Page 6 of What He Always Knew

I couldn’t take my eyes off her as she moved through the line of teachers, and I kept them there as she took the seat across from me, the steam from her soup drifting up to her nose.

“Hi,” she said once she seated.

“Hi.”

She smiled.

I smiled.

Then, her brows bent together, her hand sliding up to rest flat on the table.

“I missed you last night,” she whispered.

I laughed, blowing out a breath. “To say I missed you, too, would be the understatement of the century.” I shifted. “What happened, Charlie?”

Her face broke a little more, and she glanced around us. There were only a few other teachers still in the café, most had already eaten and made their way back to their classrooms.

“I don’t know,” she said with a sigh, running a hand up to smooth over her hair. “We talked. He took care of me after I fainted.”

“I would have, too.”

“I know,” she said. “That’s not what I meant. I just mean he took me home, made me some tea. And we talked.” She swallowed. “I told him I wanted a divorce.”

My heart stopped, kicking to life again with a newfound hope. It was unbelievable, that she’d told him about us, that she’d told him she was done. So much so that I questioned if I’d imagined hearing her say it, at all.

But there she was, sitting across from me, telling me she would leave her husband and be with me.

It was real. She wanted me.

Charlie Reid was finally mine.

My hand slid up onto the table to mirror hers, and I pushed it forward. There were still at least twelve inches between our fingertips, but I felt the charge between them like we were holding hands. I wished so desperately to pull her into me, to kiss her, to tell her she was making the right decision.

That I would love her better.

“What did he say?” I asked once my heart had settled.

Charlie looked down at her soup.

“He asked me for two months.”

And just like that, all the hope drained.

Those words hung between us like smoke, and my gaze dropped to Charlie’s soup, too. I couldn’t look at her when I asked the next question.

“What does that mean?”

Where does that leave me?

Charlie’s eyes stayed on the soup.

“He said you’d been back in my life for two months,” she said. “He said he wanted the same amount of time to show me I should stay.”

“Bullshit.”

Charlie reddened. “Reese…”

“No, it’s bullshit. He’s had years, Charlie.Years.” I shook my head.