Page 21 of Entangled

“You’re still with your wife, aren’t you?”

“Yes. We have one child, a girl. Our first boy is on the way, due in a month. We’re very much together. Happily, I might add.”

“Happily. Even after what you did?”

“My wife and I were a lot like Lea and I were, before the pregnancy thing got in the way. Casual, no strings, and we didn’t get too deep with one another on an emotional level. And then the pregnancy came, so our family forced us to do the right thing.” Frankie’s tone twisted bitterly, and his lips curved into a sneer. “We didn’t want to be married. She didn’t want me around, and I didn’t want to be there, either. You think she didn’t know? She knew, but she didn’t care. She didn’t consider us together, even if everybody else did because we weren’t divorced.”

“Oh,” Cara murmured.

“Our unhappiness meant nothing to everyone else, as long as we continued doing the right thing for who we are,” Frankie continued with a heavy sigh.

“And so, Lea …”

“Was there,” he said, “and it was stupid and easy, but it hurt us both a lot, too.”

“And what about your wife?”

“Our daughter was born, and I was over there a lot more. I stayed with her, to help with the baby and whatever else. You could say the baby brought us closer, as silly as that might sound. It’d been a while since I had seen Lea at all when she died,” Frankie admitted, frowning. “There was no proper breakup or goodbye, whatever. It was hard, and it set me back for a while with my wife because I felt like I couldn’t explain what was happening inside my head. Circumstances being what they were, and all.”

“But did you?”

“Eventually.” Frankie chuckled. “She’s pretty amazing, my wife.”

“Did you love my sister?” Cara dared to ask.

“Not in the right way,” Frankie said without even thinking about it. “Not in a way she should have been, not like I do with my wife now. It took a while to figure that out, too.”

“In an unhealthy way?”

“Exactly.”

Cara tapped her fingernails to the table, settled in her heart, yet restless in her soul. “Thanks for meeting up with me to talk about this. I know it’s private, and you really didn’t need to tell me anything, if you didn’t want to.”

“I don’t think this was only for you to talk and learn about Lea.”

“Well—”

“I mean, you can say that, but I don’t think it is. I think that you’ve gotten yourself tangled up in your own situation with a man, and like your sister, you keep running—”

“I haven’t gone back once, actually.”

“But you consider it. You want to.”

Cara wouldn’t look Frankie in the eye. “I’m not like Lea, and I’m not like your wife, Frankie. I have a line that I don’t want to cross, and I didn’t appreciate being forced over it without even knowing what was happening.”

“Fair enough. Question for you, then.”

“Sure.”

“Had Gian said upfront that he had a wife—estranged for years, basically separated from, whatever—would you have continued seeing him?”

“I don’t know,” Cara answered.

But her voice wavered.

She had taken a second to answer.

Frankie continued staring at her, and in that moment, she didn’t think he looked at her and saw Lea at all. He just saw a confused, sad woman.