Yours Seductively

Chapter 8.2 (Part 2)

   It was obvious, Tyler thought after Colton left his office, that he hadn't been doing a very good job lately hiding his emotional turmoil from his parents. At first, he'd been struggling with the repercussions of Stephanie's death and the things he'd found out afterward. Now he was trying to deal with his overwhelming attraction to Jane. Both of his parents had expressed concern about him.

   He'd been honest with his father. He hadn't changed his mind about settling here, raising his children here, eventually taking over the Hamilton law firm. He was generally satisfied with his career, and accepted that every job came with its highs and lows. Divorces were an ugly but unavoidable part of life, and he was prepared to do his best to make the ones he handled as smooth and equitable as possible.

   He supposed he'd been particularly affected today because he had looked at Malorie and Mark's unhappy little boy and had pictured Tom. Had things been different—had Stephanie not died in that traffic accident on a busy Washington D.C., intersection after leaving a lunchtime tryst with one of her lovers—they could have been the ones facing each other across divorce table, viciously airing their private pain and fighting for custody of their children.

   The thought made him cringe. Relief that he and the kids had been spared those scenes was followed by an immediate wave of guilt that his reprove has come at such a terrible price for Stephanie.

   It was wearily familiar battle, one he usually fought alone in the middle of the night with a single shot of bourbon as his only emotional support. There was no one he could talk to, no one he wanted to burden with the painful revelations he had struggled with for so long. For his children's sake, for Stephanie's memory, and maybe for his own pride, he couldn't talk about it. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

   A woman's voice came from the speaker on his desk phone, bringing him abruptly back to the present. "Tyler?"

   Tyler cleared his throat. "Yes, Maria?"

   "I'm leaving now. Is there anything else you need before I go?"

   "No, I'm about to head home, myself. See you tomorrow."

   He gathered the paperwork scattered over his desk and stuffed it into a folder, then saved and exited the file on his computer screen. His thoughts had already left the office, racing to the evening ahead of him. He'd run out of coffee that morning and was almost out of milk; he would have to stop by the store on the way home. Tara has promised to out a pot roast and vegetable in the oven for him, so all he would have to do was serve the kids, bathe them, read them a couple of stories and tuck them into bed. He would the. Have the remainder of the evening to himself—to remember, to brood, to regret.

   Maybe he'd give Jane a call after the kids were in bed. They'd started a conversation over lunch about the community theater, but he'd had to cut it short to get back to the office. Maybe they could discuss it further later. And maybe, sometime during their discussion about the future of art in Honoria, he could figure out why the hell he had turned down what she had offered instead of lunch today.

   It was something he was beginning to think he needed very badly.