Page 53 of Cross-Checked

“Please don’t tell me you had them removed a third time.”

I think back to the month-long recovery that sidelined me for a third summer in a row. “I did.”

“And they came back?”

“Of course they did.”

“Was he more reasonable about your choice after that?”

I can tell how sad my smile is by the way his lips turn down at the corners in response. His face keeps changing expression, and I wish I could hear the thoughts in his head.

“So what happened then?”

“I went ahead with the partial hysterectomy the following summer, even though he still didn’t want me to.” I watch his jaw tic. “And then once it was done, he had this whole narrative about how I always knew I wouldn’t be able to have kids and I’d trapped him. I know he just wanted to put the blame on me, because he’d look like the asshole if he left me after all I’d gone through.”

“He was already an asshole, either way,” McCabe says with a humorless laugh.

“He put on a good show at the beginning. We were married for years before I started seeing his true colors. Honestly, I didn’t even know that having kids was that important to him. I don’t think it was, actually, until it was something I couldn’t give him.”

The way McCabe’s hand is sliding down my arm, smoothing out the shiver that’s rippled through my body at all these memories, has me practically melting into these sheets.

Why am I so relaxed around him? Why do I want to tell him things I’ve never told anyone outside my family?

“Is that where your marriage fell apart?”

“Yeah, that was kind of the nail in the coffin, so to speak. My hysterectomy was the summer before your last season in St. Louis. What you walked into in the hallway that day, it was one of the many fights we’d been having about me not being able to give him children.”

“Did you guys consider adopting?”

I make the fakest shocked face I can as I say, “And ruin his perfect pedigree? The horror.” I release a heavy sigh. “I even suggested a surrogate, since I’d had eggs removed and frozen during my last surgery, but he wouldn’t hear of it.”

In reality, I think I’d wanted kids more than Chet did. He just wanted something to hold over my head. I’d been angry at myself for years after I finally figured that out. But now, I justfeel sad that I wasted so much time and emotional energy on him, and on trying to save our sham of a marriage.

“And you wanted kids?” He asks the question tentatively, like he knows the answer but wants to make sure he’s not making assumptions.

I didn’t intend to tell him any of this. It feels way too personal to share with someone I hardly know. Lying here with him, while the light has faded and the moon has risen, makes it feel like we’re in our own little world—one where I’m not his boss, and he’s not a hot-headed hockey player I don’t even like. Instead, we’re just two people connecting on a deeper level.

I gulp, trying to push down all the emotions rising to the surface. “More than anything.”

His gaze searches mine, brow pinched slightly. “How did he not see how much you were hurting, and support you through that?” He shakes his head before adding, “How do you treat someone you love that way?”

“I’m pretty sure that the only person Chet loves is himself. You want to know the real kicker in all this?”

He sighs, and his warm breath mingles with mine in the small space between our bodies. “Please don’t tell me it gets worse.”

“The day you walked in on us fighting...I’d just found out he was cheating on me. With a woman who had a kid. And after I kicked him out, he went running straight to her. Ended up marrying her and adopting her daughter.” I swallow down the thick lump in my throat and press my hand to my chest to relieve some of the pain that’s gathering there. “It wasn’t that he didn’t want to adopt, he just didn’t wantme.”

McCabe scoops me into his arms, pulling me against his body so quickly I barely move my right hand out of the way before it would have been crushed between us.

“He’s a fucking idiot, Alessandra,” he murmurs into my hair. “Don’t convince yourself that this had anything to do with you. This was him, desperately trying to have the upper hand when he realized he’d married someone who was better than him in every single way imaginable.”

With my eyes closed and my forehead resting against the hollow space at the base of his neck, secure and warm, wrapped in his arms, I feel like a weight has been lifted. I feel like I can breathe again.

Chapter Twenty-One

McCabe

When I open my eyes, AJ’s still wrapped up in my arms where we must have fallen asleep last night. But now she’s got one leg slung over my hip, and in my sleep, my body must have felt hers pressed up against me, because I’m fully hard in a way that has my dick screaming to be taken care of.

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