Page 42 of Playing With Temptation

“Why not?”

Leave it to Jase to ask the hard question and be logical when my heart was pounding in my chest so hard my ribs were rattling.

“Because the past will always be there.”

He took another look around my living room and I really wanted to ask what he thought, if how I’d decorated my home with Lucas was how he’d imagined our home.

But I didn’t.

And not only because he was stalking my way. Not because I was shocked when he pulled the vase from my hand and walked it to my small, four-person round dining room table I’d bought at a yard sale, and set the flowers down. Not because he’d turned and now he was studying me in a way that made me feel both seen and under a microscope.

I didn’t ask what he thought because I couldn’t hack his answer.

I couldn’t know what he’d imagined the home we’d share would look like.

Not without bleeding out and collapsing in a puddle of misery.

“I got your text,” he announced. “To answer your question, Cole’s fine. Minor sprain.”

Okay, what was happening?

“Glad to hear it wasn’t anything major.”

He nodded. “Right. Shay or Sally?”

I had no idea what he was talking about. I knew Shay was his ex-wife, but I didn’t know who Sally was. But she was female and I didn’t want to talk about any females in connection with Jase.

“Jase—”

“Let’s start with the easy one,” he interrupted me to declare.

I lifted my hand and waved him off. “I don’t want to do this.”

“I know you don’t. But we need to, Rae. This shit can’t sit between us anymore. We’re no longer twenty-somethings fumbling through life, making decisions on raw emotion and immaturity. What we had was good. It was real. It was pure and if nothing else, I want those memories back without the accompanying pain that comes from remembering the first girl I ever loved who turned into the only woman I’ve ever loved. I want those memories to be sweet, baby. And they can’t be that until we clear the air and untangle the mess we created.”

I reached out to the chair in front of me to stop myself from swaying as one hit after another battered into my chest.

The only woman he ever loved?

No, that had to be a slip of the tongue. Surely, he loved his wife.

I hung my head and stared at my fingers curled around the navy-blue corduroy fabric of the cushion. Another yard sale find.

That’s what my life had turned into, taking other people’s castoffs. Not because I couldn’t save or work more to afford to buy new, but I didn’t see a reason in buying something from a store when used was perfectly fine.

God, why was I thinking about yard sales?

Because it’s what you do, you idiot. You overthink something meaningless, so you don’t have to face the painful reality of life.

Damn. My inner voice of reason had turned into a bitch.

“You’re right,” I told the chair, too afraid to look at him. “About all of it. We need to clear the air and I need to apologize.”

It was time to pay the piper.

I just hoped when I came clean, those memories he wanted weren’t completely, irrevocably screwed.

CHAPTER TWELVE