“We met on your birthday.”
She snorted. “Crystal lied. It wasn’t my birthday. I’m October, not April.”
Well, didn’t he feel a fool. He’d been using that date as one of his pin codes for years.
The warmth that greeted Lauren as she entered was like a welcoming hug. It wasn’t just the central heat, but the open plan and soft lines in the overstuffed furnishings. Even the kitchen with its shiny appliances was a sunny place that encouraged lingering.
“The house is a hundred years old, but the interior was redone last year. Take off your shoes. The tiles are warm,” Paolo said.
She did, sighing as she moved through the rooms of heritage blue and sea foam green with splashes of sunset yellow and moody indigo. Upstairs in the master bedroom, translucent curtains framed the windows while French doors led to a private balcony overlooking the lake. The house was roomy yet cozy, extravagant, yet practical. She felt at home.
Damn you, Paolo.
Returning to the kitchen, she found him with his sleeves rolled back, water set to boil on the stove as he chopped fragrant herbs on a cutting board.
“You were serious,” she said, utterly taken aback.
“Of course.”
“Huh. I’ve been doing the cooking for so long I can’t remember what it’s like to watch.” She looked out all the windows, fingers trailing the smooth edges of windowsills and cupboard doors, eating up quaint details in the decor so she wouldn’t gawk at the handsome man moving with such confident economy around the spacious kitchen.
“Why didn’t you want to marry him?” Paolo asked behind her, startling her with the question that nudged like a hard shove.
She glanced back, mentally taking a photo of his masculine grace as he skimmed the herbs off the cutting board into a saucepan, filling the room with scents of crushed garlic and tangy basil.
“That was hindsight talking,” she clarified, turning back to the window. “Five years of realizing I’d married the wrong kind of man. If I wasted my youth on anything, it was waiting for my husband to come home and start our life together. He was never going to.”#p#????#e#
“Because he was a military man.”
She felt her shoulders fall. More doormat behavior, coming up.
“I don’t want to talk about this, Paolo. You’ll call me a liar, and the lie is acting like Ryan was a flawless hero who deserved my devotion and still does. I can’t keep doing it. I’m too angry with him. It’s another reason I had to get away. People kept offering me sympathy and I’m ready to spit venom. It’s not nice.”
“Because he wasn’t honest about not wanting children.”
Her chest swelled with unspoken anger. “He wasn’t honest about anything,” she said, trying to keep her voice even and failing miserably.
Silence.
She curled her fingers in the white lace curtain, trying to hold the guilty anguish at bay, but it pressed outward, making her shoulders ache and her throat sting.
“I asked him for a divorce,” she choked out, unable to hold it back. “He didn’t want to give it to me. I keep thinking he was distracted and that’s what got him killed.”
CHAPTER FIVE
PAOLO HAD NEARLY blown off his fingers at eleven, playing with fireworks. This felt like that same moment of realizing he was too close, a life-changing explosion imminent.
Lauren wore the same shattered look she’d had on her face when he had arrived at the Bradleys’. Her skin was nearly translucent, her eyes like bruises. The tiniest flicker of dimming hope quested in her gaze. Please tell me it’s not true.
An instinctive need to cradle and comfort her had him taking a step toward her before he stopped himself. Was he insane? She had just admitted to being at fault for Ryan’s death!
With a distracted glance around, he got his bearings, remembered he was cooking, but at least he was at a point where he could let things simmer since his concentration was shot. He pushed a heavy hand through his hair.
“Why?” he demanded. “Why would you do that to him? Because he wasn’t coming home often enough? You knew what you were marrying.”
“Did I, Paolo? Did I really?” She turned all the way around, blinking wet eyes as she fought for control, arms protectively crossed over her chest.
“He was serving his country,” he insisted, hammering the points he’d used to justify to himself why Ryan deserved this woman. “Was it so hard to step outside yourself and see there are bigger things than playing house?”
“I wasn’t playing!” She came a few steps toward him, angry energy spinning around her like a funnel cloud.