The Man I Thought I Trusted - E. L. Todd Page 0,40
full of food, but he stopped chewing, his cheeks full. It seemed to be too much effort to chew it and swallow it quickly, so he just spat it out into a napkin so he could respond fast. “What?”
“But he said he didn’t think he could…if I continue this line of work.”
Charlie ignored his dinner altogether and let it get cold because this conversation was more important than a hot meal.
“He said he just worries about me, and he doesn’t want to worry about his wife all the time, for his kids to worry about their mother all the time.”
“Jesus, he came on strong, didn’t he?”
I shrugged. “A bit.”
“So…” He looked at me as if he expected me to finish his sentence. “What does that mean? Did you guys break up?”
I shook my head. “No. I just said I needed to think about it. He basically gave me an ultimatum. He can’t be married to a woman who’s always in danger. He loves me too much to suffer through it. I get it.”
With his arms on the table, he stared at me.
“So if he asked me to marry him and I say yes…that means I agree to move into another discipline of journalism.”
He looked at me with new eyes. “I can’t believe you would even consider it.”
My eyes narrowed on his face.
“Not in a bad way. That’s just not something you would normally do, which means you really love this guy.”
I gave a nod. “I do.”
“Wow…” He sank back into his chair and rubbed the back of his head.
“There were a couple other things he said that changed my attitude about it. For one, he said he didn’t mind if I wanted to be a workaholic for the rest of my life. He would take a step back at work and be the caretaker for our children. How many men would say something like that?”
He shrugged. “Not many.”
“And he said he would be supportive of my career, no matter what, that we would make it work. He’s never asked me to stop working because he’s a billionaire who can support me. He gets me. He understands that my career is important to me.”
“Yeah, he’s a good guy.”
“So, can I really throw that away for a job? Because a guy like Dax isn’t going to come around again.”
He shook his head. “You’re right. He’s one of a kind.”
I didn’t immediately explode with my feminist verbiage when he’d asked me to make a compromise because he’d offered to make compromises too. He agreed to be the primary parent so I could chase my dream, and being a full-time dad was not something most men fantasized about. And his requests didn’t stem from his need to control me or make me do what he wanted. He just wanted to keep me safe, and I couldn’t lie and say my job wasn’t dangerous. It could be really fucking dangerous. “I think I’m going to tell him yes.”
Charlie looked at me with brand-new eyes, as if he saw me as a whole new person. “I think that’s the right answer.”
My job was important to me, but my professional track record had already established my credibility and commitment. Life wouldn’t always stay the same. It changed, and you had to change with it. Now, I had a man who had become part of my family, and it would be really stupid to risk losing that for a job. Yes, it was important to me, but at the end of the day, it was just a job.
He was worth a lot more than that.
Charlie smiled. “Ready to go back to the Lifestyle section?”
I rolled my eyes and released a loud sigh. “I’ll die before I do that.”
He chuckled. “You’ve had a great career at the New York Press, so I’m sure you can get a job at any other magazine or news outlet that you want. Dax even told me he wishes you would work for a fashion magazine like in The Devil Wears Prada.”
I rolled my eyes. “I couldn’t write about shoes all day. I could buy shoes all day, sure. But I don’t have much to say about them.”
“I’m really proud of you. Instead of shutting everything out, you’re letting things in, you’re being human again. It’s really nice to see.”
I knew I had changed so much, that the moment Dax walked into my life, I started to heal from the past. Without him, I wasn’t sure if I ever would’ve made it to this