Yours Seductively

Chapter 12.3 (Part 3)

   Jane was looking at him. "Do your parents know?"

   "No one here knows. There was plenty of talk in Washington. It turned out a lot of people knew Stephanie better than I did, and the word got out very quickly that she'd been with one of her senators the day she died—but I've managed to keep it quiet here. What happened was partly my fault, of course. I was too focused on work, too busy with my own ambitions to pay enough attention to her. We played out a predictable little script, saying and doing the right things without either of us taking them seriously enough. I was perfectly content to go on pretending we had an ideal life, without working hard enough to make sure that it really was. But for her not to tell me about Amy—it's very hard for me to forgive her that."

   "And so you decided that no woman could've trusted? Or was that doubt reserved for me?"

   Her words were spoken lightly, but their seriousness was obvious by the pain still visible in her eyes.

   "I'm sorry." He wished there were more adequate words to express his regret at what he had done to her. "You were right—it wasn't you I was angry with. It was Stephanie—and myself. And it was unfair of me to take it out in you. I let my anger and my fears take over, and I was a total jerk. I finally admitted it while I was sitting at my brother's bedside, thinking of how fragile life is, and how much I had thrown away by turning on you the way I did."

   "I've suffered a few betrayals, but no one has ever hurt me the way you did when you all but called me a slut," she said quietly.

  He frowned, instinctively rejecting the word. "I didn't—"

   "Semantics, Tyler."

   He wished she would call him Ty. Or smile for him. He was painfully aware that he had taken the laughter out of her.

   "What is it going to take," He asked softly, "for me to earn your trust again? Because whatever it is, I'll do it."

   Her reply was not encouraging. "I don't know if you can."

   The kitchen door swung open and Tom walked in, blissfully unaware of the tension between the adults. "Amy's awake. She's calling you, Daddy."

   "I'll go get her." He paused and looked at Jane. "Don't leave before I get back. Please," he added, aware of how arrogant that might have sounded.

   "Jane's staying for dinner," Tom insisted quickly. "She's making spaghetti. Remember, Jane? You said."

   "Well, That was before I knew your daddy would be back so early," Jane reminded him.
   Tom shook his head, his lip jutting out stubbornly. "You said you'd make spaghetti. Daddy likes spaghetti, too."

   "I love spaghetti," Tyler agreed shamelessly.

   The look Jane gave him should have made him gulp. But then she nodded and he knew she would be staying a while longer. At the moment, that seemed to be all that mattered.

   "I'll start the dinner," she said, turning toward the stove. "You go get your daughter."

   Your daughter. Her very deliberately chosen words echoed in his mind as he enters Amy's room. Any stood in her crib, bouncing and calling for him. "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy." He lifted her into his arms and snuggled her close, making her giggle in delight when he tickled her ribs.

   His daughter, he thought, filled with a love for her so fierce it almost hurt. No pages from his late wife's diary, no whispered speculation, no blood tests—nothing—could ever change that.