Dirtiest Secret (SIN 1)

"But not about you. He only knows about me. And you didn't tell him that you were there, too."

"He was talking about you and what was said in the papers. And back then, no one paid attention to me. I went to London with the company, and supposedly that's where I stayed when I didn't return to school. And besides," I add, swallowing the bile that has risen in my throat, "they only kept me for three weeks. They held on to you for four more weeks after they let me go. So--"

"So you were there with the family for anyone who was curious to see," he says. "Yeah, I get that," he adds. "Fuck," he says, and there's no denying the anger with which he spits out the word.

I'm absolutely flabbergasted, and I push off from the bookcase and go to him. I start to

take his hand, but pull away at the last second. I can't do it. I can't touch him. I can't comfort him. All I can do is stand there and ask him why.

"I don't get it," I say. "This is good news. Why don't you think this is good news?" I hear my voice rising, and hate myself for it. I've spent seventeen years working to control my emotions. To not slide into weepiness or hysteria. And I'm not about to backslide now. "What the hell is going on in your head?"

"You really never told Bill?" he presses. "Never in all the time you were married told him that you'd been kidnapped? Not in all the time that you were researching your book?"

"I--the book was about those kids on the bus. Not about me. I never--" I lick my lips. "I never saw any reason to tell him."

Dallas just looks at me and nods, and I think he sees more than I want him to. I think he realizes that telling Bill would have brought the man who was legally my husband closer to my heart than I could handle. But more than that, I think Dallas knows that telling Bill would have meant acknowledging how much Dallas and I meant to each other in those cold, dark days. And that wasn't somewhere I was willing to go. Not then.

Not even now.

I stand straighter. "This doesn't have anything to do with what I told Bill before." My voice is firm, and I remind myself that I really don't have to defend my marriage. Especially not to Dallas. "It's about now. It's about this Ortega guy."

"You're right. It is. What's hubby going to do?"

His words are so harsh I have to resist the urge to storm out of the room and leave him to his stupid, confusing anger or jealousy or whatever the hell it is. But I tell myself he's in shock. I waltzed in here when he least expected me, when he'd been partying and drinking and fucking, and when he sure as hell hadn't wanted to see me.

I've gotten in his face and laid a huge new reality on his head. Maybe I wanted him to react differently, but what I wanted or expected isn't really the issue. He's got to deal in his own way. I can handle that. I can respect it.

I just don't get it.

But I try. I take a deep breath and I really do try. "He wants to talk to you," I admit. "And he wants to talk to Dad. He wants to pursue it, of course. There's no statute of limitations on kidnapping. He wants to figure out who did this to you. To us," I add softly, because if this does go forward, I'm going to have to tell Bill the truth. "He wants to find the bastard and lock him away forever."

"That's what you want?" he demands. "You want to dredge all that up again?"

"Dredge?" I repeat. "I don't have to dredge up a goddamn thing." My voice is rising with both anger and frustration. How can he not understand this?

"It's right there at the surface," I continue, "no dredging required. I live with it every single day." A tear escapes, but I don't swipe it away. I just look at him. I just stare, not understanding what's going through his head, this man I thought I knew. "Don't you?" I ask plaintively. "Don't you live with it, too?"

I can't read all the emotions that flash like lightning across his face. But I see the pain, and I regret that I've pushed him.

"Every day," he whispers. "Every minute, every hour." He closes his eyes, and when he opens them again he is looking at me honestly, and for the first time in forever I think that I'm seeing him again--the real Dallas. The man who captured my heart without even trying. The man who was my best friend. And, yes, the love of my life.

"I miss you," he says, so softly and simply that my chest tightens and more tears spill out onto my cheeks.

Without thinking, I step toward him. He stiffens, but he doesn't move. I can see the pain on his face, and I want to touch him--and not just to soothe. And, damn us both, it's clear that he wants to touch me, too.

A sharp twang of anger rises through me--not aimed at him, but at myself. Because I should be able to control this desire. To push it down.

But I can't. I've never been able to. That's why I stay away. Why our time together is limited to family functions and very rare, unavoidable occasions. And even then, we're careful around each other, as if we are porcelain dolls, each afraid of breaking the other.

Our parents believe our distance is because of our shared pain. That being together for holidays and family events makes the ghosts come back.

But that's not really it. I'm not haunted by pain, but by passion.

I feel denied. I feel cheated. Because what was perfect and right and saved us in the dark is forbidden in the light.

I steel myself against this harsh reality. There are so many things in this world I want, but cannot have.

This man is only one of them.