Page 57 of Entangled

“I should have come sooner,” he replied. “Things got in the way.”

“Like what?”

“Life,” Gian said roughly, “and nothing that matters, to be honest.”

Once the two were safely hidden away in Cara’s apartment, she stood back and let Gian put all the groceries away. He never missed a beat, sliding things into cupboards as though he had lived there for as many years as she had. He really did pay attention, and he didn’t forget things.

At least, not where she was concerned.

“I want to apologize for something,” Gian said, his voice muffled by the freezer as he shoved in the mini ice cream tubs.

“What’s that?”

“My mother showing up here the other night.”

Cara’s tension released in a laugh. “She’s a wonderful, interesting woman.”

“Wonderfully interesting is one way to put it.” Gian closed the freezer door, and looked back at Cara. “Still, you shouldn’t have been put in that position. I should have told her first, and then—”

“You’re right, you should have.”

Gian nodded. “She let me know that. Repeatedly.”

“I like her.”

“She likes you,” he replied with a smirk. “I knew she would, it was just everything else that I didn’t know about, I suppose.”

Everything else, like his wife.

Cara thought to tell Gian then and there that she had run into Elena, but only decided against it because what would be the point? His wife clearly hadn’t recognized her, and she hadn’t done anything wrong or rude. If anything, wasn’t Cara the one in the wrong, just by being pregnant with Elena’s husband’s child?

The meeting was random. Nothing more, nothing less.

Cara did have other questions, though.

Things she wanted to know.

“Gian?”

“Yes, amore?”

“Why did you marry her? Why her, Gian?”

“Why her, Gian?”

Gian tensed at the question, but only because he knew there would be no one, easy answer. It was several events, mixed-messages, and dumb feelings that had led him into the mistake of marriage with Elena. A sense of duty.

When he stayed silent, mulling over his reply, Cara took a seat at the table. “So, you’re not going to tell me?”

Gian meet her gaze, unashamed. “Of course, I’ll tell you. It’s just not an easy question.”

“You’ve asked me before, if I wanted to talk about her or the marriage. What is so different this time? Because I asked?”

“Because I wasn’t expecting it. Because back then, I was prepared to explain and knew how to say things. When you spring it on me, I don’t have time to consider ways to wall myself off from shit I don’t like to feel.”

Honesty was the best policy.

Gian had learned his lesson about lying.