Love In Slow Motion (Love Beyond Measure #2) - E.M. Lindsey Page 0,4

longer had a job, but he had enough money to live comfortably for the rest of his life if he wanted to do nothing at all.

Fifty certainly wasn’t the new thirty, but it wasn’t ninety either. There were hills and valleys of experience waiting for him to go off-road with the sort of vigor he’d missed out on all those years ago when he stood at an altar, held Jacqueline’s hand, and promised for better or for worse.

He supposed there had to be some forgiveness in breaking that vow he made as a boy of barely seventeen who didn’t know what the fuck he was signing up for. A girl a few months younger than him who had just given birth to a baby she immediately hated—but Fredric had been young and idealistic. He had privilege and money. He graduated early, and his parents ensured that if he kept on his path and did all the things he was supposed to do, life wouldn’t be hard for him the way it was for so many others.

At the time, he relished in the thought.

Several years later, as he lay in his bed barely able to form a sentence, knowing he’d never see again—he wondered if maybe he was paying the price for all that taking and never giving.

He got over thinking that his stroke and blindness was a punishment, but there had been some weak moments in the hospital in the days that followed consciousness where he wondered what he’d done to deserve it. It felt too painful to be a test from God, but he also couldn’t pretend to know the mind of the being that created the known universe either.

But instead of buckling under the weight of his new reality, he used his pain to strengthen his resolve to be better—to do better, because his children needed him. In that, he failed, and he would live with that regret for the rest of his life. But he’d heard honest joy in his son’s voice when Fredric told him that his marriage to Jacqueline was over, and that was enough for him to sign on the dotted line.

Hell, he’d signed on several. He’d turned everything over to Jacqueline, he’d resigned from his firm, and he’d paid cash for the condo. He chose a home on the little strip of land where earth met ocean—the place he hoped would offer him a chance to find out what sort of person he was supposed to be without her.

His house was more humble than where he’d lived in the past—perfect for him and Sebastian. Two bedrooms, a small kitchen, a railed path right to the beach dunes where he could spend his morning listening to his dog chase the seabirds. How Jacqueline would have mocked his joy. How she would have degraded him for looking at something so small as paradise.

Of course, she’d always been like that, and it was the first thing that attracted him to her when he was sixteen and too naïve to know what sort of person she’d grow into. She was wild, demanding, and fierce. She was a teenager, but she walked through a room of lawyers and commanded the attention of every single person there. She was going to be something, he knew. If there were a world to take over, she would accomplish it, then sit on a throne as queen.

He’d considered himself lucky to have her attention. His heart beat so hard against his ribs he wondered if she could see it through his shirt as she accepted a glass of champagne without a care in the world and smiled at him over the rim. He was head over heels, and he swore he’d collect every star in the sky and give them as offering for even a moment of her love.

Some years later, he spent long, lonely nights wondering if he’d do things differently given the chance. If he were miraculously transported back in time, maybe he’d smile across the room, but not walk over. Maybe he’d take her by the wrists when she had him pinned to the wall with demanding kisses and tell her he wasn’t ready to go further.

But then he’d hear little feet patter across the floor. He’d hear the squeak of his bedroom door hinge, and then a small body would worm across his covers until his arms came tight around his son. It was then Fredric knew he’d endure any manner of hell at Jacqueline’s hand, because he