When she stopped, he almost leaned into her, needing to know how this ended. “Did you find him?”
“I did. I saw him…but he didn’t see me.”
“What do you mean?”
She took a breath as she glanced up. “He was making out with his admin assistant, and they were kissing like they’d kissed a thousand times before.”
Sadie sucked in a deep breath,not sure why she was telling Eastern all this but unable to stop. The only other person she’d told the whole story to was her grandmother, but it had been fresh and raw then and she’d been so angry. This time, saying it out loud again, she almost felt relieved that the morning of her wedding had played out the way it had. That she’d realized he wasn’t for her, then seen with her own eyes how much of a mistake marrying him would have been.
Anger darkened Eastern’s expression. “That son of a bitch. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not. I wasn’t sad when I saw them together. I was mad. But also relieved, because imagine if Ihadn’tseen that and had walked down the aisle?”
What would her life have been like? Would she have woken up the next morning with the pit in her belly, knowing she’d made the worst mistake? Or would she have steadily become more and more unhappy?
“But you did, because you were meant to find out the truth.” Eastern looked at her phone.
She followed his gaze. “He’s been calling and texting, asking to talk, and I probably should talk to him about it but honestly, I don’t want to. I want to stay far away from him. I want nothing to do with him. Because even though we didn’t love each other like we should have, we’d made a commitment to each other, and I wouldneverhave done to him what he did to me.”
“I don’t understand how he didn’t realize what he had.”
Her breath caught. Had Eastern meant to say that? Or had the words just slipped out?
“I’m no prize, Eastern.”
He gave her a skeptical look. “Do you really believe that?”
Yes. The word was on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t quite release it into the room.
“What about you?” she asked, trying to get off the topic of herself. “You were never married to Avery’s mother, were you?”
“No. I met her at Meridian when I was home on leave. We spent the night together and a month later she got in contact and told me she was pregnant.”
“Wow. That would have been a shock.”
“It was, but as soon as it sunk in, the idea of being a father…fuck, I liked it. I offered to move her to Virginia where I was stationed so we could be a family and I could take care of them both. Jamie didn’t want that.”
Sadie frowned. “Why not?”
“At the time, I thought it was because we weren’t dating. We weren’t anything. She didn’t want to uproot her life for a man she barely knew. Now I wonder…”
When he stopped and pain flickered across his face, she frowned. “You wonder what?”
“I wonder if she didn’t want me too close so she could do what she wanted. SEAL teams are away a lot for training and deployments, but if she lived in Virginia, I would have seen anything that was out of place.”
She shifted closer. “Eastern, I spent a lot of time at Jamie’s house, caring for Avery. There were no red flags. Sure, she had a few drinks on the weekend. But I never would have suspected she’d developed a drinking problem and was neglecting Avery.”
He nodded, but when he still looked unconvinced, she inched forward, eliminating that last bit of space between them, and cupped the side of his neck. “Eastern…stop blaming yourself. You’re here now. And you are Avery’s world.”
Something hot flashed in his gaze as it collided with hers. “We both are.”
For a moment, their eyes held, neither of them wanting to look away. She should remove her hand. She should shift back and put some space between them. But before she could do either of those things, he wrapped his fingers around her wrist.
His touch was so soft it was almost a graze. Then he trailed his hand down her arm. “You should get up and walk away from me.”
His words confused her. Was he telling her to do it because he couldn’t? “You first.”
His hand trailed to her shoulder, down her side, slipping so dangerously close to her breast that the fine hairs on her arms stood on end.
