If I tell Evan the unvarnished truth, he’ll insist we scoop up Reservoir, probably for a fraction of what it was once worth. Evan is too smart not to grab it for a steal. But the minute that happens, Sloan will never forgive me. Hell, she’ll never speak to me again.
Sighing, I shut down my borrowed laptop, lock it in the cabinet where Sloan told me to leave it each night, and drift out of the suite, deep in thought.
At the front of the building, an evening receptionist sits, looking significantly less polished than her daytime counterpart. “You done for the evening?”
I nod. “Back in the morning.”
“Suite number?” When I rattle it off, she grabs a walkie-talkie and pages the maintenance guy. “We’ll lock it up.”
“Thanks.”
“Have a good evening.”
Fat chance with this decision I have to make, probably in the next fifteen minutes. “You, too.”
Outside, it’s balmy and slightly humid but not unpleasant. Sloan’s car is gone from the lot. The foot traffic downtown is thinning out. The suits walking to their destinations look as haggard as I do after a long fucking day. Are they also having to choose between their best friend after committing the sin of falling for his wife and the first woman to make them feel alive since her death? Yeah, probably not. And good for them. But right now, I am.
This shouldn’t be hard at all. I owe Evan. But this decision is fucking brutal. I’m not ready to burn any bridges with Sloan.
Where does that leave me?
In my pocket, my phone rings. I pull it free, already knowing whose name I’ll see on the display. “Hey, buddy.”
“Hey,” Evan barks. “Two days, and no word. What’s going on there?”
Of course he doesn’t waste any time getting down to business.
“I’m great. Thanks for asking. You?”
“Sorry. We’re good. The baby is kicking now. It makes Nia’s pregnancy feel more…real.”
Evan didn’t ask me to comment about their coming child, but I know he’s worried. “You won’t lose this one. Not the woman or the baby.”
He blows out a breath. “Logically, I know the odds of that happening again are astronomical. I’m probably more likely to win the lottery twice. But with the anniversary of Becca’s death in nine days, I won’t say it hasn’t crossed my mind lately—a lot.”
“It’s crossed mine, too.” But not the way I expected. Instead of grieving a lover I never had, my thoughts are filled with Sloan and the million possibilities for how things might play out between us, including the glimmer of a possibility that we could share a future—something I never had with Becca.
“What’s the appropriate way to remember your wife and unborn child a year after they’re gone? I don’t know. If you’d asked me the day I buried Becca whether I’d ever be married again and expecting another child, I would have said never, especially not less than a year later.”
“When was the last time you visited her grave?”
“The day before we moved to Maui. I said goodbye for good then.”
After he realized what their marriage was…and wasn’t. But it’s only been a few months since I learned that Becca had loved me in life enough to leave Evan for me. I pressed that knowledge into my heart. Sure, I felt guilty as fuck about it, but knowing she felt the same about me was a strange comfort.
She’s gone for good, though…and I’m still here.
Even a few weeks ago, I told myself to move on, but I couldn’t seem to since no one would ever be Becca. Sloan definitely isn’t. In fact, the only thing they have in common is blue eyes. In every other way, Sloan is her polar opposite.
And she fascinates me in a way Becca never did.
“I wanted to protect her, you know?” I confess.
Evan laughs. “Every man did. Becca had a little-girl lost quality that constantly drew men of all ages to her.”
I frown as I realize something I haven’t considered until now. “You fell for a woman totally unlike her.”
“Yeah. That shocked me, too.”