving out of my arms, she races out of the kitchen. I follow on her heels, bellowing her name, “Kelsey!”
“Just leave me alone!” she cries out wildly. Her head swivels to the left, to the right, before she bolts to the place I need her the most.
I follow at a much slower pace. Even if she tears out of the study in a few minutes after hearing the truth, I need to repair what I broke between us long before tonight. Crossing the threshold, I find her standing in front of the frame she gave us, which hangs in a place of pride behind my desk. In the dim light, I can’t see her face; she might prefer it that way. But I need her to see mine.
I quietly close the door before I flick on the switch that turns on the lamps by the sofa. “Kelsey…”
“Just tell me why?” Grief is etched on her face. “I deserve that.”
I nod. She’s right; she does. “It started a long time ago…”
Grief is washed away by bitter anger. “You bastard.” She makes her way around the desk to storm out, but my next words stop her in her tracks.
“I was fifteen the first time it happened.”
“You’ve been together with someone else since you were fifteen? Someone from…Forsyth?” Confusion and hurt swirl across her beautiful face.
I need to clarify something to save her heart for the next man lucky enough to have it. “No, Kelsey. You’re the only person I’m with. I swear to you on my parents’ lives, on Lisa’s, that I’m not cheating on you.” The hurt falls away, leaving only confusion, which spurs me to go on. “How could I when I know the only reason my heart beats is because of you?”
“Then why…” She clamps her mouth shut, refusing to ask.
I walk right up to her and drag my fingers down her face. She turns away as if my touch adds to her pain. “I didn’t realize I’d shut you out, love. Which is crazy because my mind can’t think past loving you and how everything that’s ever happened to me or I’ve ever done will send you running for the door,” I admit.
“Then tell me. It can’t be anything worse than what I’ve imagined the last few weeks,” she pleads.
I shudder. “I’m so afraid you’re going to turn away when I do.”
“Ry?” A million questions are swirling in her gray eyes. And I don’t want to answer a single one, but I know I’ll have to. Before I do, I lean down and brush my nose against hers to seek permission for the kiss I need so desperately.
Tipping her head back, she brushes her lips delicately against mine—a sip of water in the barren desert. “There’s only one thing you could do to drive me away. And if this has nothing to do with another woman…” She chews her lip vulnerably.
I shake my head. “Never. I still can’t believe you’d ever think I’d cheat on you.” Somehow, my pride finds a way to glare at her in disbelief.
“Who was the blonde?” Her question stops me cold.
“What blonde?” I’m confused as hell.
“The one you were having lunch with last week when you said you were too busy for me to come by. Angel and I went out instead. I saw you. I tried to talk to you about it that night when you came in here to work.” Her voice is low and filled with pain.
I get it way too late. I groan, but before I can begin to explain, she continues. “That’s the only thing that could drive me away. All I’ve ever wanted is in this room, the feeling of being complete with someone else. I was so positive I had it, and then…”
“My love, that was Callie—Eli’s future sister-in-law. You must not have seen him, but there was a third person with us. She and her colleague Adam needed some legal advice on expanding their bar in the Quarter.”
“Oh.” Kelsey tries to shuffle away in discomfort, but I won’t let her. I’ve done too much damage. These are questions she should have been able to have asked me last week if it hadn’t been for my withdrawal. “You two seem close?”
“I’m closer with her fiancé, Declan, in the same way I’m close with the whole Boudreaux family.” That shoves me back to Eli’s office, where his words from earlier come back to me.Don’t throw it away because you think you’re a victim of anything.
Taking a deep breath, I ask, “Do you remember Tom Balboni?”
