Page 17

L ater that night as a Lyft pulled away from the house, Lily couldn’t get Max out of her head. And she knew why and it scared her.

She had missed him.

So very much.

And while it did scare her, it had also felt so good, if a bit surreal, to sit and talk with him.

They had reminisced about everything under the sun, except for their break up, and by the time they’d drawn a breath, it had been far later than she had expected.

And while she didn’t want to leave him nor the intimate moment in the firelight, she had to finish fixing her life before she could move forward.

Whether or not her life included Max remained to be seen.

Blake was waiting when she entered their apartment a short time later.

She could tell that her husband had been fuming probably the whole time since.

“Why are you so late?”

“You took my car,” she pointed out.

Blake’s cell phone rang just as she placed her coat and purse down on the sofa.

“We need to talk, but first, I need to take this call,” he said.

“You go ahead and take your call,” she told him.

Blake sent her a searching look before he disappeared into the home office and partially closed the door.

“Why didn’t you answer my call,” Blake snarled at someone over the phone.

Lily stood exactly where she was, listening.

“I don’t care!” Blake paused. “You’re god damned right it won’t happen again.”

Was he speaking with Jennifer? It was the only thing that made sense. The words just now. Was he mad because Jennifer had spilled the beans? Blake had to be on the phone with his ex.

Spinning around, Lily walked down the hall and into the guest bedroom—which happened to be where she stored her suitcases.

Lily flipped open both cases and stuffed as much crap from the guest bedroom into one before she grabbed things from the master closet. Where the hell were her pink lace panties?

She whirled around and caught sight of their wedding photo hanging on the wall. They had taken the photo at a popular orchard, but that had been several months after getting married at the courthouse by the Justice of the Peace.

She had given up her dreams of having a magical wedding to elope with Blake.

She had disregarded her grandfather’s pleading and married a man who was no longer worthy of her time.

She dashed an impatient hand at her cheeks and yanked open the armoire and ran her fingers down the albums she had placed there. Of course, she had had them all digitally stored. Yet some things, like photos exchanged with her friends and keepsakes, just couldn’t be replaced. She kept them fastened inside of albums.

The two most important mementos were the flowers her mother had given to her when she had won a singing contest in grade school and the collar of her beloved Cocker Spaniel, Nelly, who had passed away just before college. There were other things inside as well, like her graduation certificate.

She was tempted to grab the box that held her graduation gown and cap. Plus the gold cord that indicated her high GPA. She had graduated as an honor student.

Instead, she took the album with her mother’s flowers and Nelly’s collar and placed that into her suitcase.

She would come back for the rest once Blake moved out.

Wait…this was her apartment, damn it. Why should she have to take her albums?

Scowling, Lily placed them back where they had been. No, she wasn’t taking them because she was coming back.

She didn’t feel anything about the thought of Blake no longer being here.

The shitty part was that she knew why she no longer cared.

She had been in love with the idea of love.

She realized now that she had been so hurt by Maxwell leaving that she had spent the following years after their break up dating one guy after another.

When she met Blake, he had been tall and muscular—not built quite like Max, but similar.

She had been chasing a stupid dream.

“Look what you’ve gotten yourself into,” she murmured, dashing at her cheeks.

Closing the two matching pale pink Vera Bradley cases, she rolled them down the hall near the living room.

In the kitchen, Lily made a cup of coffee and carried it with her to where she had left her luggage. Lifting the mug, she took a sip of the hot brew.

A few moments later, Blake came out of the office and approached her in the living room.

“Was that your girlfriend? Or maybe your son? You do talk to him, don’t you?” she asked, not hiding her irritation.

The guilt on Blake’s face was laughable. Only, she was far from amused.

“Who was on the phone?” she asked again.

“What?” He frowned.

She waited and took another sip.

“It was a recruiter for a job,” Blake finally said.

“Really…On a Saturday night after two in the morning?” Well, technically, it was Sunday. She knew she sounded skeptical, but didn’t give a shit. She didn’t believe a word that came out of his mouth.

“Yeah,” he returned gruffly. His eyes landed on the pair of suitcases. “Where are you going?”

“None of your business,” she said, taking another sip of coffee.

“Lily…let’s talk about this.”

“I’ll give you a chance to talk while I finish my coffee. Start with the fact that you have a three-year-old son that I don’t know about.”

“I was trying to find the right time to tell you.” Blake thrusted his fingers through his hair like he always did when he was agitated.

“In eleven months? No wait, we knew each other for two months before our marriage. That means more than a year has passed and you couldn’t find a moment in all that time?” she said, her sarcasm thick. “You should have told me about your son during our first week of dating. That’s what normal people do.”

But Lily had begun to realize that Blake wasn’t remotely close to normal.

Ending her marriage sucked in a way, because she had wasted a year, but in another way, she was glad that it had only been a year to find out what an asshole he really was.

She was angry.

But mostly at herself and now, she was filled with only a cold resolve.

“They won’t interfere in our lives,” Blake hurriedly assured her.

“What?” Holy hell, what a douchebag. Lily was suddenly and fiercely glad that she and Blake had never had children. “You don’t pay child support?”

Blake blinked, swallowed hard, and glanced away.

“You do pay her, only I don’t know about it,” she said with contempt. “Un-be-lievable.”

Glancing briefly up at the ceiling, she stared at Blake again and took another sip from her mug.

“I’m sorry. We can get through this,” he said softly.

“Not today we can’t,” she informed him and then continued. “Did you hook up with Jennifer in Montana?”

A muscle ticked in Blake’s jaw and he briefly closed his eyes and nodded.

“You fuck,” she spat, feeling betrayed, her anger grew.

“I hate when you use that language,” he said, his voice very quiet.

Blake’s eyes turned cold and his face became like granite. He was getting pissed.

Well, so the hell what, she thought, glaring at him. Her comments were justified.

Blake had destroyed her trust in every way imaginable.

“I don’t really care. You cheated on our marriage and you hid the fact that you have a son.” She didn’t go into the fact that he had physically bullied her. She had the evidence on her phone via the living room cameras.

Draining the rest of her coffee, she held up the mug to show him it was empty.

“Times up,” she said.

Making her way into the kitchen, she tucked the cup into the dishwasher and then walked back into the living room toward the hall. Collecting her suitcases, she turned toward the front door.

A hand fisted in her hair.

Fear punched into her.

And the last thing she remembered was her head cracking against the wall and her shrill scream echoing at the pain.

Then her world turned gray.