“I found out six years ago that he’d had a vasectomy shortly after we were married...”
She should have left then.
And still, she’d stayed. She’d made her choice. Vowed to be faithful to it. And that had meant something to her.
Far more than it had meant to him, obviously.
But she hadn’t known that.
She’d really thought that Fritz loved her. And had been petrified of being a father.
Maybe he had loved her, in his own way. Maybe she just hadn’t loved herself enough to demand more for herself. Maybe she’d thought she deserved to have to settle?
She didn’t know. Was tired of asking.
But knew she couldn’t stop. The only way to move forward was to learn from her mistakes. And yet, looking at herself from his eyes—from the eyes of someone only just meeting her, someone who was gaining instant access into the intimate details of her life—she felt like such a failure.
When he’d held that book and told her that she’d made more of her opportunities than he had... Did he really see her that way?
Or was he just being kind? She’d learned long ago that if something looked too good to be true, it probably was. And because of her choices, her eighty-year-old gram was sitting in prison...
“Hey, come on...” An arm suddenly wrapped around her shoulders. She hadn’t even known Clarke had approached, had barely felt him drop to the hardwood floor beside her. “You’re doing great,” he told her. “Just a little bit more and we can get out of here.”
She didn’t really want to get out of there. “There” was her home. Her haven.
What she wanted was to get Fritz out of there once and for all. To take back what was hers. And to make it better.
She wanted to love and be loved.
To be worthy of the kind of emotion she had to give.
She’d wanted to be a mother. A partner. A homemaker. And a salon owner, too.
So how had she ended up with none of those things? She had to figure it out. Quick.
And the first step was to quit burying her head in the sand. Or just looking at the moment in front of her. That got her through days. It had gotten her through two months in prison and an agonizing trial. It was time to do more than just get through. Time to ask what she wanted.
Time to... Clarke didn’t speak, just sat there, his arm supporting her back, his hand at her shoulder. A Colton. Sitting on the floor holding her up as though she was some kind of fine china.
She’d never been breakable. But she’d once thought herself delicate.
And worthy of being handled that way. Hadn’t even noticed her self-confidence shedding away.
How was it that turning to look at Clarke Colton just then made her feel like she was getting some of it back?
“Why would he do that?” she whispered, their mouths only inches apart. “Why would he say he wanted kids and then have surgery so he couldn’t? And not tell me? Why take away my chances to have a family of my own?”
“My guess is because he didn’t want to lose you. Or share you.”
She watched his lips move. Felt the heat of his body as he held her against him. She didn’t lean into that embrace, but she absorbed it.
“Then why cheat on me all these years? If I wasn’t enough to...”
His finger touched her lips. “Shhh. Don’t say it, and as much as you can help it, don’t even think it.”
His blue eyes were pools of compassion, of assurance, and she didn’t have the strength to pull her own gaze away from them. She wallowed there, searching him. Letting him see her.
“The man was a fool...” His words were as soft as hers had been as his mouth lowered and...touched hers. Lightly. Gently.