The problem was I didn't know what to do. It wasn't like running across an issue with a club project. When something went wrong there, we determined what happened and then fixed it. Mold in the drywall? We hired a professional to remove it and then made sure there was no mold anywhere else. If the mold was from water, we hired another professional to make sure the area would stay dry. Short of a couples’ therapist, I didn't know who I could hire to help me fix what I had broken with Kate.
Sleep washed over me before an answer arrived. Instead, I was transported back five years ago as Kate and I were packing up the condo and getting ready to head back to New York. I was so fucking excited because my life was all planned out.
Max and I would finally pursue our dream of becoming club owners. I was going to marry the woman of my dreams. And we were going to be back in New York where I could be close to my family.
"Do you suppose I will still need these? There's no beach in Manhattan, and I understand the winters are really cold." Kate held up a cherry red bikini bathing suit. Like always, my dick immediately went full tilt.
When we had first gotten together, I had wondered how long she would have that effect on me. Surely, the novelty of her sexy body would wear off. But it hadn't. The more I'd fallen in love with her, the more my body responded to her.
"You don't need a beach to wear that as long as you only wear it for me.”
She gave me a sexy smile. "That's why I have lingerie. That's for you."
In an instant, the need to pack dissipated, replaced with the need to hold and touch her, to bury myself inside her. I reached over, tugging her close.
My hands slid under her T-shirt. "Speaking of lingerie. What do you have on under here?”
She lifted her arms overhead, allowing me to pull the T-shirt off. Underneath, she wore a pretty blush-colored lacy bra. Already, her nipples were poking at the delicate fabric. I bent over, sucking one into my mouth and running my tongue over the lace-covered nipple.
"Are you nervous?"
Her words stopped me. I straightened and looked into her soulful dark eyes. "Nervous about what?"
She shrugged and looked away. I put my finger under her chin to bring her attention back to me. "What are you nervous about? Are you having second thoughts about me?"
"No." She threw her arms around me. "No. I know you’re the one for me." Her words wrapped around my heart, filling my chest with love.
"It’s just that I haven't met your family, and here you are bringing me home as your fiancée. What if they don't like me?"
I lifted her up and laid her on the bed and covered my body over hers, lifting her arms over her head, my hands holding hers. "My family's going to love you like I do. My parents are the sweetest, kindest, most generous people you'll probably ever meet. They're able to see good in everyone, and their hearts are huge. They forgive anyone for anything."
I startled awake as the memory of those words drifted through my dream. How true those words would become only a week later when I'd come home, not with the woman I wanted to spend my life with, but with another woman who told me I'd fathered her child.
That choice was the origin of my discontentment in life. It was why I couldn't have the woman I loved.
If only there were a way to go back in time and make a different choice, my life would be so different. But no one had yet invented a time machine, so I was stuck living with my regret.
Still, with the fact that Ethan wasn't standing in my way, and Harper was seemingly encouraging me, I had to believe that they were hoping I could get through to Kate. That maybe, through my love, I could unseal the lock she kept on her heart, and we could find our happily ever after at last.
CHAPTEREIGHTEEN
Kate
After the night and having breakfast with Sam, I was distracted most the day at work as I contemplated whether or not to take him up on his offer of having a sexual relationship. There was no doubt that I wanted to. I missed physical intimacy, and no one was better at it than Sam.
By the end of the day, I ached with wanting him. When I got home from work, I contemplated calling him, but I still wasn't sure whether agreeing to his terms was a good idea. Just like I had said to him, I believed women could be like men and have a no strings attached affair.
But the reality was that with Sam, it wouldn't be without strings.
No matter how hard I tried to snip them, there was at least one thread that still tethered my heart to his. It was so frustrating to have feelings for a man who’d hurt me so deeply.
I wished I could hate him. I was angry and hurt but had never been able to come to hate him for what he did. I suppose it was because I understood the difficult situation that he'd been put in.
His brother Max wanted me to give him brownie points for making an honorable choice for the child.
I wasn't going to give him any awards for choosing to leave me, but I suppose knowing that it wasn't the choice he wanted to make was enough to keep me from hating him.
And by not hating him, a part of me was able to still love him. If I agreed to a sexual affair, how would I prevent my heart from opening up to him?