Like he’d just done.
“Duke isn’t going to like that, and he isn’t going to like this. You just took me on that highway to Hell, Ax. We broke all kinds of rules.”
She was to the point.
“Uh, Reaper, you could have gotten off of the ride. When I kissed you, you could have aborted mission.”
Yeah, except one thing.
No, he couldn’t.
Why?
Because she was his kryptonite. And now, he had to deal with it and the blowback.
Because he wasn’t going to lie to a friend, at some point, he’d have to come clean to her, and Duke.
And if the man punched him in the face, he’d take it because he’d been wrong. The last thing he wanted to be responsible for was breaking up a marriage. He wasn’t sure he could live with himself.
He cared about Axelle too much.
“What are you planning on doing?” he asked, still not interjecting his thoughts or emotions into this.
Not until he could see what was heading his way.
Axelle was honest.
It was only a matter of time. She knew Duke, and he was done. When she told him that she didn’t want to be a mom, that was his hard line, and she’d crossed it.
Only, she felt how she felt.
That wasn’t something she could change.
“I’m taking the CIA job. I’m going to ask for a divorce from Duke, and move on. The girls are young, and if I’m going to leave, it has to be before it damages them. I don’t have it in me, Lewis. I just can’t do it. I never wanted to be a mom, and I bentto make a man happy. I shouldn’t have to do that. Duke and I weren’t a perfect fit.”
Oh, boy.
He wasn’t sure how that was going to go over.
“Is he going to want a divorce?” he asked.
Axelle laughed.
“I would be shocked as shit if the papers aren’t already on their way here. I know him. He’s a dad to his core. He wants a happy family, and now, he knows I’m not the way. I feel bad that I hurt him, and I know that I shouldn’t have done any of this. I need an exit strategy.”
That hung there.
“But you love Duke.”
She stopped him.
“I loved the idea of Duke. He’s a great guy, but he wants a different life than I wanted, and I tried to give it to him to make him stay, Lewis. You can’t make a relationship work if you spend the whole time bending to make a person love you.”
That hung there.
“I didn’t leave because I didn’t love you,” he admitted. “I left because I loved you more than anything in the world. I left to protect you.”
She was honest.
