Just a Couple Ex's Blindsided
finished.
    “I’ll help pay them,” she said, then she asked in a general way. “I wonder how long it will take?”
    “You and I will start comparing notes ... times they are gone at the same time and that should help.”
    His gaze looked as haunted as she felt and she missed their earlier flirting. That was easy and fun, but this was so hard.

Chapter Four
    A xel had driven her to the rose farm, but she’d had him drop her off at the end of the driveway. Less questions about who he was, and frankly she was a bit embarrassed in the light of day about their kissing. It felt a little as if she’d cheated, and feeling that way might grandly show how messed up she was.
    They’d said they’d keep in touch and he’d squeezed her hand before she’d left the car. Then she’d walked the long driveway leading into the farm. Once there, she’d had one of her workers drive her back to her SUV later that day and much more sober. She’d had to pretend she’d run out of gas to cover her activities — even going so far as to add five gallons to her tank.
    But an afternoon later and it was time to go home to see her husband, yet she still lingered in the dusk outside her grandmother’s old house. She used one room of the house as a small office. Sometimes she used the kitchen, but mainly the rest of the house was closed off with its furniture and contents covered in drop cloths or boxed up.
    She hadn’t, had the heart to go through all her grandmother's things and disperse them, so she’d just kept them in a holding pattern for several years.
    Liv put her hand to her temple to cover her eyes from the bright sunset as she watched the dust kick up from Carlos pickup truck leaving. The farm looked kind of desolate that time of year with the rose bushes covered against frost, the grass brown, and the trees bare like watching sentinels with their arms spread wide.
    She turned in a circle on the driveway toward her car, dropping her shielding hand. Then she finished the circle past her SUV and ended facing the house. She loved the old house and always meant to fix it up, back to its former glory. All she could think was if life were back to normal she wouldn’t be expecting Andrew home yet. How was she going to go home and pretend surprise he was there?
    “Damn it,” she muttered. “How am I going to pretend I don’t know? That’s more the problem.”
    She certainly thought Axel was right and they should get indisputable proof. Andrew could be vicious when trying to deny something he was obviously wrong over. She’d seen him blame his parents and hurt their feelings on several occasions when they’d caught him in lies. He had a way of putting people down that made him seem like he wasn’t doing it, just as he was doing it.
    She shivered, crossing her arms. Alone, she could admit she was a bit afraid about confronting him about the affair, and she certainly didn’t want to see him after he’d ...
    “After he mauled Kiki Savvi,” she muttered. Then she stalked toward the steps of the house. “To hell with you, Andrew,” she hissed.
    She grabbed her keys out of her purse and unlocked the front door having decided she wasn’t going home. Half the weight of her marriage’s doom seemed to lift off her shoulders. She didn’t want to be in Andrew’s house anymore. She wouldn’t be — and she didn’t have to be.
    Maybe she was hiding, but it didn’t feel like it. It felt as though she was making a stand and taking back some of her dignity.
    “I am not going back there,” she stated firmly, walking inside and shutting the door behind her. She leaned back against it, realizing her worst fears. “I’m not going back into his bed again. Ever. ”
    That was the worst thing that she just couldn’t face — going back to sleep beside him, and then pretending she didn’t know. He might turn to her in the night. And she might get sick.
    * * *
    A xel pulled up to the front of his rental business after dropping off Liv.

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