LITMIR.BIZ

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Her voice trailed off. She inhaled deeply, straightened proudly. “I didn’t want it that way.”

      “Good God, Francine,” he said. “You lied to him.”

      “I always intended to tell him,” she said. “Really, I thought I’d tell him when I found out she was a girl, then I couldn’t. I thought I’d tell him before she was born, but I was still so angry, so lonely. I planned to tell him right afterward, but he left me a couple of messages—a couple of those arrogant, cheerful, we-should-keep-in-touch-babe messages, and I couldn’t do it then, either. Next thing I knew, four years had passed.”

      He shook his head and frowned at her. “You should have told me this before—you owed me that much if we were going to be involved. And you should have told him.”

      “You know what, T.J.? I owe a lot of people a lot of stuff, but at the top of the list is Rosie. I owe her my absolute protection. Not just physical but emotional and psychological protection. I know Sean’s going to be angry—his mother’s going to be very angry and, trust me, she’s a force of nature. But, in the end, you know how much I meant to Sean? He let me go at the mere idea of a child!”

      “Listen, there are men who don’t want children. But we still need to know the truth,” T.J. said.

      “When Rosie was a new baby, just a couple of months old, I realized that I cried every single day. On and off for hours. I cried through the second half of my pregnancy and every day after she was born. And I made a decision—I couldn’t do that to her. If the only way Rosie could be raised by a happy, positive mother was to forget Sean Riordan, then that’s what I would have to do. Yeah, Sean might’ve been willing to do the right thing, but it wasn’t what he wanted. Rosie and I—we deserve to be loved and wanted. We deserve to never doubt it.”

      They sat quietly for a moment before T.J. replied. “This explains a lot. You’ve always kept a part of yourself back. Tell me, Franci, just where did you think we were headed? You and me? Because your ex and I have a few things in common…”

      “You and I aren’t headed for any kind of standoff, T.J. We seem to agree on everything. Everything except salmon,” she added with a smile. “I thought it was only fair to tell you why I’m a little distracted.”

      “How’s that headache?” he asked.

      “Actually, not a lot better.”

      “I think I caught it,” he said. “I was very optimistic about where Rosie’s sleepover at Grandma’s was going to leave us.”

      “I should have canceled,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t invite you in tonight, T.J. I’m just not in the right frame of mind.”

      He laughed a bit loudly. He leaned toward her. “Believe me, Franci—tempting as you are, I’m not getting in the middle of this situation. You work this out with the man, draw your single-parent lines in the sand, refine the details and, when you’re all set there, we’ll pick up where we left off. There is one more thing you might tell this guy, if you’re going to be completely honest.”

      “Hm?” she asked, frowning.

      “Tell him you’re not over him.”

      She let a burst of laughter fly. “After all he’s put me through?”

      T.J. wasn’t smiling. “Tell him you’ve had exactly one man in your life since you took that walk. One guy, in that intimate way.”

      Shock was etched into her features for a moment. Then she attempted a recovery. “You don’t know that.”

      “Yeah, I know it. You were damned hard to warm up. I couldn’t figure out what was holding us up. I had myself almost convinced it was Rosie, so young and all. But there was always a part of me that wondered what the hell was missing because I knew there was more passion in you. If you’ve made up your mind that he’s not going to screw up your life anymore, tell him and get this behind you,” he said. “Then when we’re together, maybe we can turn up the heat a little bit. Because I like what we have together, you and me, but I don’t want to be some platonic bed buddy.”

      “Excuse me?” she said, pure shock keeping her from laughing out loud. “Platonic bed buddy?”

      “I want more than a Friday-night girl who, when she’s with me, isn’t really with me. I knew something was missing when we crawled into bed.”

      “No,” she said, shaking her head. “No, we’ve had a very nice—”

      When she got to very nice, he did smile. She didn’t go any further. Really, what man was looking for very nice sex? For that matter, what woman? And now the truth was out—he blamed her. And she realized with a guilty flush that he might be right. T.J. barely stirred a spark in her, much less a flame. She felt as if she’d cheated him.

      Franci looked down at her half-eaten dinner. She couldn’t meet his eyes with what she was thinking—Sean had barely to caress her skin with his breath and she was on fire. He knew where to touch, how to tease, what to do, and nothing brought him greater satisfaction than to torture her with orgasm after orgasm. It had been like that with them since the first touch, the first night. They had never grown tired of each other—never bored, never disinterested. And absolutely never just very nice. Their sexual relationship had never been anything less than magnificent.

      She was conscious of T.J. lifting his hand toward the waiter, asking for the check, instructing him to box up their leftovers. She almost smiled—there wouldn’t be any coffee and dessert tonight.

      With his hand on her elbow, T.J. escorted her toward his car rather quickly. As they walked down the sidewalk, Franci looked up to see a familiar figure walking toward them. His hands were plunged into his pockets and his head was down. Just as they were about to pass, he lifted his eyes briefly. Franci said nothing, gave no reaction, but managed to keep walking. She listened for his footfalls behind them, but there was no sound. She knew then that Sean had stopped dead in his tracks and was probably staring after them.

      Afraid to turn around Franci sighed deeply. Ah, well. Now they knew about each other. And yet they didn’t know anything at all.

      The drive back to her house was twenty minutes of uncomfortable silence. T.J. sulked and Franci realized she might have risked losing the best shot at a stable relationship she’d had in years. But maybe not—according to what he’d implied, she’d risked it the first time she’d crawled into bed with him and had proven to be a barely adequate lover. What she hadn’t quite admitted until tonight was that it wasn’t all it could be for her, either.

      Finally, T.J. pulled into Franci’s driveway. When he walked Franci the short distance to her door, he said, “Remember our agreement, Francine. We’re exclusive. I have a feeling you’re forgetting that.”

      “I remember our agreement…”

      “I want you to give me your word that you’re going to take care of this matter. Get this guy together with his kid, if that’s what he wants. And then tell him you’re involved with someone.”

      “I’m planning to take care of this situation the best I can,” she said. “I guess it’s best if you just give me a little time to work out the details.”

      “Don’t take too long. I’m not that patient.”

      “Thank you for the dinner, T.J. Sorry it ended on such a negative note.”

      “Let me know when you get this worked out with Rosie’s father. And try to be smart, Francine. You may have run into him here, but he’s not hanging around. Not for you, not for Rosie. Get rid of him. When that’s done, let me know. Don’t make me wait too long. When he’s gone, we’ll have a second chance.” Then he leaned toward her, gave her a platonic kiss on the cheek. “You’ll be fine. Just do it.”

      And after looking deeply into her eyes for a long moment, he got into his car and backed away.

      Five

      Tonight

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