Free Obsession (Magnetic Desires Book 4) by Misti Murphy Page A

belly, flooding my throat as I stumbled down the steps to my car. The world spun in reverse, and I slumped behind the wheel, the heels of my palms pressed to my eyes. If—and it was a mega, huge if—everything I’d believed about how we ended was not real, then how could he possibly want me back after what I’d done?
     
    Three years, one month ago…
    I rifled through his desk. There’d be something. A torn scrap of paper, a phone number, the proverbial lipstick on the collar. My pulse raced in my ears as I thumbed through the contents of the first of four drawers. How had we come to this? How had I turned into this paranoid bitch?
    Six months without sex was a good start. I hadn’t noticed at first. Mike hadn’t been feeling well, he’d been tired. But a week turned into a month before I knew what had happened, and then six. He was tired, working longer hours. That alone wouldn’t have been enough for me to question our relationship. He’d stopped sleeping, too. Wandering the house in the middle of the night, or spending his time locked away in here. I’d taken up staying up with him, until he told me he hated when I did that.
    Finding nothing, I moved on to the next drawer. At first I’d been worried, begged him to talk to me, talk to anyone. See a doctor. But he’d glance over my head and tell me everything was fine. It wasn’t. That was plain as day. The tenseness in his fingers when he touched me, barely at all now. And the days that turned into nights spent at work. Secrets filled the chasm between us, pulling us further apart each day.
    My heart cracked a little as I moved on to the final drawer. This wasn’t how we were supposed to end, was it? I shuffled through the contents and slid the drawer shut. Taking a deep breath, I sank back into the leather chair. Nothing. My heart lifted a little. Maybe I was imagining it. Maybe this was some kind of a rough patch, and we’d be fine. I just had to be patient. I could do that for him. I would do anything for him.
    Tears pricked behind my eyes as I swung a leg up under me. Whatever was wrong, I had to find a way to get him to open up. He wasn’t having an affair, he wasn’t leaving me. Mike wasn’t like my father.
    As I started to close my eyes, I caught a glimpse of his planner, open beneath the blueprints for a house they were building out near the lake. A sharp intake of breath. I held it and pulled the brown leather covered book out from under the papers. I didn’t even have to look past the page it lay open to.
    My hand raced to my mouth, capturing the gasp that tore my chest apart. All there, right in front of me the entire time. Dates and times and a phone number, always the same. I flipped back through the pages. The same number too many times to not mean something. My throat closed up, the tears spilling down my cheeks. That had been happening more often recently than I’d like to admit. I snapped the book shut and raced from the room. Unable to breathe, I slumped against the wall outside his office, shaking like a leaf. I’d gone in to find exactly this, but it couldn’t be real. Couldn’t be.
    I slammed back into the room and stared at the number, then picked up the phone and dialled it. There’d be an answer. Something else, something different. But when she picked up the phone, I couldn’t speak. There was no business greeting, just a husky hello on the other end. My pulse pounded in my ears, and I slammed down the phone. It all made sense now. Every damn thing over the past six months came into vivid clarity. Numbness crashed over me, and I wandered into the kitchen to find the scotch. I poured a liberal shot and swallowed it down. Then I laid out his journal on the counter and sat down to wait.
     
    ***
    The numbness wore off the moment he walked through the door. He dragged his jacket and tie off and hung them on the back of the stool before pouring himself a glass of water. Didn’t even say a word. Not a damn one. Anger cracked