The Man I Thought I Trusted - E. L. Todd Page 0,30

battle. I know I’m getting ahead of myself right now, but I want you to be my wife and I want to have kids. How is that going to work with us?”

We hadn’t talked that far into the future, but hearing him admit so candidly that he wanted forever with me, that he wasn’t afraid of commitment, that he wanted to have a family with me, touched me…deeply. “Let’s worry about it later.”

“Carson—”

“Later.” I pushed off the counter and walked toward him, knowing the broccoli was turning black because it was already burned. “It took so long for us to come back together, let’s not jeopardize that over something else. Let’s just be happy…at least for now.”

His hands automatically moved to my waist as he stared down at me, conflict in his eyes.

I knew it wasn’t out of line for him to worry about me, especially when a man had threatened to kill me in the middle of a crowded room. But my job was everything to me, and I didn’t want to walk away from it.

It took him a few seconds to calm down, but when he did, he came back to reality, came back to the moment. “Okay. For now.”

10

Carson

I hadn’t mentioned Kat much lately to either Charlie or Dax, but that didn’t mean the situation wasn’t on my mind. I usually thought about it right before I went to sleep and sometimes during breaks throughout the day.

I hoped that with enough time, Kat would come around…but she was still radio silent.

I decided to wait on the sidewalk outside her office for her to leave work. It was a cold afternoon, so I got two hot coffees and waited.

She opened the glass doors and emerged onto the sidewalk, wearing thigh-high boots and a long-sleeved sweater dress. It took her a moment to notice me.

I stood there with the coffees in my hand, and I tried to think of something witty to say, something to break the ice and make her laugh. But I couldn’t think of anything.

She looked like I’d just ruined her day. She turned around and walked the other way.

“Kat.” I tossed the coffees into the garbage can and caught up to her. “Come on, just talk to me.”

She turned back around and looked at me. “Talk about what? I’m pretty sure we said everything that needs to be said.”

It hurt me so deeply to see how much she despised me, how betrayed she felt at my dishonesty. “I’m sorry. I want you to forgive me so we can stay friends. I don’t want to lose you, Kat.”

“You lost me the moment you lied to me.”

“I didn’t lie. What would you do if you were in my situation? Because I’ve gone over this in my head, like, literally a million times, and there was nothing I could’ve done that would’ve prevented all of this. I’m in this situation because of Charlie’s actions, so no matter what, I’m guilty. Cut me some slack.”

“Cut you some slack?” she asked incredulously. “I considered you to be my best friend, Carson. And when I say best friend, I mean the person I am most loyal to. If there’s something going on behind your back, you bet your ass I’ll tell you about it. You knew about all of this with Charlie, and you didn’t tell me. You picked your loyalty to him over me. That’s why I’m so upset. I was never your best friend. Otherwise, you would’ve betrayed him and told me.”

“It wasn’t like that—”

“That’s exactly what it was like. You chose to keep his secret and keep me in the dark. Period.”

“What would have happened if I’d told you?” I asked, having this intense conversation right on the sidewalk with other New Yorkers passing by. “It would’ve destroyed you. It would’ve made you feel worse than you already do. Why would I do that to you? I assumed Charlie would get over Denise and then forget about her. So why tell you something that you didn’t really need to know? If it were me, I’d rather not know unless I absolutely had to.”

She shook her head. “You aren’t me. If you did tell me, I would’ve moved on a lot quicker, instead of waiting around, hoping we would get back together. I wasted so many months that could’ve been spent moving on.”

I didn’t have an argument against that.

“I just can’t believe you sat there while I talked about Charlie all those months, and the whole time you knew