AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Large brown eyes search mine; she looks so cute yet vulnerable in my arms. I don’t want to be the one to break her, to hurt her how her husband has twice now, first, by leaving with no plans to, and second by leaving again of his own volition. But if I want a future with this woman, I have to be honest with her.
“Do you love her?”
“No.”
“Have feelings for her?”
“I care about her a great deal, but only as someone who meant a lot to me at one point. As a friend. Nothing more.”
She closes her eyes and squeezes them tight.
“Claire and I...had sex.”
“How many times?”
“Once.”
She pulls out of my arms and swings her feet over the side of the bed.
“Yesenia, I don’t love her. I just...”
She holds a hand up. “Stop. It’s okay. We weren’t together then, and I was involved with my husband. So, I have no right to be angry with you.”
“But yet you are.”
She shakes her head and says, “Is that why you won’t have sex with me?”
“I wanted you to know the truth first. I felt unclean carrying that around and like I didn’t deserve to have you how I truly wanted you. So, yes, that’s why I haven’t made love to you.”
She stares at me for several seconds before she stands. “I need a shower.”
I watch her go, and the knot in my stomach tightens further. Have I lost my girl completely?
***
WE ARRIVED IN THE STATEStwo weeks ago, and I visited her at her apartment. All week long, our phone calls have been terse and short.
Now that we’re across from one another at an outdoor café having a cup of coffee, I look at her to see what I couldn’t over the phone. Due to business meetings, I haven’t really had time to FaceTime her and the few times I tried, she said she was busy and would call later, only to not follow through.
Although Yesenia looks relaxed and refreshed from our time away, slight shadows are under her eyes.
“Nia, I need you to tell me what’s been bothering you,” I say, cupping her face and turning to look at me.
“Nothing. I told you that I’ve been very busy.”
“I told you that I don’t buy it. Nia, you know what I realized while we were away from one another?”
She shakes her head.
Chuckling softly, I correct myself, “Or I should say what Shep helped me to realize. It’s that I love you. I really and truly love you, and I’ve never been able to say that about another woman I’ve been with. Not even Claire. I wanted to tell you the night of the ball, but...I don’t think either of us was ready for that admission.”
She reaches her hands across the table and grabs mine. “I’m sorry. In my heart, Cade, I believed I owed my husband a chance to make what we’d vowed to one another work. I swore to that man before God that I would always love him and be committed to him no matter what.”
“Yet, here you are,” I say sadly, pulling my hands back. “Would you have come to me if he hadn’t left you?”
Her brownish curls bounce around her shoulders and face as she anxiously nods. “Yes! Cade, yes, I would have. Honestly, it was a mutual decision. Though I tried, nothing was ever good enough for him, and all I ever wanted, all I ever dreamt of was you. It would have taken longer if he hadn’t pulled the trigger on the marriage, but I would have left. It was already dead, and we both knew it. We just didn’t know how to say goodbye.”
I lower my gaze to my now cold coffee.
