“Right? When all of that came to light, it was terrifying. The biggest scandal in New Mexico in a long time. I was even investigated for a short while because I was his wife, even though we were in the process of separating when it all came crashing down.”
The memory turns my stomach and I look away, not wanting to see the disappointment or judgment in his eyes. I’ve seen it so many times in other people’s—it would devastate me to see it in his.
“Alison,” he breathes, not speaking until I turn my head and look at him again. “I’m sorry. That had to be rough.”
My jaw drops, my brain unable to process his complete apparent rejection of my possible complicity. Of course I had nothing to do with that, but he doesn’t know me.
“You aren’t going to ask me about it?” I ask in disbelief. “Ask me if I was guilty? Ask me what the investigation found?”
His head shakes gently side to side. “I already know what it found.”
“How do you know?”
My hand trembles beneath the table, nervous energy kicking in. I have nothing to hide. But if he’s researched me and read everything they said, saw the pictures taken of Hayden leaving a hotel room with prostitutes, saw the inquiry into me, I’ll never be able to look at him again. It’s humiliation to an unbearable degree.
“I know because I know you,” he says, chewing on his bottom lip.
“Barrett, that doesn’t make any sense.” The breeze kicks up, the edge of the cloth rippling between my fingers. Despite the coolness of the air, my cheeks are on fire. This is not the discussion I wanted to have, although I suppose it was inevitable.
“It makes perfect sense. I know who you are. I don’t have to ask you what some prosecutor decided. I know they didn’t find anything.”
“So you didn’t have me investigated? Vetted, I think they call that.”
He shakes his head and picks up his water. “No.”
I sit incredulous, watching him take a long drink. He watches me over the top, waiting for me to react.
“I promise you I had nothing to do with any of those things,” I ramble, wanting to make it crystal clear that I was and am innocent. “I had no idea. If I had, I would’ve left him long before. I—”
“Hush,” he says, a softness to his voice that dampens the interruption. “I just told you I know what happened. I can tell. This shit is my life. Don’t forget that.”
He means for that to reassure me, to make me relax and realize he understands how things go in the public realm. But his words do the very opposite.
This shit is my life.
Everything I want to avoid, everything I left behind, is sitting in front of me amplified.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asks.
“Like what?” I swallow.
“I don’t know. Like you’ve just seen a ghost.”
“Just memories, I guess.”
“Those memories—that’s why you don’t date? You’re afraid of being hurt again?”
“No, not specifically. Heartbreak is a part of life. I can handle that.” I glance across the lawn, more away from him than at anything in particular. “I’m just being very picky this time around. Unless someone is one hundred percent worth it and in it the same as I am, I’m not taking my energy away from what I need to do for me and Hux. It just seems pointless.”
He nods and sort of takes it all in before pushing away from the table. Startled, I watch him come around and offer me his hand.
Pulling me to my feet, we take the few steps down the porch and onto the lawn. The grass is soft under my shoes, the smell of fall dancing through the air.
“It will be winter soon,” he says, more to himself than anything. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the last few years, it’s that you can never predict what life’s going to throw at you one day to the next, just like you can’t predict the weather.”
I’m not sure where he’s going with this, so I don’t reply.
He looks at me through the corner of his bright green eyes. “Nothing you do in life, even the things you think you have figured out—they aren’t guaranteed.”