Page 126 of Just Like Home

He shrugged. “Now things are different. You’re with Max, and I—” No. He wouldn’t tell her anything about where he was. She hadn’t earned that right.

“And if I wasn’t?”

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and focused on the ground. “If you weren’t what?”

“With Max.” She’d stopped swaying and now turned all of her attention on him.

He drew in a breath. This was uncharted territory. He’d always believed that marriage vows were eternal. She’d never been faithful to those vows, but he had. He hadn’t been with anyone else since the day he met Gemma, not even on a date.

But he’d spent the last several months trying to forget her—to forgive her even though she wasn’t sorry—to move on.

That was the extent of his thoughts about Gemma. He didn’t have capacity to consider anything else.

“You’re not with Max?”

She buried her face in her hands and cried, shaking her head. “It happened again, Cole.”

He frowned. “What happened?”

“I lost another one.”

Cole stilled.

“I know it’s not your job to console me, especially after everything I’ve done to hurt you—”

Cole stiffened, then forced a question. “What did Max say?”

Gemma scoffed. “He said it was better this way. Said a baby would complicate everything.”

Cole didn’t point out that for a married man, yes, a baby with his mistress would absolutely complicate things.

“He was just so flippant.” She reached over and took Cole’s hand. He didn’t move. “I guess I took for granted how kind you were the first time I miscarried.”

“You took a lot of things for granted, Gemma.”

“I know, Cole,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

He pulled his hand away. They’d been here before. In fact, this was how they started. The only reason she’d ever come on to Cole in the first place was because she wanted to make Max jealous. It worked too. Max came running back, but Gemma failed to break things off with Cole.

And then she got pregnant, and Max reacted then exactly as he had reacted now, and Gemma got scared. So, she seduced Cole and told him the baby was his. She knew Cole would do the right thing. After she miscarried, Max returned, and the affair started up again, making Cole the biggest fool in the world.

He’d fallen in love with a wife and unborn baby that were never his.

“Gemma, you don’t deserve this,” Cole said. “I don’t know why you’re giving this guy the best of you when he’s clearly not doing the same. You deserve better.” He was surprised to discover he meant it. And while he knew Gemma didn’t love him, not really, he did want to see her with someone other than Max.

Nobody deserved to be mistreated like this.

She dragged the back of her arm across her nose, still crying. “I really messed up with you.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, you did.”

She found his eyes. “Would you ever want to start over? Try again?”

The ill-timed question hung there, and while his heart knew the answer, his sense of duty seemed to be arguing.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and she pulled it out, looked at it, and then looked at Cole. “It’s him.”

He didn’t say anything as she clicked a button, then held the phone to her ear.

---