Page 11

Okay, so it doesn’t sound horrible.

I haven’t been on even one date since everything happened. Who has time? And I had the sexiest, most loving, most incredible man already. There’s no topping that.

I’m still in love with my husband, and if he knew that I was even thinking about going on a date with someone else, he’d slice this guy’s heart out of his chest and give it to me in a box.

However . . .

I pause, and Alex sees the opening and takes it.

“One dinner, Rina.”

“Okay. One dinner. But I’m home by eight so I can put my kid to bed, and I won’t be sleeping with you. I’m not trying to lead you on.”

“Deal.” He smiles at me. “See? That isn’t so hard.”

You have no idea how impossible the thought of dating someone other than my husband is.

“I’ll pick you up at six.” He winks and then walks away, and I grab my things and head home, feeling guilty as fuck.

I know that I shouldn’t. I don’t have anything to feel guilty for. I’m not cheating on Carson. He’s dead. He’s been gone for a long time. My brain understands that, but my heart . . .

My heart hurts.

It’s not right that he’s not here to see his son, and make more babies with me, and do all the things we were supposed to do.

And I hate that the other three are gone, too, and I never got to experience what life would be like if they got married and I had friends—sisters-in-law—and more babies to love.

It all just went up in smoke in the span of minutes.

Gone.

Forever.

And I fucking hate it.

Taking a deep breath, I park in my driveway and grab my stuff, push out of the car, and pause, when all the hair on my body stands up. My eyes skim the area, the normal middle-class houses in this neighborhood where Charlie and I have blended in for the past four years. I don’t see anything out of place, but I’m suddenly on alert, the way I was right after I’d escaped that hell.

I often think about Rose and wonder if she got free. I wonder what happened to her.

With a sigh, I glance around once more and then walk up the steps to the porch where I can hear the TV through the door.

I push inside and almost trip over a dump truck. The TV is on in the living room, but neither Charlie nor Mildred are in here.

“Hello?” I call out as I kick the truck aside and toss my keys in the bowl on the table by the door. I slip out of my shoes and hang my handbag by the door as well, wondering where they are. “Where is everybody?”

With a frown, I pass by the kitchen, where it smells like lasagna is cooking in the oven, and then walk down the hallway to Charlie’s bathroom and come to an abrupt stop when I see that Mildred is putting a bandage on my son’s knee.

I skim over him, taking stock. Skinned knees and a banged up elbow.

“What the hell happened?”

I rush to him and take his sweet face in my hands, and his ice-blue eyes fill with tears as his bottom lip quivers.

“Hey, it’s okay, I’m here.”

“He got into a scuffle at school,” Mildred says, and I turn to frown at her.

“Why didn’t someone call me?”