Tell Me a Secret (The Story Series Book 4) (7 page)

BOOK: Tell Me a Secret (The Story Series Book 4)
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“No. Well, yes. I was into it the other night. But not now.”

“No?” He scowled, probably because he wasn’t used to women declining his charm. “Why?”

“Because…because a thousand reasons,” I stammered.

“Like?”

“Because I’m your sister-in-law, for one. Because I’m in love with my husband, your brother. Because I’m married and what we did the other night was wrong.”

He shrugged and despite the flippant gesture, I saw sharp pain in his eyes. “You’re single now, as far as I’m concerned. Caleb’s not coming back. You and I both know that. It’s been nine months. I’ve accepted it, and you haven’t.”

“I might never accept it.”

He cupped my chin in his thumb and forefinger and tilted my face to meet his. I felt the flame of attraction we’d shared in Miami, and my resolve fell away in little chunks. My breathing turned shallow.

“None of us want to accept the situation, Emma. It’s a fucking tragedy all the way around. But would he want us to stop living?”

I swallowed and closed my eyes. “No. He wouldn’t. I’m not sure if he’d want me with you, though. Maybe he would. I don’t know. But you and I—it won’t work…” My voice trailed off.

“Why? Why wouldn’t it work?”

I opened my eyes and found him smiling, which ignited smoldering embers in my core. God, he was alluring.

“Because women are sport to you.”

He sighed and took his hand away from my face, shooting me an adorably apologetic shrug. “I’m no saint, Emma. I’m a well-heeled rake, to use one of your romance novel terms. But not a bad guy. Maybe give me a go?”

I rolled my eyes, but inside I hesitated. Maybe I could tame the rake. Wasn’t that how it happened in books? The quirky, adorable woman always tamed the rake. She always became the princess.

I’d been Caleb’s princess for three glorious years. Maybe with Colin, who was so similar to my husband…

But no. This—as Colin had pointed out in the moments before our Miami kiss—was real life, not a fairytale. Real life was complicated and tragic. Maybe I would have gambled on him five years before, when I was single. Not now, when I was older and wiser.

And a mother. And still hopelessly in love with Caleb.

I shook my head. Colin edged closer, smiling softly. His cologne, once so overpowering, wrapped me in a seductive embrace. Slowly, he swept a lock of hair from my face, turning on the full force of his appeal.

His smile, his clear blue eyes, positively radiated sex. The trouble was, they radiated toward me and toward a thousand other women, women that had come before me. And even if Colin gave me part of his heart, bestowed some sort of commitment on me—possibly out of pity or duty or even genuine affection—there would still be women after me.

Make no mistake. He had just said he was no saint. In my experience, when a man told you exactly what he was, you should believe him.

“No, Colin. No.” I backed away as if he was poison incarnate.

His eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“You’re all wrong for me. I’m wrong for you. You’d never make me the center of your life like Caleb did,” I babbled, now pacing the room. “Sure, we’d have hot sex. Amazing sex, maybe. And then?”

He grinned. “Yeah? And then? We’d have a lot of fun. And maybe it would work. Maybe it would make us forget everything, for a while.”

“No. I don’t want to forget. And I’d be like all the other women in your life and I can’t risk that. I’d cease to be special. If I ever was special. I want us to be friends.”

“You’re special because of Charlotte. You’re special because my brother loved you.” His smile faded.

“But I’m not special to
you
. And you’re not special to
me
.”

He shrugged and his blue eyes darkened. “Maybe you could be. Maybe I could be.”

His cryptic conversational style only annoyed me, and I held up a finger. “I don’t need a maybe in my life right now. I’ve had too many maybes and far too many disappointments. And I’ve been with enough men to know which ones make me feel special. I can sense it, Colin. It’s the after-effects of a childhood filled with benign neglect. I know men. I know men like you. I dated a lot before Caleb, slept with a lot of guys, and it wasn’t satisfying.”

I paused to gulp in a breath, surprising myself at my monologue. When had I grown up? “Caleb made me the center of his world, and I won’t settle for less. And I still love him. You have no idea how much.”

“I know you do love him. You always will. And he did make you the center of his world,” he said softly. “But—”

I interrupted him. “I’m not crazy enough to think you’re a carbon copy of Caleb. I’ll never love
anyone
the way I love him. But I’m also not self-destructive enough to think you’ll change and morph into the perfect man or that you’re Mr. Right-Now. You will never adore me, and that’s what I want. I might never be loved again like your brother loved me. But I deserve the right to seek that.”

“You’d rather be alone?”

“Yes. I’d rather be alone than settle for a maybe.”

There was a time when I hadn’t thought I would ever say those words, but that had been before Caleb, before my heart had fractured beyond repair. Before I was a mother.

Now I had an example to set. I had my daughter and my dignity.

“Do you want me to leave?” he asked in a low voice.

“Yes.”

He nodded and pursed his lips, then walked to the elevator. He didn’t say a word as he stood inside, just glowered at me, unblinking.

As the doors slid shut, I nearly lunged and stopped him again. I was so damned lonely. My body craved sex and intimacy, and Colin was all too willing to accommodate. Was I making a mistake? Most women would think I was crazy to not give a rich, sinfully handsome man like Colin a chance. He was a billionaire, for God’s sakes. He could give me and Charlotte everything we’d ever want. Probably for life.

Maybe we could satisfy each other’s needs…but no. I wasn’t wired that way.

And I was in no state to separate sex from love.

Alone
with my daughter was what I needed.

I padded to the bedroom to check on Charlotte in her crib. She was in a deep sleep, and I rubbed her back as tears rained down my cheeks. They weren’t tears of regret or of sadness.

They were tears of anger.

At Caleb, for disappearing. For not being there for me when I needed him most. For not stopping his brother from kissing me. None of this was Colin’s fault, of course. Somewhere in his misguided heart, he was a good man. He was grieving his brother and grasping for something, anything, to make him feel better. I was squarely in his path. It didn’t mean I could change him, though.

He’d continue to be Charlotte’s devoted uncle, and I was grateful for that.

But it was all he was capable of. All I’d allow. I could see the final moments with Colin even before they began, and everything flashed disaster. My lust for Colin had never really been about him; it was about my desire for my husband.

Colin was a stand-in. And, with his own grief-shattered heart beating under his cool exterior, he was a volatile and dangerous stand-in.

How did he describe us?

Balanced and excellent
? I huffed out a cynical laugh. We were anything but.

And fucking him, allowing myself to open up emotionally to him, wasn’t the answer. He’d break my heart. Or I’d break his. Or something awful. I just knew it.

He was like a twenty-car pileup. And I was the twenty-first car.

Lucky, to have avoided tragedy.

I turned to the nursery bureau, where I’d placed a framed photo of Caleb from our wedding.

“I’m sorry, Caleb,” I whispered. “I never really wanted him. I’ve only ever wanted you.”

Chapter 9

F
or the next several days
, I shook with near-fury, almost blinded by my anger. Not around Charlotte—it was easy to quell my emotions around her sweet babbling and her eager attempts to scoot across the floor. She’d also sprouted a personality in recent weeks, holding up toys, then screaming with laughter only after I’d reacted. It was magical to witness.

But when she was asleep, I felt like taking one of Caleb’s golf clubs from the closet and breaking every window in the penthouse in a white-hot rage.

Damn you for leaving,
I scrawled to him in my journal, writing for the first time in months.
Damn you for leaving ME when I was so pregnant. Damn you for not coming back and for putting me in the path of your predatory brother. Who, by the way, I think is drinking too much. So damn you for that, too.

I’m starting to hate you, Caleb Matthew King.

At night I drank nothing stronger than tea and wrote more. Instead of fiction, I free-flowed and journaled. I wrote of my wrath. About my pent-up sexual frustration. (I hadn’t had an orgasm in months, not even in my stupid, erotic dreams, and I’d been too tired to masturbate). About my desire to be a good example for my daughter, unlike my own parents.

I made some decisions and wrote those down, too.

On Saturday, I dressed Charlotte in a denim hat and a bright yellow onesie with the words “Crazy Coconut” on the front, packed her into the Mercedes, and drove to the bookstore. I hadn’t been to the shop for weeks, not since before the Miami debacle. Sarah’s eyebrows jumped when she saw me walk in, pushing Charlotte in her stroller. Laura was there, too, and she beamed.

Somehow, the smell of books instantly made me feel at home. I’d been away from my rock, my place of strength, too long. That was about to change.

“Wow! Look who’s here!” Laura cried, pouncing on Charlotte and freeing her from the stroller. She walked around the store with the baby on her hip, pointing out different books. I approached Sarah.

“You look good,” she said, eyeing me up and down.

“For a change, you should have added.” I was wearing a pale yellow jersey wrap dress, with silver flats and silver jewelry. My hair was up in a ponytail. “I even wrangled Charlotte into her bouncy seat in the bathroom so I could shower for three whole minutes. I deserve a medal.”

“Showering’s done wonders. Or maybe Miami did. Don’t know which. You look almost like your old self.”

I snorted. Miami had done wonders for me, all right. “I can’t say I feel like my old self, but I have made a decision.”

Laura emerged from the stacks, bouncing Charlotte on her hip. “I want to hear this, too.”

I looked at both of them triumphantly. “I’m going to hire a nanny for two half-days a week. You’re both right. I need to get out of the house. Maybe I’d feel differently if Caleb was here, and he was coming home to me every night. But…” I inhaled, staving off a lump in my throat. “…but that’s not reality. I need to get out a little and be around others for my own sanity. I’m also going to join a mom’s exercise playgroup that’s formed in the condo and…” I took another deep breath.

“And?” Sarah probed.

“I’m making an appointment with a therapist on Monday.”

Laura whooped and waved Charlotte’s arm in the air, which made the baby giggle. “See? Mommy’s a smart woman,” she said to my daughter. “She knows what she wants and she knows it’s good for you, too.”

“I’m not sure I’m smart,” I muttered. “But I need to find the old me.”

Sarah threw her arms around me. “I love the new you and the old you, too.”

When I started to cry, I realized it was the first time tears had run down my cheeks in days. Maybe anger was exactly what I needed.

T
hat evening
, I bopped around the condo, singing to Charlotte. She especially loved my renditions of Amy Winehouse songs and laughed and bounced in her high chair as I belted tunes out in a throaty voice and pureed sweet potatoes. I’d bought a package of Oreos for me.

Our big plan was to snack, read a few picture books, and then go to bed. Tonight I was wearing a new set of blue-and-white flower print cotton sleep shorts and a matching, button-up top. I’d ordered it online a couple of days before, along with a few other new things, vowing to stop wearing Caleb’s now-tired and stained T-shirts.

My phone rang.

“Who is calling us, babykins?” I said to Charlotte.

“Ba-ba,” she replied. “Da-da.”

I shot her a side eye, startled. She’d never said
da-da
before. I knew it was probably a reflexive babble, phonetically close to her usual
ba-ba
and
ma-ma
sounds. I’d never called Caleb
Da-da
—I’d always referred to him as daddy and usually in a tearful whisper.

I tapped on the phone, eyeing my daughter. “Hello?”

“Mrs. King, your brother-in-law is on his way up.”

I sighed and rolled my eyes. “James, I thought we talked about this. Don’t send anyone up unless I okay it.”

“Ma’am, I’m…I’m…sorry.”

He hung up, and I scowled at the phone. What the hell? James was usually so pleasant and accommodating to my wishes. And why was Colin visiting when I told him I didn’t want to have dinner with him? Jesus. I didn’t want a scene or a showdown with him.

The elevator dinged, and I looked up, my eyes narrowing. Colin burst out before the doors were even fully open and bounded to me.

“Colin, I told you, I don’t want to have dinner. I don’t want—”

“Shut up.” His voice was fierce, desperate. I gasped as he grasped my shoulders in his strong hands. He shook me, hard, like men did to women in old-time movies. I protested with a yelp and considered slapping his face, but Charlotte started to cry.

“Colin, wha—”

“Emma.” Colin was out of breath, and when I saw the tears streaming out of the corners of his eyes, I stilled in his grip and he repeated my name, shouting it in an uncharacteristically excited voice.

“Caleb’s been found.”

THE END

Emma and Caleb’s explosive conclusion is revealed in TELL ME A TRUTH. Episode FIVE of The Story Series
is available exclusively on Amazon.

K
eep reading
for a preview of Tamara Lush’s standalone novel about a second chance at first love,
INTO THE HEAT
. Available now from
Boroughs Publishing Group
.

BOOK: Tell Me a Secret (The Story Series Book 4)
11.84Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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