Free Everything to Lose (Moonlight Dating Series #2) by Natalie G. Owens Page B

back as he strained to love her slow and easy…
    She wiped off a tiny trickle of sweat from her brow – wiped off that sensual image and clutched harder to the specter of disappointment. Better to lose faith than unearth those moments of ecstasy from the attic in her mind.
    No .
    She’d never tell him, not in a thousand years, how their separation had killed her inside, like a festering, gangrenous wound that whittled away at her flesh.
    But the sound of his rich voice was a mean traitor to her resolve.
    “I can help you if you want me to. Can get it done lickety - split.”
    Right. They were still going on about that bloody tree.
    She mustered the courage to look at him directly. “No, that’s fine. I’ll just keep the thing in the closet downstairs anyway. No use to bring it out just to take it back down to the basement in a couple of weeks. Too much work.”
    And you’re not mine anymore.
    Something else flashed in his bottomless light blue eyes—that same hint of vulnerability she had glimpsed a few moments ago—but it vanished so quickly, skittish like a sparrow among humans.
    Silence.
    Uncomfortable seconds ticked by until he finally took mercy on both of them.
    “’K ay, Lissy, let’s get that coffee brewin’ then.”
    Her heart skipped a beat. Only he had ever called her Lissy; everyone else she knew used her full given name. How dare he still address her that way? She fairly stomped into the kitchen, dragging on puffs of cheap anger like a compulsive chain smoker.
    He has no right.
    But she checked herself. Anger wasn’t the way. In any divorce, no one side is the only cause, right?
    As she walked before him , she briefly contemplated how the crude reality of Dane and Lisbeth Marsh splitting up wasn’t something she’d ever have betted on. But trying to make sense of things was much like trying to herd hissing wildcats. An exercise in futility .
    She stepped behind the countertop and switched on the electric kettle.
    “Instant cappuccino? I never got around to getting the machine.”
    “Works for me.”
    “Have a seat over there then.” She indicated the round dining table behind the bar area like she would to a new guest. It was like he’d never lived here or owned this place.
    He took off his jacket and sat down to contemplate Jeanette’s package that she’d set on the table.
    The last day she ’d seen him before he left they’d sat in the kitchen just like this and argued while the coffee and syrupy breakfast pancakes went cold. It had been a dreary October day, the eighteenth to be precise, one of those unremarkable mid-week dates, which would otherwise have passed unnoticed on her calendar.
    “So what if I want to take this position in Seattle?”
    “I’m sick and tired of living like a nomad. We’ve been married six years and I followed you everywhere you wanted to go—Bristol, Atlanta, Charleston, Dallas—no complaints ever, and now I want to hold a baby in my arms. I want to get to know the neighbors and invite them to summer barbeques and Christmas parties! I want everything my parents had…”
    Her voice trailed off, broken. Shattered like her stupid dreams.
    “Millions of people live in Seattle and babies are born there, too. More so, what’s all the damn hurry?” he said defensively, predictably.
    “So that’s the deal. You don’t want children.”
    “You’re making a mountain out of a molehill.”
    “Am I? My career’s also shot. I’d like to see you apply for a position with a firm and then explain to a potential boss you’d be gone within a few months!”
    “You agreed to that when you married a well-paid freelance web consultant ,” he spat out, sarcasm dripping from his voice. “I remember you bragging about me to your friends. Not proud any more, honey?”
    She balled her hands into fists as she quelled an overpowering urge to punch him in the face. “How could you be such a self - centered bastard?”
    “Honey, you’re not the first to call me