Page 54 of Dirty Money
“I’m sure you do. He was your husband for ten years. You’re bound to miss him.”
“No, I mean that young man you were. I miss him. I miss that guy. That guy who’d take me to the beach and we’d play in the waves then make out in the sand or inside of an empty lifeguard tower.”
He chuckled then stopped as he thought she should be missing the man she’d had a life with for the last ten years. He turned around and held her then kissed the top of her head.
“Hayley, you should be thinking about your husband, not me.”
“You are my husband. When I think of you, I think that. You were my first love. My first husband. The first man I had a baby with. The first man I lost a baby with. You were my first everything.”
“Including your first divorce,” he reminded her.
“Can’t you forgive me for that?” she asked as she looked up at him.
He took her chin in his hand. “I forgave you for that the moment you left me. But I can’t forget that and I can’t stop thinking how you say you’ve been thinking about me for the last three years while you were with the man you were married to. That’s more than a bit off-putting.”
“You want me to lie about how I’ve felt?” she asked him then reached down to pick up a pink rose petal. “I remembered all these years how you covered your bed in these that night we first made love in your bedroom. I want us to climb under that blanket and go right back to that night. I swear to you, if you don’t feel a thing, we can end it right then and there. But if you do, then I want you to give us another chance.”
“You do realize that I have an idea you’re on no birth control. If I did such a thing and felt nothing close to what I’d need to feel to start over with you, then I’d have run the risk of getting you pregnant and ending what I have been building with another woman, right?”
She nodded and smiled. “If I did get pregnant then it would mean this is meant to be. Don’t you think?”
He looked at her and wondered how her mind worked in such ways. He couldn’t deny they still had some chemistry. Nothing nearly as strong as what he shared with Aulora, though.
Weston sat on the edge of the bed and pulled Hayley down to sit next to him. “I can’t do this to you. I can’t tell you what it is you want to hear. I love another woman.”
“Who isn’t ready to invest in you the way I am,” she added.
“That said, what if we did have another child and lost that one too. You’d leave me again, possibly. We both know you can get right back into that mindset if the worst happens. And I’d have lost a true love. Not that you weren’t one because you were back then. But I’d have lost a future with someone wonderful. Maybe someone I was meant to be with.”
“Am I a fool?” she asked him as she laid her head on his shoulder. “The waitress at the bar told me I wasn’t being a fool to go for what I wanted. She told me to go for it. And now that I have, I feel kind of foolish. Maybe taking the advice of Aullie was a mistake.”
He blinked a few times then asked, “Aullie? That’s an odd name.”
“I know it is. And the young lady it belonged to was kind of a contradiction if you ask me. She introduced herself as Aulora then when I pointed out her name tag, she changed it. And she was this kind of hippy chick but I could see she had something regal to her too. An air of wealth. You know how the aristocrats have that air about them? Well, she had that but it was only slightly covered up with a veil of aloofness. She was an odd girl. I realize now she had a sadness about her. Perhaps her heart had been too freshly broken to give me any good advice.”
Weston knew all too well just how freshly broken her heart must’ve been. She’d found out his secrets and not from him. What would he find when he returned home?
