A dull ache worked its way across my chest as if it was searching for something. It found my heart, ripped it open and climbed inside. I picked my emotions up from the floor and looked my father in the eyes. If he wanted me to leave my job and work for him, I would leave my job and work for him.

“Yes, Daddy.”

“You’ll start Monday. You can take the Lincoln while your car is in the shop. Leave your keys with Cliff.”

He reopened his paper, and I knew I’d been dismissed.

I stood up, wanting to say something else, wanting him to say something else.

“Bye, Daddy.”

He didn't even acknowledge I’d spoken.

My mother was waiting for me in the hall. She handed me the keys to the Lincoln. This was such a well-oiled operation.

I drove straight to the bank and informed them I would not be returning to work. Then I headed to my townhouse with the full intention of drinking a bottle of wine and going to sleep. When I got home, Caleb was sitting on my doorstep. I stopped short. He was in his work clothes: grey pants, white button down, sleeves rolled to his elbows. He was sitting with his legs spread, elbows resting on his knees and looking at the ground, seemingly deep in thought. When he heard my heels on the concrete, he looked up … smiled. It was his crooked smile. It reached all the way to his eyes and made you wonder if he was picturing you naked. God, I was so lost to this man. I walked right past him and unlocked the door. When I opened it, he stood and followed me inside.

Afterward, we ordered Thai food and sat in bed eating it. I was still a little raw from my conversation with my dad — not to mention, I’d just slept with Caleb, again, after he told me he didn’t want me.

“Why did you come here? You can’t come for booty calls and then tell me I’m not good enough to be your girlfriend.”

He set his container down on the side table and turned to face me.

“That’s not what I said.”

“You didn’t need to, ass**le. Actions speak louder than words.”

He nodded. My chopsticks froze on the way to my mouth. I had expected him to at least put up a fight … deny it.

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

He took my container of curry and my chopsticks and put them next to his. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand while he was distracted. Something big was happening. I could feel it.

He pulled me onto his lap so that I was straddling him.

“I’m only going to talk about this once. No questions, okay?”

I nodded.

“I was with her for three years. I loved her … love her,” he amended. Jealousy rushed. That’s all it did — rushed through me with nowhere to go. It felt like I was going to pop from the pressure. I bit the insides of my cheeks.

“You never quite stop loving someone when you're in that deep.” His eyes kind of glazed over at that point. “Anyway, we were really young … and stupid. I couldn’t control her the way I wanted to; she was too strong for me. I made a really bad decision one night and she caught me.”

“You cheated on her?” Up until that point I had kept my mouth shut, too afraid to speak in case it broke the rare chatty moment he was having.

The muscles in his jaw clenched, and his nostrils flared.

“Yes — no.” He rubbed his forehead. “I was...” He dropped his hand to my hip. He looked so tortured that I reached up to put my palm against his cheek. I knew a little about Caleb’s father. He was a notorious womanizer. Currently, he was married to a woman younger than me. It was his fourth marriage. From what I gathered from Caleb, he highly disapproved of his father’s behavior, so cheating was coming as quite a surprise to me.

“I’m not a cheater, Leah. But, God that woman doesn’t trust anyone…”

I took a deep breath and let it ooze from between my lips. He watched me carefully, trying to gauge my response.

“But, did you do anything with her?”

“Not technically — no.”

I didn’t understand what he was saying. Did he think that he cheated just because he wanted to cheat? Did he want to cheat?

“Leah,” he swiped my hair over my shoulder, his fingers brushing against my skin. I shivered. We were having a serious discussion and all I could think about was —

I shook my head in frustration. “Either you f**ked her or you didn’t.”

He sighed. “I never cheated on her. Not in the traditional sense of the word.”

“God, I don’t even know what that means.”

He tilted his head back and laughed. “Obviously our moral compasses do not point in the same direction.”

I blushed. A rare thing for me to do.

“Leah,” he said. “I like you. More than I should at this point. But, I’m still a mess. I can’t be in a relationship if I’m only in halfway. I still love her.”

My eyes filled with tears. He was telling me that he couldn’t even try to love me because he loved someone else.

“Fuck.” I swung my legs off of him and sat on my side of the bed. The sheet was pushed down to his waist. I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. His face was wiped of emotion.

“So what are you saying? May I remind you that you showed up on my doorstep, not the other way around?”

He laughed, and tackling me to my back, he leaned over me.

“I am very attracted to you.” He kissed my nose. “I care about you. When you left the other night, you were hurt.”

“Yes, I was.”

“And now?”

I smiled up at him. “Now, I’m hurting in a different way.”

He laughed. He had a great laugh. It started as a rumble in his chest and then rolled out in a smooth, raspy wave. Every time I made him laugh, I felt triumphant.

I suddenly grew serious. “I can make you forget her.”

His lips were still curled in a half smile. His eyes grew foggy as he looked down at my mouth.

“Yeah?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“Okay, Red,” he said, softly winding a piece of my hair around his finger.

I giggled — also an unusual thing for me to do. Red. I liked that.

He kissed me softly and slid on top of me.

We made love. It was the first time in my life that someone made love to me. It had always just been sex.

I fell hard that day.

Chapter Nine