The pure joy and excitement in Kelly’s eyes was still something that haunted him. He’d rushed into the living arrangement, knowing it was what she wanted, but also knowing it wasn’t what he wanted. He’d told himself he’d been gallant, basically sacrificing his own happiness for the sake of his child. What a delusion that had been.

“You didn’t want to live with her,” Elisa guessed.

Go ahead. It’s okay to admit it now. “No. I think I thought with enough time, I could really love Kelly. And I eventually did start to have loving feelings for her. But I always knew that she loved me a lot more than I loved her.” He let out a humorless laugh. “I’m such a bastard.”

“No, you’re not, Brody.”

“Yeah, I am. I led Kelly to believe that I returned her feelings. All along I knew there was a good chance that I never would. Then I talked her into quitting school, telling myself that I was doing the right thing by being able to take better care of them.”

“How would her quitting school allow you to do that?”

He ignored the censure in her voice. “There wasn’t a whole lot of job opportunity where we went to school, and I couldn’t provide for a wife and a baby on minimum wage from the university’s bookstore.”

“So you came back here and went to work for your father?”

“Eventually. Kelly was about to drop Tyler when we moved here. I knew she didn’t want to live in Wyoming. But we desperately needed health insurance, and I needed a good-paying job. My father provided that for us, and I needed to do it in order to provide a good life for Kelly and Tyler.”

“But what about the degree you got from school?” Elisa asked. “Couldn’t you have taken that and gotten a good job somewhere where the two of you wanted to live together?”

“I could have, yeah. But the job market is so damn competitive. Who knows how long it would have taken. I needed something right away, and it was too good an opportunity to pass up.”

Elisa scooted closer to him, her warmth surrounding him with a comfort he hadn’t felt in a long time.

“So why are you beating yourself up over that? Sounds like moving here was your only option.”

“It was. But I still felt bad making Kelly live somewhere she didn’t want to live.”

“You did what had to be done. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

He heaved a sigh. “I told you not to make me out to be a hero.”

She touched his cheek lightly and turned his face toward hers. “I never said you were a hero, Brody. Only human.”

That was for damn sure. He’d been a weak, stupid human being who’d continually given Kelly false hopes when she’d deserved so much better.

Elisa gazed down at him with so much compassion, so much understanding as though she felt his agony. It was all he could do not to grab her, bury his head in her sweet hair, and never let her go. She gave him hope. She made him feel like he was capable of being the man he once was. And she was going to leave him.

Then, without thinking, he blurted out the words he’d held in for four and a half years. “I slept with someone else. While Kelly and I were living apart.”

Elisa’s face froze with the exception of her eyebrows, which twitched.

“I was pissed off at the world,” he continued like the idiot he was. “Pissed off at Kelly and pissed off at myself. I’d slipped into this weird depression and didn’t know what to do with myself. My only thoughts had been for Tyler and how I was losing him.” A tight fist closed around his heart and forced a lump into his throat. He hadn’t cried over his separation from Tyler in such a long time. He hadn’t allowed himself that indulgence, hadn’t allowed himself to feel much of anything.

Within a matter of moments, he felt like he’d stepped back in time. Back to those lonely days in Noah’s guest house, eating shitty TV dinners and watching useless infomercials in the middle of the night because sleep had abandoned him. In the mornings, he’d be gritty-eyed and brain-dead. Then he’d slump over on the couch and cry like a fucking baby because he’d single-handedly ripped his family apart. Tyler had lost his stable home because his father had been thinking with his dick when a beautiful woman had paid attention to him. Shit, he couldn’t even remember the woman’s name, or what she looked like for that matter.

I hope she was worth it.

That’s what Kelly had said to him after seeing the woman emerge from the bedroom wearing Brody’s boxers.

I hope she was worth it. Then Kelly had turned around and walked out the door, without saying another word to him. She filed divorce papers the next day.

Brody sucked in a breath and clenched his jaw, trying to erase the memory of that night. Hell, that whole damn year.

His body jerked when Elisa placed a soothing hand on his chest.

“You don’t have to say any more,” she whispered.

“But I need to explain—”

“No, you don’t.” She paused, nibbling her lower lip with her teeth. “Besides, I already know this. I don’t want you to keep telling something that’s too painful for you to talk about.”

She what?

His heart, which had once been squeezing so damn tight in his chest, felt like it had stopped beating. What did she mean, she already knew?

Then it hit him like a two-by-four. “Kelly told you, didn’t she?”

Elisa nodded, and a strand of silky hair slid over her shoulder. “I went to see her today about what happened the other day. She…” Elisa placed a hand on his chest and ran her index finger in circles over his pec. “She told me about your divorce. About what really happened.”

Brody hadn’t realized the two women were that close. He’d always been pretty sure that Kelly had never told anyone about what he’d done. Yet she’d told Elisa. And Elisa had sat there and let him spout his mouth off like a damn woman. And why hadn’t she asked him about it, instead of acting like she didn’t have a clue?

“So everything I just told you, you already knew?” Why did that knowledge create a sick feeling in his stomach? “Why’d you let me keep going?”

Her eyebrows pinched together. “You said you needed to tell it. And you told me not to interrupt you. Plus, I only heard Kelly’s version.” Her voice dropped a notch. “I wanted to hear it coming from you.”

He turned on his side to face her. “And now that you’ve heard it? Are you going to run screaming in the other direction?” If she ran, he wouldn’t blame her. In fact, he expected her to. What woman would want to stay with him after the story he just told?

She tilted her head to one side, and a chunk of silky hair slid over her shoulder. “Why would I run? I already told you, you’re only human. People make mistakes. What matters is if you learned from them.”

“What I did was more than a mistake. It ended my marriage.”

Elisa pursed her full lips. “Sounds like your marriage was already over.”

“That doesn’t make what I did right. I was still unfaithful. And I don’t think Kelly ever forgave me.” Not that Brody blamed her.

“I think she probably has. I think what you’re struggling with is closure. And Kelly probably is too.”

How in the world could Elisa be so understanding? Why was she not looking at him with disgust and saying “How could you?” as Kelly had done?

“You think closure is all I need? How do I do that?” If that’s all he needed to make that guilt go away, he’d do it, whatever it took.

“It starts with forgiveness. You forgiving yourself and asking Kelly to forgive you.”

He skimmed the tip of his index finger over her shoulder. “See, I thought I had forgiven myself.”

The corners of Elisa’s mouth curved up in a smile. “If you’re still struggling with this, then you obviously haven’t.”

Touching her skin was like touching the softest velvet. He floated his hand from her shoulder to her hair, where he tunneled it beneath the strands. They were cool and practically weightless around his hand. He tilted her head toward his until her mouth was a whisper away from his lips.

“Why are you still here? Haven’t you realized by now that I’m a head case?”

Her lips tilted in a small smile. “You’re not a head case, Brody. You just have some ghosts you haven’t dealt with yet.”

“And what, you want to help me? Is that it?”

Her eyes searched his for a moment. “If you’ll let me,” she whispered. “You’ve been alone long enough. It’s time to let someone in.”

“I don’t think you’ll like what you see,” he told her.

“I’ve seen everything. I’ve seen the way you look at Tyler and your fear of losing him. I’ve seen your worry for your employees. You’re a lot nobler than you give yourself credit for.”

“Or maybe you just think too highly of me.”

“You don’t think enough of yourself. That’s your problem.” Her breath was warm and sweet and tickled his lips when she spoke.

What had he been doing, sitting here telling his stupid sob story when the woman he wanted was buck naked, less than a foot from him? During their conversation, she’d inched closer and closer to him, as though she needed that physical closeness—as though she craved it as much as he did.

Enough of this talking shit.

He’d spoken so much that he was sick and tired of hearing his own voice. What he wanted to hear about was Elisa. But not now. All he wanted to do was settle her down on the bed, cover her body with his, and grind himself deep.

He massaged the back of her neck with his hand and nudged her head forward. When their lips touched, it was like fireworks ignited in his system. His body came alive and hummed with tension the way it always did when Elisa touched him. She had a way of crawling under his skin and making him feel not like himself. When he was with Elisa, she made him believe he could actually let go of his past mistakes and start over as a new man. She gave him hope to be a better man.