Page 36 of The Me I Left Behind

“Now, Maggie.”

“So, she and it, AKA the baby, will live with you in Brisbane.”

“Of course.”

“While we, your family of twenty years, will live here in the states. And everything will be hunky-dory. Do I have that right?”

“Best plan of action, I think. Don’t you?”

“Ridiculous.” She pushed up off the bed and moved away from him, refusing to give in to a fleeting moment of dizziness. Crossing her arms over her chest, she hugged herself—suddenly cold—as she crossed the room and leaned against the window frame. Gazing out on the street, she said, “You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.”

“I can’t?” He snickered. “I seemed to have managed so far.”

She glared at him. He was right. And she’d let him, dammit. “Not this time. Because I won’t let that happen.”

“Right.”

“You are a fucking asshole.”

He chuckled.

God, how she’d hated that sound over the years.

“You’re right. I am.” His grin fell into a frown. Abruptly, he stood and followed her. “Don’t fight this. I’m warning you. We can make this work, and no one will know. The beauty is that Lilly is half-way around the world.”

“And no onetherehas to know, either. Obviously.”

He ambled closer, that stupid cock-ass grin on his face. “Look, Mags. You have it good here. I’ll send the money and pay the bills, like always. Nothing has to change. You all stay in the house, the kids go to their private schools, and you keep the fringe benefits of being my wife. Besides, you don’t want to mess this up for the kids and their futures. I know you will do anything for those kids. And I mean, anything.”

He paused, looking her over.

She felt like a piece of steak at the meat counter.

“Why, Max? Why play this game? Just let me go and you can have your family in Brisbane. I’ll go on my merry way.”

“With the kids, right?”

“Of course. You don’t really have strong relationships with any of them. Not saying you can’t see them, but….”

“No!” he barked. “Not happening.”

Something out the window caught her eye. A patrol car? Pulling up to the house.Shit.Is that a good or bad thing?

“Carol has college coming up real soon. How could you pay for that without me?”

Bastard.“Scholarships? Student loans? Part-time job? How do you think people pay for things like that? I’ll find a way.”

He crowded closer. “You don’t want to strap Carol with student loan debt.”

No, she didn’t. But she also didn’t want to chain herself to Max for the rest of her life. Or Carol. Mostly, she wanted to separate the kids from depending on him too much because, frankly, with him having another family in Australia, how longcould that last? At some point, she was going to have to tell the kids the truth.

Wait. Was that the thing she could hold over his head?

“On one condition, Max.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ll go along with this two-family charade if,and only if, you tell the kids the truth. That you cheated on me, and often, and that you have another family in Brisbane. That’s my condition. They deserve to know the reason their lives are turning upside down.”