“Come on, Harper,” I scoff. “I know that what happened all those years ago was bad. I was an idiot and I shouldn’t have let Angela lead me around by the nose but I was young and stupid.”
Her head cocks and her caramel curls slip over her shoulder, shimmering in the backlight of the doorway. She turned the light on right when she opened the door. All the better to see you with, I guess.
“I’d agree with that. But you don’t owe me anything. Obviously we didn’t feel the same about each other.” She shrugsand her soft sweater slips off her shoulder. My mouth goes dry when her soft, silky skin appears. I can’t look away. I want to trace the light freckles on her skin with my tongue. Follow each constellation all the way down her chest until I’m tracing her nipple, biting it gently while she moans.
Hissing, I shift on the porch.
“Can I come in?”
“Are you going to go away if I don’t?”
“Nope!” I pop the p and she rolls her eyes and moves out of the doorway so that I can finally step inside. It’s like stepping back in the past. All of her mother’s things are still here. It’s like she’s about to come out of the kitchen and tell us to get our feet off the coffee table.
My breath hitches. Both of us have suffered so much loss. How the hell can I think about what I want to do to her when there’s so much between us?
“I’m sorry that I didn’t make it back for your mom’s funeral, angel. I…well, I was really struggling to get things straightened out. I didn’t hear about it until a few weeks later and by then you’d already taken off. I tried calling.”
She nods her head but doesn’t say anything.
Nodding, I pace back and forth in the small space. “I suppose you want to know what happened with Angela?”
I turn just in time to see her wince, narrowing her eyes. “I don’t think I need to know that.”
“I really think you do.” I sigh and run my hands through my hair. “I got drunk after the dance and…well, we had sex. And I was so far gone that I didn’t use any protection. She came to me a couple of months later, when I was getting ready to leave for school. She told me she was pregnant.”
Her brow lifts. “I don’t think those numbers add up, Darius.”
I wince. “Yeah. I think she lied to me about that. But after that it didn’t make much sense not to sleep with her. Especiallysince she kept pushing me and telling me that if I didn’t do whatever the hell she wanted, she wasn’t going to let me see my child.”
Harp gasps, her fingers covering her pretty red lips. “She wouldn’t have…”
“She would have. She even threatened to get rid of the problem if I didn’t fall into line.”
“I just went along with whatever she said. And one of the things she said was that I couldn’t see you anymore. Couldn’t even contact you. She wanted a clean break.”
“Why would she say that?”
“Cause I’m pretty sure she was…” I stop. I don’t want to tell her that yet. “Well, I think she was jealous. We had a relationship that she couldn’t have with me so she wanted it over. And if I didn’t…”
“She’d get rid of the problem…” She sighs. “That sucks. But couldn’t you get word to me.”
I snort. “Her little spies, her clingy little girlfriends kept an eye on me. If I even looked at you they ran to her telling tales.”
“Ridiculous.”
“Yeah. I didn’t know what the hell to do. And then she decided we needed to get married. I had to scramble to get all that lined up in a courthouse. Which she was pretty pissed about by the way. She wanted a big, fat wedding with all the neighbors there.” Pretty sure that was so she could rub Harper’s nose in it.
“I wish you could have gotten me a message some way.” Her gray eyes are dark in the dim light of the room. Her breath hitches when my eyes dip down to her chest and I drag my eyes back up.
“I’m so sorry that I hurt you like that, angel.”
Her eyes go soft and she moves closer to me, her soft hand coming up to rest on my sleeve. My eyes drop and she jerks herfingers back. I want to drag them to where they sat before, curl my fingers around them so she can’t move them.
“I’m so sorry about your kids, Darius. I know that you and Angela had divorced but I assume you still had feelings for her too. And your kids….”
Her eyes close and then open, tears sparkling in the soft light of the room. “You losing them isn’t fair and I wish to god that it hadn’t happened.”
“Me too.” I sigh and close my eyes, my own stinging with tears. Angela had been poisoning the kids against me for a long time but I was hanging in there and fighting for my time with them. I loved my daughter and my son.
