One Little Indiscretion

by Joss Wood

  Which was ridiculous; this was Carrick, not Dennis. Carrick, no matter how angry he was, wouldn’t hurt her...knowing she was painting him by that other brush, she lowered her shoulders and told herself that she had nothing to fear—

  “Jesus, you think I might hurt you?” Carrick roared.

  Sadie winced. Of course, Carrick would pick up on her movements. He was an observant guy at the best of times and he paid her a lot of attention. “No—”

  “I am not your ex!”

  His words bounced off the walls of the hallway and echoed through the large house. Sadie lifted her hands, desperately looking for the right words. “I know you aren’t—”

  “You haven’t changed your mind about me at all, have you?” Carrick demanded. It wasn’t a shout, but it wasn’t far off, either. Sadie stood up straighter and took a step closer, needing to show him that she wasn’t scared of him. She knew that he would never, ever hurt her physically.

  Though he was doing a damn fine job of hurting her emotionally.

  “Carrick, I—”

  “You’re still judging me by what you heard from my ex-wife! And if that’s the case, why are you sleeping with me? What’s your angle?”

  Sadie felt his verbal bullets piercing her heart. How had something so beautiful turned so ugly? What was happening here?

  “I don’t have an angle! And I’m sleeping with you because I’m crazy about you. I can’t stop thinking about you. Hell, I think I’m in love with you!” Sadie shouted back. Okay, that was not the way she’d wanted to tell him that she loved him. She’d wanted it to be a tender moment, emotional, hot and sweet. A memory she’d carry with her for the rest of her life.

  Well, she’d definitely remember this!

  “How dare you tell me that you feel like that when I know you have no intention of sticking around, when you plan on taking my child away from me? I’m not going to let that happen, Sadie. I’ve lost too many people in my life for that to happen.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Sadie demanded. He wasn’t making any sense!

  Carrick narrowed his eyes at her. “You’re going back to Paris. You’re renewing the lease on your apartment.”

  “Why on earth would you think that?”

  Carrick pulled his hands from his pockets and slapped them across his chest. Sadie saw the misery underneath the hurt and she fought the urge to throw herself into his arms, to soothe away his pain. But she was in pain, too, and she needed to take care of herself first.

  “Beth dropped off some books with Finn and he overheard her talking to your landlord, making arrangements to renew your lease on your apartment. Why would you do that unless you were planning to run away? And why play games with me? Are you trying to get back at me for what your ex did to you? Or do you secretly believe Tamlyn and you want to punish me on her behalf?”

  Wow. And she thought her marriage had messed her up? Carrick had her beat.

  “I’m not going back to Paris. I’m not playing games. I don’t believe Tamlyn. Please believe me.”

  She heard her pleading tone, but she didn’t care. She needed to get through to him. She couldn’t let him toss her—them—away.

  But the fury in his eyes didn’t diminish and Sadie knew she’d lost. Carrick had found something to drive a wedge between them, and because he was terrified of getting hurt again, he was using it to split them apart. This was the first hurdle in their relationship and he hadn’t even tried to clear it. He’d just folded, choosing to believe the worst about her without getting her side of the story.

  She didn’t know if she could fight his distrust; she didn’t know if she wanted to. She’d lived a life with a man where every day was a battle, where trust was a commodity he played with, that was dangled and removed, offered and rejected.

  She wasn’t going to play that game. She’d rather walk away right now than subject herself to that again.

  Sadie reached down and picked up her bag that had fallen to the floor. She hoisted it over her shoulder and stared at her feet, trying to get her brain to form the necessary words. Or, better yet, she could just leave...

  But she’d done that with Dennis. She’d never stood up for herself; she’d been too scared. He’d bullied her into silence. She refused to be silent again.

  “Can I talk?” she asked Carrick.

  He nodded.

  “Without interruption?” Sadie pressed the point.

  He nodded, quickly and sharply.

  “Thank you.” She had to remain calm; one of them should. And in her experience, calm words quietly stated had more impact than shouted words and turbulent emotion. Sadie gripped the handle of her bag and started to speak.

  “You have a whole lot of nerve, Carrick Murphy. You wanted me to make up my own mind about you, without one single explanation about how and why your marriage ended. And that, by the way, is why I am with you, why I am ‘playing’ this game.” She made air quotes with her fingers.

  “Because I trust you. Correction, I did trust you. I trusted you to treat me well. But you won’t trust me. I told you that we’d raise this child together, and while we haven’t had many discussions about the mechanics of that arrangement, I thought it was a solid understanding between us.”

  She thought about the searches she’d done on houses, about the emails she’d sent to real estate agents the day before yesterday. “Up until fifteen minutes ago, I was rearranging my life so you could be a part of my and the baby’s lives.”

  Sadie shook her fingers, trying not to let panic overwhelm her. “I could’ve just told you that I am having your child and that I’m going back to France to raise it and you can see him or her whenever you fly over. I didn’t do that. I had plans to move back to Boston so our child could spend more time with his or her father.”

  Man, she felt gutted, stripped of everything that made her Sadie. But she had to get this out, no matter how hard it became. “I wanted to live in Boston because I also couldn’t imagine living a life not being close to you, seeing you often, hopefully turning this burning attraction we have into a lifelong love affair.”

  Carrick opened his mouth to speak, but Sadie cut him off. He’d stated his case; it was her turn now.

  “I’m not done. You wanted to mistrust me, Carrick, and you took the first opportunity to do that. I can’t live like that, not again. I was at the mercy of a man who I constantly begged to trust me, to trust us, but he played games with me. And you accusing me of playing games, well, that hurts. And you know what? I’d rather not play at all.”

  Sadie hitched up the strap of her bag and, with her heart breaking, she spun around and headed for the front door.

  She wouldn’t stumble; she wouldn’t cry. She would walk out of his house and his life with her head held high. She’d shed too many tears over stupid men and she wouldn’t do it again. They weren’t worth it.

  When she hit the sidewalk, she heard his front door closing and it felt like the oversize exclamation mark at the end of their horrid conversation. Sadie, standing in the frigid wind, felt her eyes sting and her throat close.

  It was only the cold that had her eyes watering, the icy wind stealing her breath. That was what she told herself. But then hot tears rolled down her cheeks and she knew she would cry over Carrick, probably for a long time.

  She’d cry because he was a good man and she’d lost him. Not to cruelty or to manipulation, but to mistrust and fear.

  And that was the saddest possible ending to their story.

  Ten

  “Sadie, I wasn’t expecting you.”

  Even via the intercom, Sadie heard the note of displeasure in Beth’s voice. Her friend had never been a fan of people dropping by unexpectedly.

  But tough. Beth had messed with Sadie’s life and she wasn’t going to make a damn appointment to set Beth straight.

  Sadie ran her hand
over her head. She’d pulled her hair back into a ponytail, a style that made her look harder, older and tougher. She’d kept her makeup simple and this morning, after a sleepless night alternating between tears and anger, she’d slicked her lips in a shade of red lipstick that should be called don’t-mess-with-me-today.

  Sure, she was sad, hurt, but damn, she was also beyond pissed. With Beth, with Carrick, with her life.

  Both Beth and Carrick, people she should be able to trust, had let her down. Sadie had never felt more adrift, lost. Was there ever going to be a time when she didn’t feel so alone? Would she ever have someone to stand with her, her very own soft place to fall?

  Right now she couldn’t imagine that, couldn’t envision a future with anyone but Carrick.

  But a future with Carrick wasn’t going to happen.

  Her family had disappointed her by believing Dennis over her. Beth hadn’t listened when Sadie told her to butt out of her life. And Carrick couldn’t trust her.

  Well, on the plus side she still had Hassan. God, why hadn’t she listened to him?

  “It’s early, Sadie, and I’m not dressed,” Beth said.

  Weak excuse. “Beth, I’ve seen you in your pj’s before. Open the damn door.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “Oh, because you and I need to have a chat about how you deliberately gave Finn the impression that I was going back to France. You knew he would tell Carrick. You ambushed my relationship, Beth. Open the damn door.”

  Beth muttered a curse. “Give me ten minutes and I’ll come down.”

  “I’ll give you five minutes and if you don’t let me in, I will lean on your doorbell until you do.”

  Beth didn’t reply so Sadie presumed she’d agreed. If that door didn’t click open in five, she would use the emergency key Beth had given to her years before, the key Beth had probably forgotten about.

  Sadie hadn’t and she was prepared to use it. But she still had five minutes to kill. Pulling out her phone, she stared down at the screen and dialed a number. She was in the mood to kick ass and it wasn’t like she had anything to lose. The video call rang and then, for the first time in years, she saw her mom’s face on the small screen.

  “Sadie, are you okay?” To her credit, her mom’s voice was threaded with a ribbon of fear. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m fine, Mom. Is Dad there?” Sadie asked and then she saw her dad’s face over her mom’s shoulder, anxiety in his eyes, too.

  “Hey, pumpkin.”

  Sadie narrowed her eyes at him. He’d lost the right to call her by her childhood nickname when he’d chosen Dennis over her. “I just called to tell you that I’m super-pissed at both of you. I am beyond hurt.”

  Two mouths dropped open in shock. Yep, bet they hadn’t thought they would start off their Friday morning with a lecture from their estranged daughter.

  Well, life, as she could tell them, didn’t always go as planned.

  “When my marriage fell apart, I needed you. I needed you to believe me when I told you how badly Dennis treated me. I needed your love and support. But you sided with him. You chose to believe a man you hardly knew instead of believing me.”

  “The things you said, they were, are, difficult to believe...”

  Her mom’s excuse made her temper bubble and pop. “Mom, I’ve never been a liar. And it’s your job to stand by your kids. If my daughter ever comes to me and tells me that her husband is treating her like crap, I will take him on, no questions asked. My loyalty will be, forever and always, to my child. I will not disappoint her...or him. My child will always, always know that I have his back. You did not have my back. You still don’t.”

  They were both making fish mouths, gulping in air. Sadie wasn’t sure their silence was from shock or because she’d finally had the guts to confront them, to tell them how unhappy she was with their behavior. It didn’t matter; she’d needed to clear the air, to express her disappointment. She didn’t know if she’d have a relationship with them again, but that was okay. She’d needed to confront them, to stand up for herself.

  Because if she couldn’t stand up for herself, she’d never be able to stand up for her child.

  “Wait...are you trying to tell us that you’re pregnant?”

  Her mom’s words dragged Sadie back into the present. “Yes, I’m pregnant.”

  Her mom clapped her hands and her dad’s eyes lit up. “That’s so exciting!” her mom gushed. “Our first grandchild. Oh, baby, I’m beyond thrilled.”

  Sadie frowned down at the screen. “Wait, hold on...did you not hear a thing I said earlier?”

  Her mom waved her words away. “That’s in the past. This is a new chapter.”

  Really? Because it didn’t feel that way to her. “No, you don’t get to drop back into my life without an apology, pretending you didn’t let me down, you didn’t hurt me. If I hadn’t called you, would you have called me?”

  She didn’t need an answer; she knew the truth. Sadie’s fingertips drifted across her forehead. “Okay, so I’m going to hang up. This conversation is going nowhere, which I should’ve expected.”

  “Wait!”

  Her dad’s face filled the screen, his expression mortified. “Don’t leave it like this, Sadie. What can we do to make this right?”

  Sadie shrugged. “I don’t know, Dad. I don’t think it can be fixed.”

  “I want to try. I’ve missed you.”

  “Phones work both ways, Dad.” But despite everything, she couldn’t just walk away. These were her parents, and her child deserved to know the only set of grandparents he, or she, would have.

  Sadie gripped the bridge of her nose. “I’m going through hell right now, so maybe you can call me in a couple of weeks and maybe we can meet. I’m not promising anything but...maybe.”

  “I’ll call.”

  Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn’t. But it was up to them now. Sadie said goodbye and disconnected the call. One argument down, another to go.

  Courage, Slade. You can do this.

  She was about to lean on Beth’s doorbell again when the door opened and Beth stood there, her face anxious.

  Before Sadie could utter a word, Beth started to speak. “I genuinely didn’t know Finn spoke French. The landlord called me, not the other way around. It was a sheer fluke that I was in Finn’s office when I took that call.”

  “I told you to cancel the lease,” Sadie said, not sure whether to believe Beth or not.

  “I know and I was going to do what you asked me but...” Beth’s expression was pure misery and her words dried up. Her eyes filled with tears and her bottom lip trembled.

  Sadie swallowed, reluctantly touched by her friend’s obvious show of emotion, but also reminding herself that Beth’s action had resulted in the rift between Sadie and Carrick.

  But really, if it hadn’t been Beth’s phone call, it would’ve been something else. Carrick would’ve found another reason to push her away, to mistrust her. Her resentment toward her friend dropped a level and she tipped her head to the side.

  “Explain.”

  “I wanted you to have a backup plan, in case things went wrong here in Boston. I know how much you love your apartment, how much you love Paris. That was where you fled to when things went south with Dennis. The city soothes you, you love the art, the vibe, the people. I asked your landlord to extend the lease by six months—after that I was going to either renew it or cancel it.”

  “I would’ve noticed a rental payment to the lease, Beth,” Sadie said, exasperated.

  “I was going to pay it. You wouldn’t have known.”

  Sadie frowned, puzzled. “Beth, that apartment is expensive. Paris is expensive. You don’t have that sort of money to pay for an apartment you’ll never use.”

  Beth looked defiant. “I have enough savings to cover it.”

  Sadie ran
her hands over her face, her anger draining away. Beth had been prepared to hand over her hard-earned savings just to make sure Sadie had a bolt hole, somewhere to run to where she felt safe. And if Finn hadn’t overheard her plans, Sadie might never have known about Beth’s generosity and sacrifice.

  “I really hope you are going to be happy with Carrick, Sadie, and maybe Tam did exaggerate. She is a drama queen. But she’s my sister,” Beth said, her bottom lip quivering.

  Sadie had wanted her family to trust her blindly, to believe everything she said about Dennis, but now she was angry at Beth for believing Tamlyn?

  Sadie released a massive sigh and took her friend’s cold hand. “Beth... Man, what a mess. I’m mad at you because your actions led to a confrontation with Carrick, but I just realized that if it didn’t happen now, it would have happened later.” She took a deep breath of cold air, felt the burn, but was grateful that the temperature banished the last of her anger toward her friend.

  “We’re not together anymore, but I’m not going back to Paris. My home is here now, in Boston. With or without Carrick, here is where I need to be.”

  Beth wiped away her tears. “You’re not mad at me?”

  Sadie managed a smile. “Slightly irritated, but that will pass.” Her smile died when she realized it was time to come fully clean. “I don’t want you to tell anyone, especially not Tamlyn, but I am pregnant. Carrick is the father and that’s why I’m staying in Boston. I want my child to have time with their father and Carrick is a good man.”

  Beth stared, her eyes wide.

  “You really believe that, don’t you?” Instead of disparagement, Sadie heard wonder in Beth’s voice.

  “I don’t believe it, Beth, I know it,” Sadie replied, feeling like her heart was being ripped apart by the claws of a wolverine.

  Beth squeezed her fingers. “I think it’s time I started making up my own mind about your man, Sades.”