Shit. I didn’t want to be doing this but I really didn’t want to get into this crap. So I had to put on the brakes before we even really started.

“Okay,” I threw out a hand, “I don’t want this to go bad. From what I know, you understand what’s happening, not a little bit of it, all of it. So I think you get I’m gonna be around as in around… a lot.”

She didn’t flinch but that didn’t mean I didn’t catch how much that cost her.

“So,” I went on, “I wanna be careful here, I don’t wanna create bad blood. You and Creed get on, so I’m gonna try not to f**k that up. So don’t take offense when I say this but, giving you the honesty, I’m not gonna talk to you about what Creed and I talk about. I’ll say this. I know a little bit about you. I know you both love your kids. I know you’ve made good ones. I know you got a new man. I know you know about me and I know the break with Creed wasn’t good for you. Can we leave it at that?”

She didn’t answer me.

Instead, she stated, “He wanted no memory of you.”

I didn’t get this so I asked, “What?”

She swept her hand up and down her front. “After you, he told me it took years but when he couldn’t bear it anymore, the nightmares, the anguish, the longing, in an attempt to bury it, he f**ked everything that moved. After you, he told me, he did everything he could do to drown out the memory of you. After you, there were no blondes. After you, there were no women who were slim and little and looked like they needed protecting. After you, those women ceased to exist. He didn’t even look at them. He wanted no memory of you.”

Okay, I liked this and hated it, in equal measure.

“Do you know why that was?” I asked and she nodded but I went on, “If you really do, Chelle, you know that was more than being about me.”

“True. But we both know it was mostly about you.”

Okay, she was probably right about that.

I pulled in breath, opened my mouth to speak but she got there before me and when she spoke, she was whispering.

“I have never…” she swallowed, “not in my life, not in all the time with him, except when the kids were born, I have never, ever seen him the way he was at lunch on Friday.”

I shut my mouth.

She closed her eyes and I saw her draw in breath through her nose before she opened them again and continued whispering.

“Please, don’t hurt him.”

That was so unexpected I felt my body give a small jerk.

Then I started, “Chelle –”

She shook her head and raised her hand. “You’re everything to him.”

I shook my head too and returned, “I was. Now, I know he feels the way I feel about being back together, but he’s got your kids and he adores them.”

She nodded. “I know that. I know that, Sylvie, but we both know the love we have for a child is not the same as the love of a lifetime. I know he loves them. He’d do anything for them. That’s not what we’re talking about. That’s a different kind of everything. And if he’s told you even a little bit about me, you know I love him. I want the best for him. That will never change, he’s with me or he’s not. I know from what he told me, you’re the best for him. You were with him since the beginning, you came into his life just a year after his Dad died. So that girl before, that girl that became the woman he loved was everything to him. But time has passed. Now, I need to know you’re still the woman who will see to him, who will make him look like he looked at lunch even though he tried to hide it so he wouldn’t hurt me. Who made him look like I’ve only seen twice in my life and that was when Kara and Brand were new to this world and placed in his arms. Who made him look happy.”

Holy shit.

Creed was not wrong. She actually was happy he found me again.

“Okay, Chelle, gotta say you’re kinda freakin’ me out,” I admitted.

Her body gave a start then her lips twitched. “There it is, he didn’t tell you much about me.”

I grinned. “He did. I just didn’t believe him.”

Her lips tipped up but she didn’t commit fully to the smile before they untipped and she said softly, “You can believe him.”

I had to say, this was pretty cool and since it was, since she put it out there, since she paid two hundred dollars to do it and since she did really care a lot about Creed, I gave it to her.

“He’s my world. I’ve been lost for sixteen years without him. Lost, broken and lonely. Having him back makes me feel whole again. I’d die for him.”

“I hope you don’t have to but… good,” she replied.

I grinned at her. “I hope I don’t have to either. That would suck.”

She gave me a small grin back before she looked at my satchel then back at me. “Okay, well, I um… that’s kind of all I wanted to say or, uh… to hear. I don’t want to take up too much of your time so I’ll just head out.”

I nodded and stepped aside so she could pass. I followed her down the short hall and stopped away from the door where she stopped, hand on the handle, her head tipped down to look at it. She stood there a beat like that and didn’t move so I was about to call her name before her head snapped up and, not taking her hand from the handle, she turned to me.

“He didn’t tell you.”

Oh crap. This wasn’t good. Not only that she was clearly about to impart something on me that Creed had not gotten around to telling me but the look on her face that said not good things.

“Chelle, I don’t think –”

“It’s very him not to tell you,” she cut me off to say.

“If there’s something you’ve figured out he hasn’t told me, maybe we should let Creed tell me.”

“He might not and you should know. I know you don’t know already because you aren’t angry. You aren’t acting like a bitch.”

Okay, seriously did not like this.

“Again, how about we let Creed tell me.”

She ignored me. “He’s a good man. He feels guilt he shouldn’t feel. I did it to myself.”

“Chelle –”

“I deliberately got pregnant with Kara in order to trap him into marrying me.”

Holy shit!

I stared, mouth hanging open and everything.