Page 60 of Protecting Love

“Do you want some?”

“Can I?”

He held half the burger toward her, she took a large bite and grinned. “Nice and greasy. I’m going to regret this in the morning, I know it. But honestly, you’re taking my mind off of things and maybe I needed that more than anything.”

It was only putting more on his mind though.

“Glad I could help.”

“Don’t sound so put out about it. So, you find out about your ex and knowing what little I do about you, but judging from your character traits, you kick her ass out.”

“Nope. I packed a bag and left. She stayed in the apartment.”

“The noble thing.”

“It was faster,” he corrected.

“That too. How long ago was this? Do you mind me asking?”

“Oh, now you want to be polite about asking more?”

She laughed. “You’re being a good sport. I appreciate that. Sorry. I’ll stop.”

“It’s fine. It was right before my twenty-year mark. She’d been cooler than normal for a good year. I kept reminding her I was retiring. Then right before I put the paperwork in, I find this second phone. Almost as if it was left out on purpose.”

“Do you think she did?”

“Yep. I’m not that stupid. She put up a token fight, but in the end, she wanted me to find out. She wanted me to be the one to leave.”

“Because she didn’t have the courage to do it? She’s sleeping around, so that takes courage.”

“No. It’s not courage. It’s the easy way out and that was her. Passive aggressive. But she messed up our kid even more. I took the blame for not being around.”

She put her hand on his arm. “I’m going to stop you right there. By the sounds of it, you were married a long time. She married you when you were already in the FBI, right?”

“Yep.”

“So she knew what she was getting into. Sorry. Not buying it.”

“Doesn’t change the guilt of what I missed with more attention to my job than my family.”

And it never would.

“We’ll stop that talk now because it will only annoy me. You move out, you get a divorce, she finds another guy and remarries. Can I guess what he does?”

“Sure,” he said.

“She either went way the complete opposite of you. So a man who works with his hands, rough around the edges, or someone who is a complete pushover.”

“No,” he said.

The few he’d found out about that she’d slept with were more like him.

In looks. In personality. Even in law enforcement.

That one burned more than anything, but no one who knew him.

No one that his wife ever told them about her husband’s career.