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CHAPTER 11
Owen comes home just in time to get Mia to bed, which thrills her. Not that I’m complaining, I love it when he puts her to bed, listening to the giggles and the stories he tells her about his childhood. But the truth is that it does hurt my feelings, and not a little, that I turn into chopped liver the moment Owen shows up.
We could be mid-craft, mid-game, I could even be shoveling chocolate covered ice cream into her mouth, and none of it is enough to keep her from daddy. It is cute though. Not to mention that it takes the attention off of me, which right now is a blessing.
I don’t know if guilt was the right word for what I felt as I saw him walk through our front door earlier, real joy on his face from being home with his family. Or when he pulled me in for a hug and kissed my lips, attempting to linger a little longer, but I pulled away. If he thought anything of it, he didn’t have much time to dwell on it because Mia practically crawled up his body to get into his arms.
“How’s my baby been?” he asked her and they moved on to the nightly ritual. “Go pick out some comfy pajamas,” he told her and she was off to her room. “Then I’ll read you three books instead of two.”
“Yay!” she screamed, running away before he changed his mind on the three books.
The moment she was out of sight he grabbed me. “I missed you,” he whispered in my ear, pulling me in so tight I could feel just how much he missed me. I let him because I was not expecting it just then, and because I missed him, too. “Why don’t you go shower while I get Mia into bed.”
Smiling nervously, I nodded and headed for our room.
Now, as I listen to them through the monitor, knowing it’s only a matter of minutes before he comes into the room, the weight of the secret becomes so heavy that I can barely move.
Undressing slowly in front of the bathroom mirror, I see something ugly in my eyes, something shameful, and I look away. This must be what Owen felt a year ago, when he did what he did to me. There’s an innate inability to look at one self in the eye when you’ve done something regretful. No, not regretful. I still can’t use the word regret and Bo in the same sentence.
Perhaps it’s deceitful. Yes, that’s a better word. I look up again and into my eyes, just as Owen had done. He’d looked into his soul and realized he could no longer live with a lie.
And now I too have that same choice. I too have to decide if I can live knowing that I’d been unfaithful, and sleep with Owen. It isn’t only a matter of the heart. I trust Bo is clean, but Owen has no clue. I remember, too, the humiliation of having to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases. I didn’t want to put Owen through that.
God, what was I thinking that I shouldn’t tell Owen! The last thing I want to do is have this conversation, in fact, I would much rather the Earth swallow me whole, than to do this. But for him, and for my own soul, I have to.
Decision made, shit I hope I don’t chicken out, I put my clothes on. Grimacing, I press a fist into my stomach as the acid builds and threatens to come up into my throat. It’s the stress that’s making it worse, I know that. Yet another reason to get this over with.
I can hear Owen finishing up with Mia, and I sit on the bed to wait for him, swallowing down the terror that is threatening to strangle me. By the time he walks in I’m shaking.
The moment he comes through the door and takes a good look at me, his sexy smile vanishes.
“What’s wrong?” he asks as he walks to the bed and sits facing me. He takes my hands in his, his brows furrowed with concern. “What’s going on? I felt something was up when I came into the house.” His right hand comes up and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “You’re shaking.”
Taking my hands out of his, placing them on my lap instead. It takes all of my willpower not to look down, to force my voice into words. “Owen, I…” I swallow, shift my seating position, clear my throat, all in an effort to steel myself against the storm I know I’m about to unleash. “I… I did something.”
His brows lift slightly, the line between them smoothing out, as he realizes where I’m headed. “Oh,” he says, his voice breaking, and his jaw begins to work in that way that tells me he’s reigning in his anger. Green eyes penetrate my own as they search for truth. “Did you cheat on me?”
I don’t hesitate, but I do look away because I don’t want to see the damage. “Yes.”
There are no words said between us for what seems an eternity, or maybe it’s just five seconds. Either way, the heavy silence stretches on into forever.
“Who?” he finally says. “Was it the same man from New Orleans?”
“Yes.”
“When?” he asks.
“Yesterday.”
He nods, not in acceptance, but more in assimilation of the information. “How many times were you with him?”
“Once.”
“Did you go to him?”
“No! Owen, this was not planned.”
He doesn’t care if this was planned. “Did he come to you?”
