Closing The Gap (Dangerous Pasts, #1)

by Colleen Charles

  “Did you find a new job?” He tried to keep the hopeful look off his face. With his new multi-million dollar contract, he could afford to keep her at home. However, he’d found resentment starting to fester. She took a lot from him financially and emotionally and didn’t contribute much. That didn’t sit well with him. Their marriage felt lopsided and he wanted to tip the scales back into balance. Talk about high maintenance. You would never think a small town girl from a modest upbringing could turn so fast, right on a dime.

  “No silly, we’re going to have a baby!”

  The air whooshed from his body just as hard as if he’d free fallen from a cliff to the jagged rocks below. He inhaled a gust of breath to keep from passing out as he grabbed his glass of wine, and drained it in a single swallow, motioning to the waiter to pour another. How had it escaped his notice that her wine glass was still full? She hadn’t even taken a sip when normally she’d slam half the bottle.

  “Really? Are you sure?”

  She just pushed forward in her excitement not even stopping to take a breath. She couldn’t even tell by his face something was wrong. Why didn’t she look him in the eye? He wanted to speak, to tell her to stop but he couldn’t put rational thoughts together with her rambling on.

  “I started feeling some minor nausea in the mornings, nothing serious, but enough that I started to suspect. I’ve been to my OB-GYN and I’m eight weeks along. Of course, we shouldn’t tell anyone until I’m safely past the first trimester. I’m so excited! I just can’t wait to be a mother and have something to do.” She continued on in that same vein for a few minutes, talking about the nursery and how they would have to move to a big house in the suburbs so the baby could have a yard to play in. She already had the name of a realtor she wanted to talk to.

  Josh tuned her out and searched his mind for information that would verify his suspicions. Where was he eight weeks ago when this child had been conceived? He vaguely remembered being on a four game road trip.

  “You need to stop talking right now!”

  Her head snapped forward. “Baby, why aren’t you happy? This doesn’t make any sense. I know it’s a shock because I’m on the pill but Dr. Larson said that pregnancy can still happen in spite of our best efforts to prevent it. I didn’t try to get pregnant. We’re old enough and everyone else on the team is having kids. Don’t you love me? Don’t you want and love our baby, a beautiful life that we created together?”

  “Shelly, if you were carrying my baby I would love it with all my heart.”

  “What? I’m not following.” Her bemused expression betrayed her confusion. Emotions flitted across her face and he could tell she teetered on the verge of panic. She must think her Oscar worthy portrayal of this sad story was iron clad.

  He spoke firmly so she would understand and comprehend his words. “Back when I was playing on the travel team in junior high, I had an accident. We were goofing around in the arena and I fell onto a metal pipe, right between the legs causing severe trauma. The pain was so severe I blacked out and woke up in the hospital. I remember being drugged up on meds and overheard the doctors telling my mom and dad that only time would tell if I would fully heal. It took several months and I was lucky to regain normal function. I’ve been to countless urologists over the years and every one of them has said the same thing. I am not able to father any children by intercourse alone.” He clipped out each word in staccato rhythm as if they were bullets. Fired at her lying, cheating head.

  “That is not possible. There must be a mistake. Let’s go to another doctor. There has to be another doctor that knows more than those doctors!”

  “I will not go to another doctor. I’ve seen the very best doctors. You need to start telling me the truth right now or I am going to become angry. I will get up and walk out of here and you will not hear from me again unless it’s through my lawyer and the newspaper. I will take your shit and fling it out of our penthouse window to litter the sidewalk. Do you want your personal dirty laundry aired out for strangers on the street?” White hot rage permeated his entire body, heavy with the realization that she’d been fucking someone else at the same time she’d been fucking him. He never even knew her at all.

  After a long pause, tears gathered in her eyes which quickly escalated to great heaving sobs that wracked her slight body. Thank God they were in a private booth and not at a table in the middle of the restaurant. He could just see that headline in the Tribune. TRASHMAN YELLS AT WIFE IN GIBSON’S, SHE COLLAPSES IN TEARS TO HEAP ON THE FLOOR.

  “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” She wrapped her arms around her torso as she rocked back and forth.

  A sudden calm intoxicated his senses as if his soul had been momentarily removed from his body to get through this scene without breaking down in public. Maybe his mom stood beside him. He liked to picture her as an angel still watching over him and helping him during those emotional times he needed her support.

  “Why don’t you start from the beginning and tell me exactly what you’re sorry about.”

  When her sobs didn’t have the desired effect, she gave in and admitted she had been having an affair with her personal trainer for over six months. She shrunk down in stature like a little girl, chastised for the first time. Backed into a corner, she couldn’t mask what she had done with more lies so she tried to turn the tables.

  “You’re never home, Josh. What was I supposed to do? I’m bored and alone all the time!” With Shelly still crying, Josh had a hard time understanding her words, interrupted by the heaving breaths she took. “Wha ... wha... why didn’t you tell me you couldn’t have kids? Isn’t that something important you should tell your wife before you marry her?”

  She was right but he didn’t care. “It’s not impossible for me to father children. It would just take effort by a good fertility doctor. Didn’t our wedding vows say you’d love and honor me for better or worse? I intended to explain the facts when the time was right for us and we were having an adult discussion about how and when we wanted to start our family.” Seriously, she’d just thrown that comment back in his face? Jesus, they’d starting dating in high school, was that the appropriate time for the infertility discussion?

  He took a deep breath to steel his resolve since his big heart lay broken and sliced open out on the middle of the table with a steak knife right through it. He’d loved this woman since the tenth grade. The only one who had been with him through his highs and lows, triumphs and defeats. His family had embraced her. She knew the real Josh and he had never once doubted her love and respect for him. What a fucking idiot he’d turned out to be. His dreams of replicating his parent’s happy union torched in a five alarm fire.

  By far the worst thing that had happened to him since his mom passed away, he now felt nothing anymore but extreme numbness. No woman would ever do this to him ever again. At that moment, he vowed his life would change and he would never be made to feel like a pathetic loser again, not in a public venue. At only twenty five, he was going to walk right in to his future infamous reputation with both guns blazing.

  “What you were supposed to do is what any loving wife and partner would do. Go back to school. Get a job. Do some charity work. Help some animals and sick kids for Christ’s sake! It seems like the only things you’re good at are spending my money and fucking other men.” He no longer held any sympathy for the outraged expression she wore and continued his verbal assault without pity or remorse. “How many others have there been?”

  As he correctly read the stricken look on her face, his heart plummeted. Deep down, he already knew the answer, like a psychic at a renaissance fair. “How many others?”

  “A few. Josh, please, please don’t do this. Don’t ruin our ten year relationship. Our love is so worth saving!”

  “The gravy train has left the station, bitch. You can squeeze someone else’s brat out the legs you can’t keep shut, or not. I’m going home to stay with my dad. Get your shit out of my house by next Friday ... and lawyer u
p.”

  With that, he threw a few hundred dollar bills on the table, walked out and never looked back. Only he knew how deeply affected he was by her betrayal and how many sleepless nights he had spent crying over it alone. Real men didn’t cry where everyone could see them.

  It always works, Lake, there's only love, things are getting better, you're never alone, and even now you're being pushed on to greatness.

  You were saying?

  The Universe

  Chapter Seventeen

  Dancing with him and having a legitimate excuse to touch him without feeling brazen was splendid. Lake wondered what brand of cologne he wore. Goodness gracious, he always smelled good enough to eat. That alone, pooled weakness into her knees before she even looked at him or got within close proximity to his body. If she found out, she’d spray it on her bed sheets, roll in them and envelop herself in his scent. He wore a black, fitted suit with a white shirt open at the collar. She noticed a light spattering of black chest hair through the opening and from her vantage point just over his beating heart she could see the pulse in his neck fluttering. If she lifted her head an inch to the right, she could dart her tongue out and lick it.

  “Have I told you yet how hot you look tonight? Pink is my favorite color on a woman, so innocent.” His voice, low and sexy, hovered above her ear lobe. The slight whisper of his breath caused delicious shivers to caress over her shoulder and down her arm. “Just like cotton candy, I wonder if you’d melt in my mouth the same way.”

  Did he just say that? Oh my. Moisture streamed into her panties again. He’d mastered the game of seduction. Could she even play at his level? Unbidden, thoughts raced, conjecture at how many times he’d been successful in this cat and mouse game. The opening scene from Wedding Crashers flashed across her mind’s eye. Gorgeous, topless women fell backwards onto a bed in rapid succession all with the same man and that man was Josh. She gave her head a little shake to extricate the upsetting images.

  “Several times, but I never get tired of hearing it. You don’t look so bad yourself.” The understatement of the year. She chose not to counter the blatant sexual innuendo with racy words of her own and simply pressed herself closer.

  “You smell incredible, like cherries. Why is that?”

  “That is my shampoo. Do you like it?”

  “Hmm ... it’s turning me into a half-wit. If I stutter, you’ll know why and it’s not the scotch. How soon can we ditch my dad and Lois and not cause an FBI investigation?” As they swayed to the slow song that floated from the DJ booth, she concentrated on his eyes so she wouldn’t fixate on his mouth and how much she wanted to taste it again.

  Unable to stop herself from touching him, Lake crawled her right hand that rested on his left shoulder and ran it up the back of his collar to settle in his hair line.

  “Summer texted and said she left with her friends to hit another club and she’d get a lift home from a sober driver in their group. She gave me her car keys for safekeeping in case she overindulged so we can leave anytime you want.”

  “How about right after this song?” He pressed his right hand into the small of her back and spun her out of the sight line of Chuck and Lois. The move gave their table his back and provided a blockade. “Is it wrong to want to get you alone?”

  “No, I want to be alone right now too, even though I enjoy our time with your dad and Lois. Do you want to stop by my house for a drink on the patio? The fire pit is great this time of year when it still cools down at night.” The invitation flew from her lips before she could censure it. It must be the Effen vodka again.

  “I thought you’d never ask.” His head dipped closer and she worried he might kiss her right on the dance floor with his dad a few yards away. Instead, he put his face close to her ear again and rubbed it across her jaw line like a cat. “I feel like a horny teenager. I hope you know how hard it is for me to admit that. You, beautiful, hold all the power in your hands. Please use it for good and not evil.” Even though he teased her, it liberated Lake to hear him say it.

  After the song ended and she stepped out of his arms, they made their excuses to Chuck and Lois. Lake found she enjoyed their company and interesting conversation even though they were of a different generation. Lois owned a real estate business that had been built to success before her husband passed away and she had great stories about the bizarre homes she’d shown her clients. Chuck blushed red as a beet when she told one about how she’d stumbled across a sex room with an elderly couple in Mesa. Even after she’d explained the whips, chains and stripper pole, they still didn’t get it. Needless to say, that particular home produced a no sale. Lake decided not to comment on the glare that Chuck shot Josh which implored him to cool it. She loved how Chuck considered her a surrogate daughter and appreciated his concern dearly.

  Words proved scarce on the ride home. Josh held her hand and caressed her fingers, hands, wrists and arms. Lake struggled to remain calm. She’d only read about desire like this, had never experienced the way her blood raged through her veins like a tidal wave. Was this for real? Not just a figment of some writer’s overactive imagination? As Josh stroked her left arm from her wrist to her shoulder while he held the wheel of Summer’s car with the other. She felt like she could come undone before her clothes had even left her body.

  The walk from the car to the patio was difficult. His nearness intoxicated her every sense. Now, nestled in the comfy cushions of her rattan outdoor sofa with Josh painfully close, Lake wanted to retreat. The potency of the Myst liquor had faded away and self-doubt crept in to occupy the space total sobriety had created. She’d poured both of them a glass of Pinot from the outside bar but she had yet to take a sip from hers. The flames from the fire pit created ghoulish shadows that mocked her lack of confidence as they swayed to and fro in the moonlight.

  He’d tossed his suit coat over the back of the matching red lounge chair and his loafers laid underneath it. His left foot rested under his right thigh and his entire length stretched towards her as he toyed with the wine glass in his left hand. There was nothing sexier than a barefoot man. Those perfect fingers rested perilously close to the nape of her neck. Another couple of inches and they’d touch her. She wished they would. If he doesn’t touch me soon, I’m going to implode.

  Since her dress was so short, she wasn’t able to tuck her legs up close to her body and wrap her arms around them. She liked to sit that way when she felt apprehensive. She settled for crossing them at the ankles to keep her legs squeezed together. He lifted his glass up to his lips as if to take a drink but changed his mind and set it right back down on the glass coffee table.

  “I don’t want any more to drink.”

  “You don’t?”

  “I want to be able to feel everything that’s about to happen without being numb from booze. I want you to come closer.” His voice, already deep, took on an even sexier rasp when he used it to issue gentle commands.

  “I can’t come closer. Even though I want to more than anything.”

  “Why not? Don’t you want me to touch you?”

  She searched her brain for some sophisticated words. Not finding any that were right, she ended up saying the first thing that came to mind.

  “Do I need to be worried about where you’ve been?”

  Her voice hitched in the middle of the question and she noticed it took a few seconds for him to comprehend her true meaning and not the literal one. She wished he’d set her mind at ease right away and steer this conversation in a more positive direction or the perfect mood that had been building all evening would be ruined.

  “I haven’t been anywhere in many months.”

  The single syllable sighed out on her next breath. “Oh.”

  “You can trust me Lake, I’ve never lied to you. That thing with Lauren was over months before she sent those texts. I’ve never had any health issues. I’ve been extremely careful over the years.”

  She noticed that he kept his expression neutral as she sat there motionle
ss and watched him for seconds that seemed like hours. She held her wine glass before her torso as though it were a samurai sword ready to do battle. Could she trust him enough with her body to lay down the weapon?

  “Are you on birth control?”

  The conversation seemed innocent. He didn’t realize he was using a cannon to destroy an anthill and that he’d just shot out the loaded question that would blow the tiny grains of sand straight into the air. As she’d laid in bed multiple sleepless nights, she’d ran through this scenario so many times in her head, the actual reality was déjà vu. His children would be blue eyed replicas of him and he would be a wonderful father, just like Chuck. Lake could never be their mother. She was less than any other woman he had ever had. God, it felt like her insides were melting down her legs and ending in a liquefied pool inside her feet.

  Lake rose on shaky legs, prepared to return to the house and end the evening, end them. He wouldn’t want to see her again after her next words tumbled out. Her lips trembled. She knew he could see the tremors of her face and limbs but she couldn’t make them stop.

  “Lake, why are you standing? Please sit back down before you fall down. You have to stop running away from me. There is something real here and I know you feel it too. Trust me to take care of you.” Exasperation had settled into his tone. If she pissed him off enough, would he just leave and make this easier? Discomfort washed over her in waves.

  No, he’d broken through with his honesty. The evasion had to stop here if she ever wanted to move on from the rote position she’d been stuck in for so long. She turned towards him and looked straight into his eyes. Her own pain and anguish reflected back towards her.

  “I’m not on any birth control. I can’t have children.”

  Knowing what those words had just cost her, he stood up within the space of a second, grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her into his strong embrace. As he grasped her trembling hand in his strong one, he led her back to the sofa and pulled them both down to settle her in to the crook of his right arm. Lake didn’t trust herself to speak because she knew she’d break down and she would not cry in front of him. She didn’t want his pity. Thinking he just wanted to comfort her, surprise registered when he spoke some words at low volume as if something out in the black of night eavesdropped on their conversation.