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Ridden by guilt and confusion, Lance made his way home in a cab. Not telling his wife he was coming back to town for good wasn’t the best idea. But he wanted to surprise her.
Yet, something in his mind and heart forced him to stop over at Jenna’s home. Definitely not one of his most brilliant moves! It did look odd. Who walks in after a year and goes to his best friend’s widow’s house? Crazy, impulsive and downright stupid. Sure, he’d convinced himself that he wanted to pay his respects to Seth by checking up on his wife and son, but one glance at Jenna told him, his motives weren’t all that altruistic.
He’d always been attracted to her. When Seth asked her out, Lance gracefully stepped back. No woman would ever ruin his friendship with Seth. They were like brothers, tight and close. But seeing him with Jenna always stung a bit. Lance swallowed his disappointment and applauded their marriage. He was the best man at the wedding ceremony...and Jayden’s godfather. If Seth had lived, Lance wouldn’t even allow himself to think of Jenna in such a way.
It still felt wrong, especially when he was married to another woman. He loved Lisa. Or do I? Of course, he loved her. They hadn’t seen each other for more than a year. Naturally, he would feel a bit of hesitation before he went home.
Yeah? If that were the reason, why the heck did he feel like this ever since knocking on Jenna’s door? The truth was he never got Jenna out of his heart and mind. It should’ve been his wife who occupied his thoughts but for a couple of years now, it was Jenna. He felt determined though, to put a stop to this nonsense. His wife deserved his complete and utter devotion and commitment. He wouldn’t cheat on her, not even emotionally and silently.
Determined to make his marriage work, he pressed the bell on his door. He was here now and he would make it work. They would be happy together and everything would fall into place. He longed to have a regular, normal life, no more lonely days and nights chasing the bad guys all over the world. His commitment to his wife was now absolute, final.
His beautiful wife opened the door. She squealed and her hand flew to her chest. Her champagne-blonde hair curled around her lean face and her blue eyes bulged.
They both gaped at each other.
For a full minute, his mind didn’t work. He couldn’t reconcile what he saw with what he thought he would see. His gaze remained on her mid-section. Her protruding belly.
Lisa was pregnant—darn it—heavily pregnant.
And he hadn’t been home in a year. Darn! Darn! And double darn! He strode in, dropped his bag on the steel-gray rug in the foyer and folded his arms over his chest. A landscape painting hung on one wall. A transparent glass jar, brimming with white roses, sat on the wooden table. This house seemed warm and cozy. Once he’d loved the fact that she fussed over every little ornament she bought, but now he hated everything about their so-called home and her. How could she do this to him? This was insane. “Whose baby is it?”
She swept a hand through her hair.
Her lean face that once aroused desire disgusted him now. This sexy, beautiful woman became his nemesis. She destroyed his life with one single blow. He was better off in the battlefield. At least when the enemy fired, he was prepared. Her betrayal cut him right down without a warning.
She appeared flabbergasted to see him at the door. “Lance! You—what are you doing here?”
He sneered. Of course, she was surprised to see him. Was she shacking up with the father of this baby? Was the bastard in his house right now? His ears pricked as he listened for any tiny sound that would betray the presence of her lover, but there was no noise. Either he was too smart by keeping quiet or else, she was alone.
Either way, he wasn’t going to stick around for long. “Yeah, I’m sure you were happy to see the back of me. Probably wished I died out there in some battle, so you could continue to live your life,” he spat out the words while pain throbbed in his gut. The searing agony felt worse than a gunshot wound—he should know. He’d gotten hit more than once in the line of duty. The pain he felt then was nothing compared to what was happening inside of him right now.
“Lance!” she snapped. Color flushed her delicate, high cheekbones. “How dare you!”
Anger bloomed in his heart and exploded in his gut. The red hot haze that enveloped his mind made it difficult to think. “How dare I? How dare you do this to me? Whose baby is this?”
She chewed on her bottom lip, her eyes filling with tears. Those blue eyes seemed to be filled with deceit—faking it. Like he was now beginning to suspect she did with everything else.
“I never meant to hurt you.”
“Oh, yeah?” He raked his fingers through his hair. “For your information, cheating on an absent spouse, who’s god-knows-where, fighting to defend his wife’s freedom, is pretty much guaranteed to hurt him.” He could see the play of emotions on her face.
She appeared genuinely unhappy.
But what the heck? She was pregnant with another man’s child. How long were they seeing each other? Who was he? Why didn’t she tell him she’d moved on? Lance turned and strode into the kitchen. “I need a drink.” Opening the fridge, he took out a bottle of beer, opened it and took a deep swig. The alcohol hit him in the gut. Swiping a hand over his mouth, he turned back to face her.
She still stood at the door, clearly unsure about how to handle this situation. “I’m sorry.”
The words were meaningless, empty of emotions. Certainly not enough to soothe the rage that churned in his belly. For an instant, he felt like doing something violent and crazy, but then he sucked in a deep breath of air.
He needed to sort out this mess with words, not with his hands or fists. He wasn’t that kind of a man. And she was hosting an innocent life in her womb. If nothing else, he cared enough to scythe her with words and not through physical means. “Hmph!” he snorted. As if? If she were really sorry, she would have written to him, called, emailed...something. He would have divorced her if she wanted that. Why the heck did she continue this charade of a marriage? Weekly phone calls, occasional letters and cards. The love she faked stung more than the actual cheating. “Of course, you are. When were you going to tell me? After the baby was born?”
She wrung her hands together. “I was going to tell you—this week.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “This week? And when is the baby due?”
“I’m eight months along.” She bit her bottom lip hard.
He could see the dent she made in her delicate skin. But his heart was too filled with anger to care. “Darn it, Lisa! I’m not even sure you were going to say anything until I came home and found a baby in the nursery.”
“No! It’s not like that. Please believe me.” She sidled inside, pulled out a chair and sat. “I swear I was going to tell you. It’s just—it was so—I should have told you before when I got involved with him.”
If the man were around, he wouldn’t hesitate to punch him. “Who the heck is he?”
She sucked in a deep breath. “He isn’t a part of my life anymore.”
A thunderbolt hit him in the chest. He felt his breath whoosh out of his lungs. “He left you?”
“Yeah! He—it was a stupid, reckless, crazy one-month thing. I felt bored and lonely. It’s not an excuse. I know, it isn’t. But I just got swept away by his charm and his fast talk...” Tears slid down her cheeks. “And I couldn’t resist. And then—I wanted to tell you. I really did. But there was never a right time or a right way of doing it. How could I tell you over the phone that—I was involved with someone else?”
“It would’ve been better than me finding out like this,” he snarled.
“You’re right. You’re right,” she chanted. Dropping her head between her hands, she sobbed.
Perhaps he should’ve felt pity, but the rage swirled so fast through his veins that there wasn’t any room for sympathy. She stood in a church and vowed to love him till death did them part. He’d been feeling guilty because he had thoughts—no, no, no, traces of thoughts—about Jenna while Lisa actually had an affair, conceived a baby and didn’t even give him a hint that something was wrong in their world.
What kind of a woman is she?
“Save the tears.” He knew his tone sounded harsh, brusque. “It’s not going to work.”
She wiped them with her hands. Rather than convince him that she wasn’t trying to gain his sympathy, she glared at him.
A fresh wave of anger skimmed through him. Shouldn’t she be begging him to forgive her? But no, she was actually expecting him to understand this disastrous situation. Well, it wasn’t happening. He would never be able to get over it. Nor did he even want to make an effort to do so.
She cheated on him with another man, and she was having his baby. No matter what she said, she wasn’t, and couldn’t be, a part of his life anymore.
“I want a divorce,” he stated in a firm voice.
All the blood drained out of her face. She raised a hand, and then dropped it. “Lance, please listen. The man—he isn’t in my life anymore.”
“Neither am I.”
Fresh tears pooled in her eyes. “I can understand your bitterness, your anger. But I—am all alone. And I’m going to be a mother soon. I can’t do it on my own.”
He couldn’t believe she had the nerve to say such a thing to him. She was having another man’s baby and she expected him to stay by her side? He didn’t care if this was a mistake or a planned thing. It didn’t concern him if she was genuinely sorry or faking it. All he wanted was to get out of her life and never see her again.
The sooner the better!
There was no way he was raising another man’s child as his own. If she’d told him before, talked, apologized, maybe he might have been able to do it knowing that she needed a fresh start as much as he did. But right now, her needs were very selfish. And he couldn’t handle being with her. How could he help her take care of a child? “You should’ve thought about it before you got into this mess. This isn’t my problem. It’s yours. Deal with it!”
“Lance, please. I don’t have anyone else. The baby’s father doesn’t want anything to do with me or the baby. He wanted me to abort. I refused to do it and he—we broke up.”
Not even a drop of sympathy welled in his heart. Did that make him callous? Insensitive? Selfish? Good! He wanted to hurt her the way she caused him pain. What the heck did she expect? Was he supposed to just accept her betrayal and live with it? Well, he wasn’t going to. He couldn’t even if he wanted to! “So, what the heck am I supposed to do?”
“Please don’t divorce me. I can’t take it right now,” she pleaded. “I know that I’ve been unfaithful and I don’t have any reason to ask you to think of me first, but—please I beg you. Give me some time. I wouldn’t know how to support this baby. I can’t handle it alone. I need you.”
His lip curled in a sneer. She was just too much. After having the gall to cheat on him and get pregnant, she wanted him to raise the child with her as if nothing happened. Who is this woman? Why did he marry her? It was stupid of him to tie himself to her. She’d been selfish and careless with other people. He shouldn’t have ever proposed—but at that time, he’d foolishly assumed she was the best thing to have happened to him. Seeing Seth and Jenna so happy, so blissfully in love, he wanted the same. And Lisa was there; cute, sexy and exciting. He fell for her, hook, line and sinker. But she wasn’t the woman he envisioned growing old with. And yet, for him a commitment was a commitment. He married her. She was his responsibility. But her deception and betrayal broke him.
Now, she expected him to give and to keep on giving despite her unfaithfulness.
He wasn’t made of stone. Deeds and words hurt him. “Lisa, you’re unbelievable! How can you even assume for a second, I would want to continue this charade? Do you actually expect me to pretend that nothing happened? That you’re not carrying another man’s child? What am I supposed to tell everyone? That this baby is mine?” The look on her face told him that he inadvertently hit the nail on the head. “You’re kidding me, right? You actually expect me to propagate the belief that this is my child?”
“I can’t tell my parents, Lance. It would kill them. I—I told them you came in between for a short one-week visit. They don’t really keep count of your trips. So, they believed me and—so will everyone else.”
“Never!” The word shot out of his mouth as if it was a bullet. “Not happening, Lisa. It’s so not going to happen. And you’d better tell your parents the truth, too.”
“Please, Lance. I just need a little time, until I figure out what to do with my life, and what to tell my parents. I want to—do the right thing but I need some breathing space.”
“The right thing?” He glowered. Swinging his bottle up, he guzzled it all down then spoke, “You wouldn’t know the right thing if it hit you on the head.”
“But—”
“I want a divorce, Lisa.” Every time she spoke, it was another blow to his heart. Did she seriously expect him to fall in with her plans? She must be crazy to think he would have the heart or the mind to do so.
She stiffened her spine. Her expression froze. “No. And if you do it, I’ll fight you tooth and nail.”
“Darn!” He slammed the bottle on the table and gave her one last sneering look. There was no reasoning with a mad woman. She’d lost her marbles. What she wanted was impossible. He couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t do it, even if he had to battle it out with her in a court of law. She wasn’t going to get away with a lie. He wouldn’t let her.