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She didn’t think that should have made a difference, but it felt like the thing to say.

“What else happened?” he asked.

“He went back to work and within a month or so I started to suspect he might be cheating on me.”

“What was happening?”

“He was still going out with his friends. Or those friends were always at his house. Many did help him. There were times I went over to cook for him and his friends would all be there sitting around and drinking. I’d make food and then leave. With those men, women were coming too.”

Looking back, she felt like she’d been a servant more than anything.

“And one of those women ended up with Eddie?” he asked.

“I found that out after he died. That he’d been hooking up with her while I was at work. Like she was giving her own comfort to him.”

She tried not to think of that happening. When she was going there to care for him and he was screwing someone else. Or someone else was caring for him in a way that Eddie wasn’t doing for her during that time.

That should have been another clue, but he’d been hurt and she wasn’t going to ask or assume he could or would want sex in the beginning.

“There was more than one?” he asked.

“Yes. Someone he worked with. Guess he was eating up all the attention over surviving his fall. He felt like he got a second chance at life and was just going right back to doing everything he’d been doing before.”

“How did he die?” he asked.

“At a party. He drank more than he should have, which he did a lot, but he was taking prescription pain meds with it. I remember I thought it was odd he was still taking them, but he acted like he was in pain. Someone said he had Adderall in his system too and I’m not sure why. I’d never know him to do more than pot, but I didn’t know he was cheating on me either. I never told my parents about that. I just said it was sudden and fibbed that they didn’t find the cause. I didn’t want them to worry that I was mixed up in that kind of stuff. I’m not. I’m really not.”

“I believe you,” he said.

She nodded her head. “Before he died,” she said, “I’d found out about him cheating on me with the coworker. I broke up with him. I asked him for money back and he laughed at me. Said he didn’t owe me anything. It was my decision to go in debt to help him.”

“Sounds like he asked you to help him with things?” he asked, slipping a finished crepe in front of her. It was filled with whatever chocolate mixture he’d made, loaded with fresh fruit and topped with whipped cream.

“He did. I said yes and didn’t need to.”

“He had no family to help financially?”

“No. He asked and they said they didn’t have it. I couldn’t let his car be taken or him be evicted. I gave him some money for bills one month. I had savings. I was already buying a lot of the food. We didn’t live together, but I was there a lot. But one month turned to two and then three. He got better and stronger and things with us seemed to be going well. I just didn’t realize he would go back to his old ways and then even worse. Then when I asked him for the money, he blew up. He was just a whole different person than he’d been to me before. The charming side was gone. He’d call me names. I know he trashed me to his family. I was stunned and felt so betrayed.”

She was eating while she talked. Eating fast because this was just so yummy and comforting. She needed it and was glad Duke had made it for her.

She wanted to pick her plate up and lick the last bit of chocolate that oozed out from it. She used her finger instead.

Duke moved the bowl over to her with the spoon in it. “Want another or just some of this?”

She laughed. “This is good.”

Hadley picked up the spoon, filled it, and put it in her mouth. It had to be some kind of hazelnut dark chocolate mousse thing that she wanted to bathe in right now.

“If what your father told me had been true I thought maybe this would go down well. The question is why your parents don’t know the truth. Back to Eddie. You loved him?”

“I thought I did,” she said. “I loved how he made me feel for the first few months and then he just crushed it all on me. I had so much anger when we broke up.”

“Asshole,” he said. “Not to speak ill of the dead and all.”

“I get it. I felt the same. On top of that, I’d seen Eddie’s sister, Cheryl, a month or so after he’d died and the things she’d said to me… I don’t think Eddie told her that he cheated because all she said was that I broke up with him now that he was better and kept asking him for money. Neither of which was a lie.”

“Just twisted around,” he said. “And, a time when you should have spoken up.”

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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