Page 19 of Reclaiming Izabel

Leaving her birthday party because I got called in.

Missed Christmases.

Did I see disappointment in her eyes? Sure I did, but she knew what she signed up for.

I didn’t sign up for this.

Her words echoed in my ears. Panic sent me running after her. She was racing through the trails as if the devil himself were after her.

In this case, I was the devil.

I slowed my pace, gave her a twenty-foot distance, but that was all the space she was getting. We’d lost three years and, though it had been entirely my decision that put us in this situation, I couldn’t say I wouldn’t have made the same choice.

Where Izabel lived.

I can live in a world where she hates me, but I can’t live in a world where she doesn’t exist.

As we neared her house, a spark of resentment ignited inside me. We had a home. She sold it. Now she was living in a house where there were no memories of us. The first pinprick of fear stabbed my chest that my faked death had broken us beyond repair.

But she left the door open.

Did that mean she was willing to talk? I was prepared to camp out on her steps until she talked to me.

I went up the steps, stopped, massaged the area over my diaphragm, feeling like I had an oncoming heartburn. Venting an exhalation, I moved through the open door, closing it quietly behind me.

Izabel was pacing in front of the table between the kitchen and the living room. She stopped when she saw me enter and speared me a glare before crossing her arms over her chest. That was her defensive posture. The area around her eyes was splotchy and her nose was red. I fought against the instinct to hug and kiss her, but unlike me, who had three years of pent-up longing to return to my wife, she had three years of trying to move on from me.

“Tell me, Drake. Did you think you could simply waltz back into my life after three years? Three years of me thinking you were dead?”

“I never believed it would be easy, Izabel.”

“You died. What if I’d moved on?”

“Have you?” I challenged.

“Not yet.”

My eyes narrowed. “And you won’t.”

“You think you can stop me?” she taunted. “You have no hold over me. I have your death certificate.” Her face crumpled in confusion and I really, really wanted to kiss those lines away. “So, if you’re dead on paper, who are you now?”

That was my Izabel. She was quick to pick up the chink in my story.

“A man called Dave Morgan, but not for long. I prefer being Drake Maddox.”

She began pacing again and I could do nothing more but clench my fists at my sides while she processed this information.

“Sotechnicallyyou’re still this Dave Morgan.”

“Yes.”

“I just can’t wrap my mind around it,” Izabel said. “And you didn’t answer my question. What if I’d moved on and had gotten married?”

“That wasn’t going to happen,” I grated. Just the thought of her married to another man was turning me feral. “Hank was watching you for me.”

Her eyes widened in understanding. “You knew I was on a date last night?”

“Yes.” Hank assured me I didn’t have to storm into the restaurant and give Izabel the shock of her life in public, but he couldn’t do anything when I insisted on making sure that Izabel didn’t sleep with Kyle. I staked out the restaurant from the parking lot and followed them home.

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