Coming Clean by C. L. Parker Page B

the same, Shaw.”
    He threw exasperated hands into the air and spun around in a circle. “Oh. My. God! How? How is it not the same?”
    “Your eyes don’t match the sentiment anymore. It’s like you’re on autopilot.” I closed my eyes to gather my thoughts and find the words that would make him understand. Once I had them, I opened my eyes again. “You used to look at me like I hung the moon.”
    He saw me then, those piercing blue eyes conveying the potent truth of his next words. “That’s because once upon a time, you did.”
    Finally. Truth.
    There was a moment of stillness then. A moment that held the same eerie awkwardness one might feel during a ceremonial silence at a funeral. I think we both realized it at the same time. Shaw picked up his briefcase, turned his back to me, and walked away. All I could do was stare after him. So I did. I stared until the tears flooding my eyes rendered me blind and I could see him no more. Though maybe I hadn’t seen him in quite a long time.
    I’d like to say my heart was broken, but it wasn’t. I was feeling something much more devastating than that. I felt empty and cold, like that place inside me that held the core of everything I believed in was suddenly vacant.
    Vacant.
That was the word. Like the room built for three, once filled to capacity with love, now only held a lonely woman clinging tightly to the hand of a small child, and there was way too much space on her other side. I wondered if that was how a war widow felt when she received the news that the love of her life had suddenly been erased from existence. I decided it wasn’t. It wasn’t, because those men had not chosen to be eradicated. Shaw had. He had and there was nothing I could do about it.
    There was nothing left of what we once were to hold on to anymore.
    Wiping the tears from my eyes, I gathered myself to do what needed to be done. There was no time for a breakdown because I had a child I needed to take care of, plans to make for our future. So with a shaky hand, I fished my cellphone out of my purse and dialed the number that had been my lifeline for as many years as I’d been living. By the second ring, a warm, loving voice answered.
    “Cassidy? Is everything okay?”
    “No, Ma. Everything is not okay. I’m coming home.”

CHAPTER 3
    Shaw
    I didn’t mean it. I swear, I didn’t. Cassidy’s insistence that something was wrong between us, that I felt any differently about her now than I did when I’d first realized I was in love with her damn near four years ago, had finally pushed me to my limit. So I’d told her what I’d thought she wanted to hear.
    I still loved her. I still thought she hung the moon. Though I was concerned that the lie had fallen so easily from my lips.
    Goddammit! Why did she have to push me so much? She knew I was in a hurry, so why did we
have
to have that conversation right then and there instead of waiting until I got home from work? I was stressed the fuck out, juggling clients while being a partner at SSE and doing my absolute best to take care of my family, to be different from my own parents. I didn’t sleep well at nights, my brain constantly spinning out of control with everything I had to do, who I had to please, moves I needed to forecast…everything. And Cassidy was just piling the bullshit on top.
    No, I didn’t spend much time at home, but that was because I couldn’t. I was only one man; there was only so much I could do, and I’d been stretched pretty damn thin as it was. You’d think the woman who was supposed to love me would try to understand that.
    I thought Cassidy and I were supposed to be partners in this whole parenting thing. It had been working well, by my assessment. She was the nurturer. I was the provider. Abe had the best of both worlds, and that was a million miles away from Planet Don’t Give a Shit, where my parents had apparently hailed from.
    Abe had it made. So had Cassidy. She got to be at home with Abe, for