Matter of Time (14 page)

He didn’t intend to tell her about Lizbeth, especially not with everything else going on right now, but he needed to be clear about where things stood between them. The best way to do that was to let her know he was preparing to enter the next phase of his life. A phase that most definitely didn’t include her.

Recognizing this conversation required more finesse than he normally used with Bobbi Jo, he sank into the chair and searched the depths of his soul for every ounce of compassion he still felt for the mother of his children. “Bobbie Jo, you and I are never, ever getting back together.” A flash memory of his girls dancing and singing to a Taylor Swift song about this very subject blinked in his mind, and he briefly wondered if he should pull it up on his phone as background music for emphasis. “We’ve never been good together. You have to see that the same as me.”

She let the sheet slip provocatively down onto the swell of her breast and crawled to the end of the bed to be closer to his chair. “How can you say we’ve never been good? Every couple has their tough spots, but two people can’t be together as long as us and not love each other.”

Jesus, why did she insist on beating this dead horse? “You know as well as I do the only reason we were together was because of the kids. And because you’re the mother of my children, I’ll always care about you. But I don’t love you the way a husband should. I’m not sure I ever have.”

He winced as her face crumpled and tears filled her eyes, but she held them at bay and studied him like a lab rat she was about to dissect. After several minutes, she asked, “Is there someone else?”

She surprised him by making that jump. She wasn’t normally very perceptive, especially when it came to him, but he was also relieved to have it out there. “Yeah, there is.”

She raised the sheet a couple inches and swallowed hard. “Were you with her this weekend?” She paused and drew back. “Did you meet her at Lucas’s club?”

The tight pinch of her eyes and the set of her jaw clearly projected her opinion about Lucas’s
filthy
establishment. He considered letting her continue thinking the woman was someone with less history than he and Lizbeth shared, since it might be the thing that pushed her past the point of reconciliation. But he refused to lessen his relationship with Lizbeth to a weekend hookup in a kink club.

“It’s not someone I just met. Although, we did just recently reconnect.”

Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open. “You met her while we were married?” Her words were a harsh, accusatory whisper.

“No.”
Grrr…
Anger and frustration scraped along his nerve endings, even though he understood why she would come to that conclusion. With a huff of irritation, he said, “I never cheated on you if that’s what you’re thinking.”

She thought on that for a moment. “Then you can’t have known her for that long, so it’s not serious. Right?” Renewed hope filled her voice and lit her eyes.

Damn her. He was trying to be kind and spare her the details, but she was going to force him to tell her the whole story.

After taking a moment to consider his options—and realizing he didn’t have many if he were going to end this conversation here and now—he said, “Lizbeth and I were dating when I found out about Brianna.”

A soft gasp fell from her lips, and he thought maybe he should stop there. But she forced this issue, and he was going to make her hear all the details. Tell her what he gave up all those years ago, how much he’d sacrificed for his children, and make damn sure she understood he wouldn’t give up Lizbeth again.

“I ended my relationship with her when I went back to Raleigh to get my things. And until this past Friday, I hadn’t seen her since. But Lucas ran into her at Christmas, found out she wasn’t married, and arranged for us to meet in Myrtle Beach.” He paused and looked at her, making sure she saw the truth in his eyes. “I never cheated on you in college. And I never cheated on you during our marriage. She and I were friends while you and I were together, and then when we broke up, Lizbeth and I got together. I didn’t see her after I left Raleigh. I never searched for her. And I tried like hell to never think about her. But this weekend, I discovered I still love her, and I
am
going to have a future with her.”

Bobbi Jo’s mouth hung open as she stared at him through tear-filled blue eyes. She swallowed roughly, glanced around the bed, the bedroom, then back to him before tucking the sheet back under her chin. He wasn’t sure what he expected her to say… Really, what was there to say? But she always had a comeback for everything, and the eerie silence settling around them grated on his nerves, further irritating him.

After several moments of nothingness, he glanced at the clock on the nightstand and rubbed his burning, grit-filled eyes. Ten was early for someone who didn’t go to bed until almost five, but not for most of the world, and he wondered if Lizbeth was awake yet.

And then he remembered he’d forgotten to let her know he made it home safely.
Shit.
He’d been so caught up in trying to soothe the kids and—he huffed with disgust—comforting Bobbi Jo, he hadn’t done the
one
thing Lizbeth asked him to do.

Christ, you’re off to stellar start, asshole.

He didn’t want to call her while in the same room with Bobbi Jo, and he didn’t want to send a general text either. He’d gotten quite proficient at apologizing over the past six hours, so he figured he’d wait until later in the day and draw on all that practice to get himself out of the hole he’d undoubtedly dug himself into.

Right now, he needed space. And after that early morning wake-up from Bobbi Jo, he needed a shower, so he grabbed a pair of underwear and jeans from his bag and headed toward the bathroom. “I’m going to shower and grab breakfast. We need to get you and the kids some clothes and meet the insurance adjuster at the house at three.”

Still sitting there unmoving, barely blinking or breathing, she eventually nodded in acknowledgement.

He wanted to keep walking into the bathroom without turning back or even caring, but he found himself stopping in the doorway and pivoting on his heel. “Are you okay?”

She nodded and licked her lips, then slowly lifted her gaze to him. “I will be. It’ll just take some time.”

Time?
“We’ve been separated thirteen months. Did you honestly think things would change between us?”

She looked away and licked her lips again. “Yeah, I thought…” She shrugged and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“I’m sorry.” He was worse than a parrot. “I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

The tears sliding down her face caused a pang of remorse to cut through him—it was sad their lives had come to this. But at the same time, he couldn’t remember a time, at least not in the past fifteen years, when he’d felt this free and unencumbered. And if he felt this good now, he couldn’t wait to see how amazing it would be when he and Lizbeth were finally together for good.

L
izbeth stretched her sore and achy muscles, yawned, and cracked an eye open to glance at the bedside clock.

Holy crap, two o’clock?

She hadn’t slept that late on a Sunday since she was a teenager, but oddly enough, she couldn’t summon any guilt over having snoozed away most of the day. Stretching again, she became aware of an odd ache in her hand and realized she still held the cell phone she’d gone to sleep clutching to her chest.

Logan promised to text when he got home, and when she crawled into bed at four thirty this morning, she still hadn’t heard from him. Afraid of slipping into a sound sleep and missing the ping of a text, or possibly even a call, she set the ringer to loud as well as vibrate, then held it against her chest.

Unfortunately, she hadn’t gotten a text or a call, and the ache settling into her heart was ten times worse than that of her overworked muscles.

She dropped the phone onto the nightstand and groaned with frustration as a fresh wave of fear and doubt swept in. “Come on, Lizbeth,” she grumbled, tossing off the sheet to stand. “He had a lot to deal with when he got home. This doesn’t mean anything. Stop being such a worrier.”

Logically, she knew that was true. But logic didn’t control the heart, and hers had already been eviscerated once by Logan. Forcing it to have faith would be a full-time job, and even though she’d gotten nearly ten hours of sleep, she didn’t have the energy to put up the good fight and force it to believe.

At this point, the only thing she could do was shower, dress, pack, and drive home. And once there, she’d get back to the regularly scheduled programming of her life and hope like hell Logan became a part of it like he promised he would.

After showering and dressing in casual clothes for the drive, she packed her bags and grabbed her cell phone to drop in her purse. Seeing she had a missed call, her heart lurched, then plummeted when caller ID revealed an 843 area code rather than Logan’s number. Assuming it was Lucas, she entered her passcode and listened to the voicemail.

“Hey, Lizbeth. Hope you slept well. I’m downstairs in the office, getting caught up on paperwork. Let me know when you’re ready, and I’ll get your car from the garage.”

Crap. She forgot her car was in the parking deck and there wouldn’t be valet services on Sunday afternoon.

After another quick glance around the room to make sure she had everything, she made her way down the stairs and into the club with her suitcase
clomp-thumping
behind. With the lights on and the music off, it seemed like an entirely different building than the one she’d been in the past two nights.

On Friday night, she only saw a few theme rooms before she and Logan made a mad dash upstairs. But last night, not wanting to sit in the room alone, she wandered downstairs to check out the club more thoroughly. She had to admit most of what she saw fascinated, intrigued, and excited her.

At the bottom of the stairs, she took a hard left into the hallway that had once been the front row of the theater. Fortunately, she’d accompanied Lucas to his office last evening, so she knew exactly where to go and didn’t need to wander around the building like a lost toddler looking for her parent. Turning right into the hallway that ran parallel to the exterior of the building, she continued on until she reached the front wall and a side door that led to another hall where the mechanics of the building were housed. After passing the restrooms and a series of closed doors, she knocked on the door casing of Lucas’s office and stuck her head inside. “Hi.”

Lucas lifted his gaze from the drafting table in the corner and grinned. “Good afternoon. I was beginning to wonder if I should come and check on you.”

She laughed and ducked her head as heat infused her face. “I had no idea it was so late. I guess I was more exhausted than I realized.”

A wicked glimmer filled his eyes and his mouth drew up in a grin. She knew what he was thinking—
all that wild monkey sex will do that to you
—but surprisingly, he kept his thoughts to himself.

She’d slipped into the ladies’ room last evening while Lucas ran to his office, so this was her first look into his personal space. His desk was old and worn, and she wondered if it might’ve been an original piece leftover from the club’s previous life as a theater. A matching credenza sat against the back wall, and several wooden file cabinets stood beside the credenza. On the wall to her right, was a wet bar and a small cluster of chairs, probably for informal business meetings, on the left, an area that looked like it belonged in his home rather than an office. A leather couch, two chairs, and a coffee table faced a massive high-def television hanging on the wall. At the end of that wall, in the corner, was a door that led into a bathroom. Lucas told her he spent a lot of time at Pandora’s since his divorce, and from the look and feel of his office, she’d bet he was as comfortable here as at home.

“Your office is amazing.”

“Believe it or not,” he said, moving closer, “this isn’t my main office. I spend the majority of my time at my architectural firm in North Myrtle Beach.”

She studied him for a minute, then glanced around the space again. “Yeah, but this is the office you prefer.”

He propped a hip on the corner of his desk and crossed his arms. “That’s very true.”

As an awkward silence grew, she glanced away and asked the question she’d been determined not to. “Have you talked to Logan?”

“No.” Surprised by his response, she snapped her attention back to him and found him shaking his head. “I tried calling him this morning, but it went straight to voicemail. I’m guessing he forgot to charge his phone when he got home and it died overnight.”

Worry for Logan’s safety flared in her chest, but she reminded herself, as his next of kin, if something awful happened, Lucas would’ve been notified.

“This situation sucks, and it’ll make things more complicated for you guys in the short term, but be patient with him. He’s more like our mother than I am, and his major fault, the one that’s ruled his life up until now, is that he takes his responsibilities seriously and can’t tell anyone no, especially those closest to him. Knowing Bobbi Jo, she’ll try to use this situation to manipulate Logan any way she can. But he’ll get himself untangled, if for no other reason than to be with you. You’ve waited fifteen years. A little longer can’t hurt. Right?”