No Commitment (Capital Kingsmen #1) - Lisa Suzanne Page 0,19
click the call button before I lose my nerve.
Luna is napping, and Ford is at work, so this is my window. If I want to solve the mysteries of the past, if I want to allow my heart a chance to move on from him, I need closure. If I want to try to brush away some of the guilt that comes along with having feelings for another man when I’m married—then this is my chance.
But I need to be careful.
I can’t tell him about Luna. Not yet, anyway. And when I do, I’ll stick firmly to a lie that puts her birthdate out of any range that could possibly lead him to questions.
“Hey,” he answers on the first ring, and his voice is warm and rich and everything I remember. It’s deep and a little gritty and it awakens dormant feelings in me, feelings I forgot existed. Just the single grunted syllable reminds me of who I once was. It shifts my world a little. It reminds me of the guy who was a good friend when we were teenagers. It reminds me of the guy who became my very best friend for two months a couple years ago as we talked every single day while he was on the road.
It reminds me of fingernails scratching down a lean back, of a hand trailing slowly up a thigh, of illicit sex on top of a desk that belongs to someone else now.
I clear my throat.
That desk belongs to my husband now.
As should the feelings coursing through me.
“Hi,” I say tentatively.
An awkward beat of quiet passes between us.
“I’m sorry,” he says, and there’s so much emotion packed into those two words.
I don’t know what to say. I forgive you seems like a lie, especially since I’m holding onto my own sins against him. So I don’t say anything, and the silence spanning between us feels like an impossible bridge we’re unable to cross.
“Please just let me see you.” His voice is soft, nearly a whisper, as he begs me for something I can’t give him. I need a minute to even process what’s happening. I didn’t tell Ford that I texted Tyler last night, and I certainly won’t tell him about this phone call. More lies on top of lies.
“I can’t,” I say softly.
“Why not?”
“I already told you. Things have changed, Tyler. I moved on,” I lie.
I haven’t moved on, at least not emotionally.
“I haven’t.” God, I don’t remember his voice holding so much emotion before. I can hear the pain and the need there in those two words. “And believe me, I tried.”
I don’t want to know what that means—probably not any more than he wants to hear about married life for me.
“Why aren’t you working at the arena anymore?” he asks.
I don’t have an answer. I’m not ready to tell him it’s because I have a daughter and I’m a stay at home mom to her now. “Career change,” I say simply. At least that’s not really a lie, though it isn’t the whole truth, either.
“But you loved what you did. It was why you stayed in Milwaukee after Nate and you broke up.”
Tears sting behind my eyes. He remembers. It was just a tiny, minute detail about my life, but he remembers.
Ford forgot my birthday this year.
He apologized. He felt horrible. But he forgot. I get it—kids make you tired. They change you. But it still hurt when he didn’t even say happy birthday until my mom called me and he heard her singing through my phone.
But Tyler remembers things...the same things that Ford stole from me.
“Yeah, I did. More of life’s changes, I guess,” I finally say.
“What happened to the Dani I knew?” he asks.
“Her heart was broken and it changed who she was as a person,” I say thickly.
“Because of me?”
I find my voice again. “Yeah. It was our first real fight and it made me realize that I couldn’t be with someone who wasn’t in control of his own decisions.” I needed someone who could be there for Luna and me. You couldn’t.
Instead of responding to my harsh words, his voice is low when he asks, “How long have you been married?”
“Our second anniversary is coming up in October.” My chest aches when I say the words.
We got married fast. He was at a place in his life where he wanted a family, and I was giving him an insta-one. I wanted to be married before the baby came. I wanted to wear a