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If I had, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. She never would have gotten hurt but, then maybe she would still have been with him.

“You know what?” she asked, pulling back.

“What?” I asked.

“I feel so much better now.” She nodded, confirming it to herself. “I think that’s what I needed. To get it all out and talk about it.”

“I’m so proud of you, sweetheart.” I leaned forward, planting a soft kiss on her lips, pulling back before I got too tempted to deepen it.

“Your turn.” She raised her brows.

Damn, I’d forgot that I said I’d tell her about Emmy. “It’s really not my story to tell,” I warned. I didn’t want to keep anything from her, I already had so much involving my past with Serena that I was keeping from her. As soon as I thought that, the guilt swamped me. She’d just opened up about Max and here I was, still not telling her what had happened to make me leave Serena.

?

??That’s okay.” She nodded. “Just tell me who she is and her name.”

“Was.”

“Huh?”

“Who she was,” I said, clearing my throat. “Emmy, she was Charlie’s wife.”

“I don’t understand,” she shook her head, a frown on her face.

“Sweetheart, I really can’t say anymore.”

She stared at me, her eyes flicking all over my face before finally settling on my eyes and nodding. “Okay, I understand.”

After telling Ty everything about Max, completely exposing myself, I felt so much better. Not only did I feel like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders, I also felt so much more confident about my relationship with Ty.

We spent the weekend together with Eli and went up to the woods, we also paid Elena and Trevor a visit and Ty showed me all the spots that he loved as a kid. He even showed Eli his old tree house and promised to build him one in the woods behind the back yard.

Eli had wanted Ty to start and build it straight away, trying to tell him that he had to wait was useless. Ty wanted Eli to be involved in it and help chop down the wood so he said they’d start it on a weekend.

Eli had still been talking about it when I dropped him off at preschool this morning.

Back at the warehouse, it was strange seeing Charlie after Ty had told me that he’d had a wife, it made me look at him differently. He seemed so broody and hard, something bad must have happened to make him like that and it was obvious that it involved Emmy, his wife.

We’d all met up at the warehouse before we went to meet John and Cynthia, the parents of the latest girl who was taken, Lindsey.

“So who’s coming?” Charlie asked, looking around us all at the table.

“Me,” Kitty said straight away.

“So, you and Kitty?” Charlie asked Ty.

“And Kay,” Ty said, standing.

Charlie moved his eyes to me, a look behind them that I couldn’t decipher.

“Only two can go, it’ll be too much if there’s four of us in with them.”

Ty scrubbed his hands down his face and heaved a breath. I could see that it was getting to him, having not solved this case yet.

“It’s fine,” I said, leaning forward and touching his arm. “Let Kitty go; I can stay here.”

“No.” He shook his head. “It was your idea, you’re gonna be there.”