Never Say Never, Part Two (Second Chance Romance, Book 2) (5 page)

“You didn’t take the break up seriously?”
He asked, incredulous at that particular admission. “You slept with another man!”
 

He leapt to his feet and she shrank back on the couch. Another thing Emily would never do. She’d be up and fighting right back, with that fire in her eyes and the sway in her step. God he missed that.
 

“I’m sorry, baby, I’m sorry. Okay? Do you get that?”
Janet’s blue eyes went teary.
 

“Why did you do it?”
 

She spluttered for a few seconds, shocked that he’d asked the question apparently, but she owed him answers. Three years, damn straight she owed him some answers.
 

“I was lost without you.”
 

“What are you saying, Janet? I never left you.”
 

“You were married to the job, busy with work, getting home at this time every night.”
She pointed at the clock ticking on the wall, a silver construction, its black hands pointed to the time: 8:00 pm.

“And that means you can sleep with someone else?”
He wanted to refute her claims but the guilt had already gathered. Chase had ignored her when they were together. He’d had the ring because he’d thought it was the right thing to do, but the love he’d felt for her wasn’t as strong as what he’d experience with Emily.
 

He saw the flaws now.
 

In himself and in her.
 

Chase stood and walked away. Janet followed and grabbed him by the arm.
 

“You can’t tell me you’ve given up on this.”
She leveraged him and tried to swing him around, but he was a rock and she swung instead.
 

“I can’t sink with you, Janet.”
It was an echo.
 

“Give me another chance to prove myself, Chasey. I’ll never let you down again. I’ll treat you like gold and show you what it feels like to be a man.”
 

“Why should I?”
 

Janet searched for an answer, gaze flicking from side-to-side, desperate to prove herself in some way. Then he saw it. This woman wanted him. She wanted to be with him when Emily had never show that need, that real desire to be a part of his life.
 

She’d pushed him aside constantly, made him believe that he wasn’t worth her time or the trouble. Who was he kidding, here? Emily didn’t want him to be a part of her little adventure. That was the real reason she hadn’t let him in on her real past.
 

She wasn’t afraid. She was frigid.
 

But Janet, she wanted his attention, craved it actually.

“All right.”
 

“You’ll go out with me?”
 

Chase took a deep breath. “Dinner, tomorrow night. Pick you up at eight.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

The front door was the same as she remembered it. Brian hadn’t bothered to polish the knocker, as usual, but the small carving in the doorjamb was still there. She’d done it with the kids on a hot summer’s day while they were out in the front yard, scoffing down watermelon and giggling.
 

Emily shifted her feet in their pumps and stretched her neck. This was it.
 

Years of waiting and fearing, but she was finally here. The fear was gone, replaced by that anger and need to see her little ones. To get the life she deserved.
 

Brian would open up and tell her to leave and she’d say no. She had every right to see her kids, after all. She wasn’t prohibited from it.
 

Emily rapped her knuckles on the wood instead of using the knocker. It was an ostentatious thing anyway.
 

There were footsteps on the other side, a scrabbling of the lock, and the door swung open.
 

“Jesus H, is that you, Emily?”
 

It was Amanda.

Amanda, her ex-best friend from High School and College, with her bleach blonde hair in an up style and bright pink Barbie lipstick on her overly full mouth. She primped and preened, pasting a white-toothed smile on bronze skin –
hours spent in the tanning salon, no doubt. Classy.
 

“What are you doing here?”
Emily didn’t want to believe this.
 

“I live here.”
Amanda smacked her lips and checked her cougar-length pink nails.
 

Emily let the information sink in.
 

They’d had a long standing competition since they were kids, but she’d crossed the line with this.
 

“Are you insane?”
 

“No, I’m Mrs. Ross.”
Amanda twiddled the fingers of her left hand, displaying a fat diamond on an engagement ring and a white gold wedding band. “For what is it, five years now?”
 

Five years. That meant they’d married six months after she’d gone to prison.
 

“How?”
 

“We’d been seeing each other on and off for years before you had your little mishap and went away. Brian was about to ask you for a divorce when it happened and then he did anyway.”
 

Emily nodded slowly. It made sense and it enraged her.

How could she forget? Brian’s long absences during the week, the ‘event’, the trial, and receiving the divorce papers on the morning she was sentenced. He’d never been one for tact, rather one for cruelty.
 

“Well,”
Emily remarked and Amanda’s eyes lit up, this was still some kind of sick game to her, “I wish you two the best of luck. I’m positive you deserve each other.”
 

“Amanda?”
A young boy appeared behind her nemesis.
 

Emily’s heart froze and her mind went numb.

It was Jared. He was ten whole years old, five years older than when she’d last seen him, and he was gorgeous.
 

Her son. His blonde hair was curly just as she remembered it, but those green eyes had seen more. They were defensive.
 

“Jared,”
Emily breathed and he peered around Amanda at her. “Jared, it’s me.”
 

His mouth dropped open and he backed off until he hit the marble banister behind him.
 

Maybe he didn’t recognize her.
 

“Jared, where’s Becci? It’s mommy, please will you go fetch her?”
 

“Don’t you talk to him,”
Amanda threatened, extending a pink fingernail in warning.
 

“Jared?”
 

“What do you want?”
His demeanor hardened and he folded his arms. “Here to say hello and leave us again? Well, you can leave right now. I’m not going to let you put my sister through that again.”

Emily gripped at the cotton shirt she wore, twisting the bit over her heart.
 

“It wasn’t a choice, Jared. You have to understand that.”
 

He was so big and already cynical. It made her insides ache to hold him close and wipe away whatever influence Brian and his poisonous new wife had over him. She couldn’t bear this. She had to get them away before they became images of their ‘mentors’.
 

“Jared, go to your room.”
Amanda turned and dismissed him with a flutter of those venomous-looking talons.
 

“I don’t have to listen to you,”
he answered, then meandered off with a glance back at his mother.
 

“We’re done here.”
Amanda gripped the edge of the door and made to close it, but Emily stuck her foot in and blocked it.
 

“I don’t think so.”
Emily’s snarl whipped through the air and her ex-best friend drew in a sharp breath.
 

“Brian won’t like you being here. Get lost.”
 

Emily moved in quick and close. “Let me make something very clear,
bestie
, you might be bedding my ex-husband, but you are not the mother of my children.”
 

“Fuck off, you loser.”
Amanda banged the bottom of the door into her foot repeatedly, but she didn’t retract it.
 

This anger tack wouldn’t work with this woman. She was too stubborn.
 

This was her fault anyway. If she’d never left, if she’d stayed sober that night after discovering Brian’s betrayal –
she hadn’t realized the other woman was actually her best friend –
she’d never have ended up in this situation.
 

She studied the woman’s expression and chewed her lip.
 

“All right,”
she said, relenting. “I’m sorry for interfering, but you’ve got to understand what it’s like, Amanda. You were with me for it all. You were the only friend I had.”
 

The door creaked open a sliver.
 

“I just –”
Emily bowed under the pressure of her rage and guilt and let tears spill forth, using them to manipulate Amanda. If she could get her out of the house and away from Brian, she might be able to get information on the kid’s movements. Then she could meet up with them unfettered.
 

“What?”
Amanda slipped out onto the porch and shut the door behind her, glancing in either direction, the concern seemed genuine. But so had their friendship during years of marriage when she’d slept with Brian behind Emily’s back.
 

“I’ve lost everything and the kids are the only thing I have left. And hopefully our friendship will be too.”
 

“I can’t be friends with you.”
 

It was because of Brian. Emily could almost taste the fear. He had her under his fat cat thumb.
 

“Of course you can. He doesn’t own you.”
 

That was Brian’s main operative. Owning women, making them do what he wanted, then tossing them aside when they’d exhausted their usefulness.
 

“I don’t want to hear it, Emily.”
Amanda started closing up again.
 

“Look, you don’t have to be friends with me right away.”
Emily interrupted her shut out. “Let’s go out for coffee or dinner and we’ll catch up. We can leave it at that if you want, but I just need a friend right now.”
 

Amanda folded her arms again.
 

Emily swallowed her pride and focused on the vision of her son.
 

“Please?”
Her oldest friend didn’t respond. “Come on, Amanda, please?”
 

A heavy sigh followed by a shrug and a small smug smile. “All right. But tonight and not a word of it to anyone else.”

“Who am I going to tell?”
 

Amanda didn’t answer but went back into the house and the scrape of the lock sliding home sent a clear message. It was time to leave.
 

Emily walked back to her car, jangling her keys along with her nerves. She had to find a way to get custody or at least proper visiting rights, but if Brian was set on disallowing her, then she’d have to use other methods.
 

Anything she had at her disposal.

Things were about to get real.

CHAPTER EIGHT

It wasn’t El Paso and it wasn’t the uppity French place Chastity had taken her before she’d met Chase.
 

It was Co. the pizzeria in Chelsea and they sat at communal tables with the pie between them and a beer a piece.
 

The wood bar was nearby and the lights swinging overhead set a calm ambience which didn’t match Emily’s mood in the slightest.
 

“Nice place,”
Amanda remarked, taking a measured sip of the beer and grimacing, “if you like this kind of thing.”
 

Amanda had never had an issue with beer in college. In fact, she’d downed plenty of the stuff, directly from kegs at frat parties. Then again, there were many things she’d ‘downed’
during those years and nights.
 

“This kind of thing?”
 

“Yeah, you know, the whole middle class kind of,”
Amanda paused and waved to encompass the restaurant’s interior, “pizza thing. I don’t know, I’m not used to it anymore.”