Page 112 of Wyatt

“Why I’mupset?” She rounded on him. “I’m sorry, I know I’m being a little selfish right now. But, for Pete’s sake, York. Why didn’t you tell me you had a son?”

He went a shade of white she’d never seen before, as if she’d punched him in the solar plexus, and actually reached out for a hold on the swing set.

It made her stop. Frown.

Really? “York?”

“I…” He swallowed and looked away from her. Blew out a breath. “Yeah, I guess you would have found out. I mean, you are a CIA analyst. I…” He shook his head, swallowed. “It’s not like it’s classified.”

She stared at him and wanted to hit him over the head. “No, it’snotclassified,” she said. “It’s pretty obvious.”

“I didn’t think…well, I suppose it’s not like the information isn’t out there. I just thought, well, I don’t know why I’d think it would be sealed. It’s not like they had any reason to protect me.”

What?

He glanced at her. “It happened while I was still a Marine. It was a stupid mistake and I…I’ll never forgive myself.”

“That might be going a little far. I mean, it’s not like, well, things like thisdohappen.”

“No. Not to me. I thought I was a better man than that.”

Huh. Her too, actually, but she didn’t say that.

“She was pretty and smart and innocent, and the first moment I met her, I…I loved her.”

Yeah well, Coco was all that and more. RJ might be talking to Wyatt for the way York was describing her. RJ’s chest tightened, hating the spurt of jealousy.

What was she doing here, chasing a man who clearly still loved the woman upstairs?

“She was also the daughter of the American Ambassador to Russia, and clearly off limits to a guy like me.”

RJ froze. Wait…

“Her name was Claire, and she was a student at the University of Moscow.”

RJ’s brain simply stopped working.

He walked over to a swing, sat down.

“I was asked once in a while, as part of the personal attachment to the ambassador, to watch over her, and…one night we ended up having dinner. That’s how it started—over Cokes and pizza. I got assigned permanently to her detail, and we fell in love. I’d never felt that way about anyone.”

She lowered herself into a swing next to him.

“I asked her to marry me, and she said yes. It was a really dumb move, but we were young, and she thought if we were already married when her father found out…”

He took a breath, glanced at her, then away again.

“We eloped. Went to Paris, got married, and thought the world was ours.”

He’d beenmarried.

RJ just tried to listen.

“She’d told her father that she was taking a school trip. I was young and a coward. I should have talked to her father, but…well, by the time we got back, she was pregnant, and her father had me fired.”

Coco’s words from weeks past rose like a ghost in the back of her mind.I think he had something terrible happen to him…

Oh no.

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