Chapter 10

What do you do when the man of your dreams is kissing you like you’ve never been kissed before? You reluctantly stop and take a few steps back because, of course, he’s married. To someone else.

Charlotte hated that she had a conscience. Yes, it had allowed her kiss a married man, but at the same time, it was something she felt like she had to do. She wanted to let him know that she understood how he felt because she felt the same way.

But it wouldn’t matter, her feet were moving her toward the exit faster than her mind could think about what she’d just done.

“I’m sorry,” she said as the walked towards the front of the bar.

Jeremy jumped up and chased after her. He reached her just as she pushed the door open.

“Lady… stop,” he said as he grabbed her arm. He caressed her face. “Please don’t go.”

She closed her eyes the second his hand touched her face. This is what she wanted, yet she wasn’t sure it was what she should have. All she knew was that if she didn’t put some distance between the two of them, she wasn’t sure what would happen next.

“I’m sorry, I think I should. What just happened, what we did, it was wrong, so very wrong. I loved it,” she smiled weakly at him, “but it was so wrong.”

He was lost. He heard and understood what she was saying, but neither of them could get past the fact that it felt so right.

Jeremy took Charlotte’s hand and led her out of the doorway and back into the building. They were standing in the hallway leading to the restrooms. It wasn’t the most ideal place to have their conversation, but the talk needed to come out.

“I wish I’d said something years ago,” Charlotte said, turning away from him. “When we were in school, I used to wish for the day that you would come to me and tell me all the things you just told me.” She turned to face him. “The same things that I felt, and still feel for you now. Jeremy, I have loved you since day one, and I’ve never stopped.”

Jeremy leaned back against the wall. All this time he thought the feelings he had for her were one sided. To find this out now, it was like a relief and a hardship, both at the same time. He was married! He loved his wife. But -and this is where things got complicated- she was not Charlotte.

He dropped his head in his hands and sighed. He didn’t know what to say to fix the situation.

Charlotte stepped back from him and leaned against the opposite wall. She was spent, also.

As she watched him, she absently reached up and touched her lips. She could still feel his mouth pressed against hers. That moment will be etched in her mind, and heart, until the end of her days, she thought. The feelings that were rushing through her at that moment were like nothing she’d ever felt before. She was bursting inside and there was no way she could let that show.

Jeremy looked at the ceiling for a second and then back at Charlotte. He gave a hint of a smile.

“I still can’t believe how this is turning out. I would’ve never guessed that you felt that way about me. All those years,” he said while shaking his head, “we could’ve been grooving all this time.”

She giggled lightly at his choice of words. His sense of humor, compassion and his gigantic heart were just some of the things that made her fall so deep in love with him. The way he knew her, inside and out, also played a part.

“I can’t believe it either. But, considering how the past 10 years went, would you change it? If you could go back right now, still in the dark about what you know now, would you do anything differently? Would you tell me?”

Charlotte waited patiently for his answer, but they got interrupted by her cell phone ringing. She pulled it out to see who it was then silenced the ringer and put the phone back in her purse.

“Wow. That was just what we needed right there,” Jeremy said sarcastically.

Charlotte took a step closer to him.

Everything was whirling so fast in her mind she couldn’t do anything to slow it down. Now that she knew that he felt the same way, she wanted him for herself.

“I have to be honest with you. Again.”

Jeremy tilted his head, wondering what else she could possibly say.

“I want you. I, she stressed, “want you. For myself,” she finished.

She leaned against the wall next to him. It was all she could do to keep from jumping him right there in the hallway.

“But I know I can’t have you. And that just kills me.”

She sank down to her feet. She realized then that her heart was breaking.

“I’m in love with a married man,” she whispered. “I would never want to break up a happy home. And it was not my intention to come here and kiss you and, just all this,” she said, gesturing between them. “I am so sorry for that. But I feel compelled to lay it all out on the line here. I want you. I need you.”

It was tearing Jeremy apart to see her like that. He’d always considered her to be a rock. He knew she had feelings, but she was always strong. To see her breaking down was something new to him. He wanted to hold her, to make all the pain go away.

He sat on the floor beside her and put his arm around her. He felt her body tense and stiffen, then he felt her relax against him.

“I can’t believe I’m acting like this,” she said as she played with some lint on her pants. “I just never expected this. I don’t know what to do.”

She made the mistake of looking at him. Being that close to him, there was only one thing to do. This time, it was her leaning into him.
_______________________________________________________________________

Robin lay back on the bed of the hotel room. She was in heaven. She always enjoyed her getaways with Greg. She just hated that she had to lie to Jeremy about what she was doing.

She met Greg a few months after her and Jeremy got married. At first, she kept her distance from him, but then they got scheduled to work together on a deal. She had no choice but to be around him. And of course, he took advantage of the situation. No matter how many times she told him she was married and that she would never cheat on her husband, he kept pushing. After a couple of months, she gave into him.

It started off simple with dinner dates and talking on the phone.

Robin could never say that Jeremy didn’t pay attention to her or that he didn’t do for her because that wasn’t the case at all. They both worked, but with Jeremy owning his own contracting business, he had more free time. So he mostly took care of the household, which was a huge burden off her. She really had nothing to complain about. But yet, she still wanted more. So to her, Greg was just that.

But two years into her marriage, she got pregnant. Of course, she didn’t know which man was the father. She didn’t know what she was going to do. She was terrified to tell Jeremy. What if it was Greg's baby?

Unfortunately, two months after she found out, she had a miscarriage. That forced her to tell Jeremy that she was pregnant and that she’d lost the baby. He insisted on going with her to the doctor. After all, he thought it was his son or daughter that they’d lost.

Robin felt so bad about the baby, the miscarriage and Jeremy, that she even broke up with Greg. But that didn’t last very long. She found out that she liked the adventure of it all. She loved Jeremy and figured what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. She just figured that she had to be more careful.

Then, to make matters worse, over time her feelings for Greg started to turn from lust to love. He wanted her to leave Jeremy, but she kept putting it off. She didn’t want to have to give up what they both gave and did for her. Greg wanted her to divorce Jeremy and marry him, but she liked the idea of having it good on both sides. She wanted to hold on to Jeremy for as long as she could. He was too good of a man to let someone else have him. That was something she realized back when they were in college.

Back then, all the other guys just wanted to sex her, but Jeremywas laid back and easy going. He didn’t force or push her to do anything. He did things for her that you saw in the old movies and she loved that about him. If she was on good terms with his mother she would thank her everyday for the man she raised. She knew that he deserved better than her, but until he came to the realization himself, she was going to take every advantage of it.

“Damn, baby, that was amazing. Where did that come from?” Greg asked Robin.

They’d just finished a “huddle-room session”, a term they used to describe their sexual escapades. They were both breathing hard and tired.

“Oh, you know. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve. I wasn’t going to use them all right away,” she said as she kissed his cheek.

She rolled over and climbed out of the bed. As soon as she stood up, she immediately felt nauseous. She ran to the bathroom, slammed the door and threw up in the toilet. She’d been feeling ill for the past couple of days now.

“Babe,” Greg said as he pounded on the door from the outside, “are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, babe. I guess you were really working on my bladder there. I’ll be right out,” she said.

She washed her face and brushed her teeth, refusing to look at herself in the mirror. She didn't want to see the truth in her own face.

“Oh, God, please don’t let me be pregnant. I can’t go through this again,” she whispered to herself.

She looked down at her stomach and rubbed her hand across it. She lowered her head and said a silent prayer, wishing God to make the baby be Jeremy’s.