Page 103 of Stanton Unconditional

I smile at him through my tears. “Loved, as in past tense?” He shrugs sadly.

“And then you were with that girl and I still didn’t get the hint and I fought harder to hold us together.”

He frowns. “That stripper was to save you from making a mistake and having my children.”

I smile through my tears again. “Joshua, having your children could never be a mistake for me. For anyone.”

He sits back and runs his finger back and forth over his lip as he listens.

“Joshua, I was so in love with you that I couldn’t see straight and then Dad died and I blamed myself. In some fucked-up way I thought that cutting you out of my life was my punishment for killing my father. But the reality is that it nearly killed me being away from you. I was sick, Josh. I died a little inside every day I was away from you.”

He sits deathly still as he listens. “Me too,” he whispers as he rearranges his knife and fork. I see his eyes flick around at the security scattered around the room. I had forgotten they were even here.

“Josh, remember at Willowvale that day I asked you why you weren’t with Amelie?”

He nods. “Yes.”

“Do you remember what you said to me?”

He shakes his head. “No.”

“You told me that you were not with Amelie because you had never let it go there because you were in love with me.”

He sits back in his seat as he thinks. “I needed to know that you were not with Amelie because you didn’t want her, not because of me. It planted an ugly seed in my head, Josh, and I couldn’t get it out. It festered until it became an infection and it poisoned me from the inside out.”

He shakes his head. “It wasn’t like that, Tash.” He picks up my hand again across the table.

“Then when I was on death’s frigging door your mother came to me and told me you were not handling things well either and I decided to come to you, and we had that lovely time in the hospital…remember?” My eyes search his.

He smiles sadly.

“Josh, we made love, I had missed you so desperately, I thought you were pleased to see me as well.”

“I was,” he whispers.

“I sat in the same room as Amelie and she knew that she had slept with you just three days before and you didn’t tell me.” I put my hands into my face as the raw emotion lingers in my psyche.

He sits forward in his seat. “Tash, I wanted to tell you. How do you tell someone you love that you had sex with someone else? The words wouldn’t leave my mouth,” he whispers.

I wipe a tear angrily from my face, why am I such a crybaby? “Josh, I would have understood if you went to a sex club or saw one of your stupid sluts. It wasn’t the fact that you had sex with someone else. But you had feelings for Amelie, we both know that you did. You made love to me knowing that another woman was sitting in the waiting room meters away who was in love with you too. Her heart was breaking also, Joshua.”

He drops his head in shame. “Tash, it didn’t go down how you think it did. I was mortified. I stopped it halfway through. I will never forgive myself for doing that to us. But I needed you to forgive me, and at a time when I needed you to prove your words and love me unconditionally, you turned your back on me.”

I shake my head. “No, baby, I was right there with you with a broken heart but I had to give you that choice and I knew that if you knew I was still in love with you, you would not have left. I never turned my back on you. I would never do that. I couldn’t speak to you because I knew if I did, I would tell you that I loved you and that everything was going to be alright.”

He sits back again and frowns as he thinks.

I grab his hand in desperation. “I am still in love with you, Joshua…more than anything I want us to work at getting back together.” My eyes search his and he drops his head.

“Tash, I can’t.”

“Here we are.” The entrees arrive, and we both sit back in a rush.

The waitress puts them on the table and leaves us alone. “Baby, no pressure. I just want us to spend some time

together, and see what happens.” I smile as I put my hand on his forearm.

He puts a spoonful of his crab into his mouth.