That wasn’t his style. “We’re talking. I told you that we’re doing things my way this time. I think you needed to be held. I damn sure needed to be closer to you. The thought of you with some killer makes my blood run cold. The way you’ve been stressed is not good for you. Sue me for caring.”
“There’s a difference between caring and feeling me up.”
“Maybe I don’t know the difference. It’s not like I have a lot of experience with wanting more from a woman than a simple f**k.”
“You don’t feel that way about me. We were friends. You’re confused because of Seth.”
He curled a hand around her neck, breathing onto her soft lips. “Don’t tell me what I feel. How the f**k would you even know? I put myself out for Eric that night, not just because he asked but because we both wanted it. For days, I waited for you to call me afterward. You never did. I was his best man at your wedding. I was your friend. No one saw fit to tell me that you were pregnant or getting divorced. It slipped your mind to find me before you went into labor? Or you just didn’t give a shit about me?”
“Oh God.” Guilt tightened her face. “Is that what you think? Of course I cared. Because of that night, Eric realized that the feelings I’d been having for you weren’t totally platonic.”
Tyler froze. She’d wanted him before they’d made love?
“Oh, don’t look surprised.” Del frowned, and he wanted to kiss her. “For the next week, I tried everything I could think of to calm him down, to convince him to reach out to you and discuss it. He forbade me to call. Normally, I’d tell him to go to hell, but I was trying to make the marriage work . . .”
And his partner in crime fighting and best friend had cut him off cold—all over the wife Eric hadn’t lifted a finger to love or cherish. That motherfucker.
“But I always meant to call you.”
He wanted to believe it, and something in his chest jolted at the thought that she might want him, too. “I tried to text you about a week later.”
Regret flitted across her face. “While I was out one day, Eric bummed a ride and went to the wireless store. He traded in my phone and got me a new number. When I flipped through it, all your contact information had been deleted, along with every picture I had stored of you.”
So Eric had been a jealous bastard and done everything possible to come between them. Because he’d wanted to repair things with Del, or just because another man had challenged him for a place in her heart? And Tyler bet that once he’d gone to Lafayette, Eric had directed all the anger about his inadequacy at Del, making her feel guilty and miserable.
At the time, Tyler assumed leaving L.A. to wrap up his case in Lafayette would give them the space they needed. When Del hadn’t returned his messages, and Eric had answered him in monosyllables, Tyler had stayed in Louisiana and tried to convince himself that he was in love with someone else while drowning his hurt in sex. That had been his worst move of all. How much different would everything be now if he’d admitted then that he wanted Del and had pursued her?
He sank onto the edge of the bed. “What happened next?”
“We both tried to make it work for a while, but we never really talked about . . . that night. With every day that passed, he just sank deeper into anger, then depression. It was like the first few weeks after the shooting, but worse. He began to drink. A lot. The positive pregnancy test was just the final nail in the coffin.”
“You left then?”
She pressed her lips together, hesitating. “Eric asked me to leave.”
Tyler jumped to his feet. “The son of a bitch threw you out when you were pregnant? He knew you had no family, nowhere to go.”
“I found a place after a week in a motel.” She shrugged. “It was for the best.”
Fury boiled inside Tyler, hot and insidious. The guy hadn’t always been a true and faithful husband, but Tyler had thought that Eric would at least ensure her well-being. What a prick.
So, all alone, Del had gone through, what? Morning sickness, her body changing. He’d been around Kimber and Alyssa through their pregnancies. They’d complained about peeing all the time, backaches, swelling ankles, food cravings and aversions. Deke and Luc had catered to their every whim, taken over responsibilities so they could rest. Who’d taken care of Del through all of that? When she’d gone into labor? When she’d come home with a newborn?
“I’m going to beat the f**king hell out of him.”
Tyler realized that he hadn’t been much better, hanging out in Lafayette, up to his eyeballs in Jack Daniel’s and pu**y. Guilt serrated him.
What else had he expected? He could hear his mother’s voice, Like father, like son . . .
“Don’t.” Del sounded tired. “It won’t solve anything. If it helps, I didn’t go through everything alone. Eric and I were together, signing the papers so he could buy my half of the house, when I went into labor. He took me to the hospital. He actually stayed through the delivery. He’s not a terrible person, just insecure. At times, he took it out on me. You know the shooting totally changed him.”
Eric had seen his son brought into the world. Tyler wondered what he’d been doing that night. Cracking skulls and f**king some stripper?
“I’m so sorry. I knew that you could be pregnant and—”
“What? You didn’t really have a way to reach me. I didn’t expect you to be psychic.”
No yearning, no anger. Nothing. Goddamn it, he’d rather have her blame. “Didn’t you wish, at least once, that the father of your son was there to help you or hold your hand?”