“Fuck,” I muttered. Yet another conversation I wasn’t prepared for. Scrubbing my face, I said, “I didn’t when you asked. Now I do.”
She shoved my phone at me. “So you coming back to us wasn’t you wanting me back?”
I frowned. “You’re married, Tee. While I’m not a fan of Craig’s, it was never my intention to break up your family when I came back.”
“Do you still love me?” she demanded.
“It’s been fourteen years. I never thought I could come back, so I had to find a way to move on.”
“So that’s a no, then?”
“I’ll always love you, but I’m not in love with you, no. You can’t stand there and tell me you’re in love with me. You moved on years ago.” Christ, this was a fucked-up mess.
Her breaths came hard and fast while she stared at me. She seemed lost, and I tried to figure out how to deal with that, but I was out of my fucking depth here. “I did move on, but you coming back has stirred so many feelings in me that I never knew were buried. I only moved on because I thought you were dead. Not because I stopped loving you.”
“You’re telling me you don’t love Craig?”
“I don’t know anymore. My thinking is all screwed up.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s working. Splitting his time between Melbourne and Perth.”
“No, I mean why isn’t he here? Why isn’t he fighting for you to go home?” She’d hardly heard from him as far as I knew.
She wrapped her arms around herself like she was trying to warm up, even though it wasn’t a cold day. “I don’t know,” she said quietly.
I moved to her and pulled her into my arms. Tenille would always be the woman I’d loved first and the mother of my child. I’d never stop loving her, but there was no way back to each other as far as I was concerned. However, my guilt at what I’d put her through over the years ate me alive. Some days I was sure it would consume me. They were the days I hit the whisky the hardest. If I had any chance at defeating my mother’s genes in me, I had to find a way past this guilt.
“I’ve got a guy looking into what’s going on with him,” I told her.
She jerked out of my hold. “What? Why would you do that?”
“To help you find some answers as to what the fuck’s going on in your marriage.”
“That’s none of your concern, Aiden,” she snapped.
“Is there something going on here I don’t know about, Tee?” She seemed cagey all of a sudden. Like she wanted me far away from her marriage and all the shit going on with it.
“No.” But she’d shut down completely on me, so I had to wonder the truth of the matter. As she turned to leave the kitchen, she threw out, “And Charlie isn’t getting that hair colour. If you say yes, there will be hell to pay.” She stalked towards her bedroom, leaving me clueless as to what the hell was going on.
Grabbing my phone, I tried to call Sully, but he didn’t answer. I hadn’t heard from him since he arrived in Melbourne a few days ago. That concerned me; Sully always stayed in contact. I sent a text to Bronze asking him to look into it for me. If anything had happened to him down there, I was hoping the cops would know.
After I had texted Bronze, I shot Monroe another text.
Me: What kind of proof are we talking?
She came straight back.
Monroe: Ever considered getting your dick pierced?
Me: That’s how a man proves himself to you?
Monroe: No. I was just throwing that out there for your consideration. Proof = time getting shit right.
Me: Noted. I’ll be there soon.
Monroe: If you come early, we could fit a quickie in. Just sayin’.
Well that was a fucking no-brainer. Ten minutes later I was on my way to her house.
Chapter 25
Monroe
I sat at the table across from Hyde and did my best not to show my disappointment. For our first date, he’d brought me to a pub for dinner. And because there was some huge soccer or football or what-the-fuck-ever game on that night, the pub was rowdy and full of assholes, one who had already spilt beer all down my dress.
He’d started the night out well by turning up to my house early and fucking me senseless. I’d thought at that point it wouldn’t matter how the rest of the date went, but this pub proved me wrong.
We’d just finished eating—the food was the worst, but I didn’t tell him that—and he’d asked me more about the plans I had for my shop. However his phone kept sounding with text messages, which distracted him a little.
“Everything okay?” I asked. I loved my phone as much as the next person, but I never put it on the table during dinner with someone. I kept reminding myself that he had a daughter, so that was probably why he kept checking the messages.
He placed the phone down and gave me his attention. “Sorry, sugar, it’s my family. We’re dealing with some issues at the moment.”
After we had discussed his parents the other day, I hadn’t realised he had any other family members. I loved that he opened up like this. “How many brothers and sisters do you have?”
His forehead wrinkled in a frown. “Huh? None.”
“Oh, I just assumed you meant siblings when you said family.” He must have meant cousins or some other extended family.
“No, it’s my ex and my kid.”
His ex? He referred to her as his family still. I kinda liked that—because in this day and age of messy breakups it was refreshing to hear a man call his ex-wife family still—while at the same time experiencing a stab of jealousy in my chest.
Not wanting to get into a discussion about his ex, I decided to focus on his daughter. In my experience with dating divorced men, talking about their ex never went well. “How’s Charlie going with her skating?”
The tension that had crept across his face while taking those text messages settled and he smiled. “I haven’t had a chance to take her again, but she went on her own the other day. She came home in a good mood, so I figure we need to get her there as much as possible.”
“So she and her mum are still here?” I recalled him mentioning that Charlie’s mother was coming to get her, but that he wasn’t sure Charlie would want to go.
“Yeah.” He didn’t offer any further information, and I didn’t push.
“Well, at least you get to spend more time with her. Have you guys done much since she’s been here?”
“I took her on a ride the other day. First time on a bike for her. She seemed to love it. Other than that, we’re taking it slowly, getting to know each other after never really being in each other’s life.”
I drank some of the cosmo he’d bought me. “I remember when I was sixteen. I gave my parents hell. It’s a miracle we all survived that.”
“I’m figuring that out pretty fucking fast. We’re in the middle of World War III at the moment because of some baly hair colour shit that her mother doesn’t want her to have. You’d think Charlie’s life was crashing down around her with the way she’s carrying on.”