“It’s fine. And the truth is I’m afraid Jacob might have figured it out. I didn’t tell him anything. Not a single word. But I guess Ria might have mentioned something about you having a secret relationship, and then when I wouldn’t tell him who I was dating, he kind of...”
Madeline grew very still as he spoke. “Did he say something?”
“No. But I could see his mind working. He didn’t say anything to Matthew. Matthew doesn’t know anything. But I think Jacob does. And I think he’ll probably say something to Ria. I mean, it makes sense he’d...” Ken trailed off. He was pleased that his voice still sounded relaxed when he was feeling anything but.
This felt like it could be the end for them. Madeline had been very clear the whole time that she was only comfortable with them together if no one knew about them.
And Ken couldn’t stand it. His stomach churned sickeningly, and he was mentally flailing around for some way to save what had become incredibly important to him.
Madeline wasn’t looking at his face. She stared at his shirt as she took a long, slow breath.
“I’m sorry,” Ken murmured. “I know you didn’t want this. I tried to... but Jacob is pretty smart.”
“I know he is. And the truth is it’s been hard to keep it from Ria and Skye. They both know something is going on with me. They’ve tried to be patient, but I know it’s bothering them that I won’t tell.”
Ken was desperate enough to take a very big risk. “Would it be so bad?” he asked softly. Gently. “If they found out? Would it be so bad?”
“Yes.” She gulped visibly. “It would be bad.”
Ken tried to hold back the next thing, but his chest was aching painfully now and he simply couldn’t help it. “Why?”
“Because if three people know, then everyone is eventually going to know. That’s just how these things work.”
“And why would that be so bad? So what if people know about us?”
“So what?” Her voice broke, and her eyes were huge as she turned them to gaze up at him. “You know so what, Ken. You know this had to be a secret.”
Past tense.
She was now using past tense to talk about them.
Ken was so desperate he reached out to hold on to her upper arm. Not hard or forceful. More like clinging to a lifeline. “I know you wanted it that way, and it made it easier. But is it really that... that necessary? What would it change?”
“Everything! It would change everything. Everyone will think... I’m your girlfriend. And I can’t be that. I want to be what we’ve been.” There were tears in her eyes now. “Ken, how could you...?” She trailed off, but he heard the faint accusation in her tone.
“I didn’t tell anyone,” he gritted out. “Not anyone. I kept your secret.” He heard the tinge of anger in his voice. He’d always prided himself on never losing his temper. Even when he felt it, he never showed it. He honestly couldn’t remember the last time he’d sounded angry with anyone.
Madeline obviously heard it too. She flinched back, tears sliding down her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she choked out. “I know you didn’t tell. That’s not what I meant.”
She looked so broken he couldn’t stop himself, He reached out to cup her cheek. For just a moment she leaned into his hand, like she needed the comfort.
Then she pulled away. “We can’t talk about this here. We need to do it later.”
Her response to his touch had given him a surge of hope, but her withdrawal slammed the rising hope back into the ground.
She was going to break up with him now. He knew it for sure. That was why she wanted them to be alone.
It was only fair to wait for privacy to break someone’s heart.
He took a few shuddering breaths until he managed to pull himself together. He gave a jerky nod. “Okay. We’ll finish this tonight.”
He couldn’t get anything else said—not without losing it completely—so he turned around and walked away.
Six
MADELINE WAS SO UPSET she went to the bathroom and cried silently for a couple of minutes after Ken left.
She wished she wasn’t so terrified about any change in their relationship. She wished she could react more reasonably and maturely. But things were so good right now. She was happy with Ken. And the intelligent part of herself knew it couldn’t last. Knew it was so good because it wasn’t real.
Real relationships were hard. Took work. You had to pour yourself into them, and even then they often fell apart. She’d lived through that with Josh, and she couldn’t stand to feel that way about Ken. She was still too exhausted to go through all that.
She didn’t want to be a girlfriend. Not again. Not yet.
She just wanted to enjoy life for a little while longer.
So she cried briefly—mostly just to relieve the emotional tension—and then she pulled herself back into her typical composure and tried to work. She did manage to get some stuff done, but she was distracted and broody all day, constantly wondering what Ken was thinking, whether he was getting annoyed by her insistence on secrecy, if he was ready for this thing between them to end.
That possibility upset her a lot more than it should.
Her shift at the library ended at four, and she walked back to her apartment, counting the hours until she could talk to Ken. He always worked until six. Sometimes later if there was something big going on in the county. Then he would head back to his house to eat dinner, walk Marlowe, and give the dog some attention. He never came over to her place until well after dark.
It would be a long time before she would be able to talk to him and either fix things or resign herself to this being the end.
She really hoped it wasn’t.
If it was, it would be her own fault for not handling it better.
In her typical fashion, she mentally played out one scenario after another, imagining every possibility for what might happen and then reimagining what could have happened if she’d done better in the past. She spent a full ten minutes visualizing what her life might look like if she’d not wasted so much of it on Josh—how she could have fallen naturally into a relationship with Ken without any of these complications. None of this did a thing to abate her anxiety, and she was so caught up in thinking that instead of walking farther down the block to her apartment, she turned in to Second Chance Flower Shop without thinking.
She had no idea why she was even there until she saw Skye, who was sitting behind the counter, look up from her laptop and smile with genuine pleasure at seeing Madeline. “Hey,” she began. “I didn’t know you were—” She broke off as her blue eyes scanned her friend’s face. “What’s the matter?”
Madeline shook her head. The “nothing” she murmured was automatic. An instinctive brushing off of attention.
“Why do you always say that when it’s obvious that something is wrong?” Skye closed her laptop and stood up. “Nothing much is happening right now. Come on into the back and talk to us.”
For just a moment Madeline considered objecting. She’d spent so much of her life keeping the deepest things to herself. But she’d come here for a reason, whether she’d realized it or not as she’d opened the shop door. She was upset, and her friends would always help.