his name tentatively. “Tyler?”
“In the kitchen,” he calls back.
I head in that direction, the tile cool on my bare feet. He hands me a glass of wine when I walk into the kitchen.
I take it gratefully. “Thank you.” He holds a tumbler of his own up, one filled with the cheap scotch I know he loves, and we clink glasses before we each take a sip.
“So, uh, I probably should have asked this before we did that,” he says, nodding toward the hallway where the affair began, “but did you tell him it’s over?”
I shift uncomfortably and stare down the glass of wine in my hand.
“You didn’t?” he asks.
“He knows how I feel about you. He knows I was planning to see you while I’m here. That’s as far as I’ve gotten.”
He sighs. “Divorce him, Dani. Be with me. Don’t make this some cliché where you tell me all the right things and say you’re going to leave him if you’re not planning to.”
“Just give me some time. It’s complicated. Marriage is complicated.”
He purses his lips and nods. “I suppose I just wouldn’t know that since I’ve never been married.” His words are full of venom.
“I’m not saying that. I’m just saying there’s a lot I can’t explain.” I blow out a breath. I don’t know how to have this conversation without telling him everything.
I will tell him everything.
I just need a minute to figure out how.
“I don’t want to fight with you,” I say. “I need to get back. I told my parents I was only going out for an hour.”
“You need to report back to them?”
Well, yeah. I do. They’re babysitting my child. “No, I don’t, but we were going to do some stuff together.”
He presses his lips together and nods as he raises both brows. “Okay.”
“Tyler, don’t be like that,” I plead. I know I have no right to play the victim here, but I don’t need his sarcasm on top of everything else.
“Don’t be like what?” He studies me as he asks.
“Don’t ruin what just happened by picking a fight. I already feel guilty for what we did. Can you just...stick by me for a minute and hold my hand through it instead of piling on more?”
He turns his eyes to the counter. “Fine. Sorry. But let me just remind you how explosive we are. I want to be with you. I’m in love with you. But I can’t sit around as the other man forever.”
“I know, and I’m sorry. I’ll tell him soon, okay? I promise.”
And it’s not an empty promise.
My marriage is as good as over. Ford knows it. I know it. I still want him to be in Luna’s life. I still want to be his friend.
But I’m ready to get the hell out of Milwaukee where there is literally nothing for me. I’m ready to be near my family again.
I’m ready to be with Tyler.
He nods, and I hate how damn sad he looks. As much as I love the ability to be so emotionally connected to someone, when it’s sadness, I hate it.
He kisses me softly at the door, and it’s the kind of kiss that sends butterflies through my stomach and makes my knees weak, and then he leans his forehead to mine. He draws in a deep breath.
“When can I see you again?” he asks, opening his eyes and taking a step back.
“I’m spending tomorrow with my sister, but the night after that. Are you free?”
He shakes his head. “I have a gig. But I can see you after it.”
I nod, and I kiss him again, just a quick press of lip to lip.
And then I head home to our baby, my mind made up that I will tell him the next time I see him.
CHAPTER 28
DANIELLE
“Let’s do Carne’s for lunch,” Diana says.
We just got back to my sister’s house after a morning at the beach where we watched her three-year-old play with my one-and-a-half-year-old in what I can only describe as the most adorable playdate of all time. We cleaned up the girls and then each took a shower while our parents watched the kids, and now we’re all starving.
“I haven’t been there in years,” I admit, and a weird feeling washes over me. I don’t really want to go there, not with all the memories it’ll dredge up and not with how hard the guilt is pressing down on me today after what happened last night.
I’ve thought about confessing the truth to Diana—the whole truth, including what