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Her outrage was more pretense than real, but she went with it.
“You came to see me for a reason.”
“I wanted to know what was going on.”
He waved his hands. “Now you know. This is where I am and this is where I’ll be staying until I can make bail. Finding the right lawyer takes time.” His mouth flattened. “It’s not like I have a home office and can make calls whenever I want.”
He leaned toward her. “You’ve talked to Allison. You know what she’s up against. She’s pregnant, Erica. She’s alone with Jackson and she’s scared. She doesn’t have a lot of friends. It was always the two of us. I didn’t give her enough. You have no idea how sorry I am about that. I wanted to give her the world.”
“Right now all she needs is an apartment, but I guess that was too much to ask.”
He ignored the slam. “Please. Help them.”
“They’re not my problem.”
He slid off the chair, his knees hitting the floor. His dark eyes met hers. She read regret, determination and a couple dozen other emotions she couldn’t name—probably because she was in shock from seeing her ex-husband supplicating himself to her.
“I’m begging you,” he said quietly. “Erica, I’m begging you. If you ever loved me, help Allison. Do it for Summer, do it because it’s the right thing to do. You’re the only one who can save her.”
She stood there, unable to move, unable to speak. Everything about the moment was surreal. A voice in her head whispered that at no point in their marriage would he have begged for her. With the realization came a stab of pain, but she ignored it.
“Us,” she said quietly. “Did it begin falling apart because I pushed you to start your own business or was it before that?”
“The business thing didn’t help, but it was before that.”
Another blade carved through her heart. That long ago? She’d had no idea, no hint they were anything but happy.
“Will you help her?”
She picked up her bag. “I don’t know. But if I do, it won’t be because of you.”
13
Erica sat alone in the stands, trying to focus on the game. Summer’s team was up by three in the second inning.
She tugged her trench coat more tightly around her body, once again grateful she’d remembered to wear pants and low-heeled boots, along with a turtleneck and blazer. Suitable attire for both a high school softball game and a visit to prison, she thought, still processing her meeting with Peter.
She’d spent less than twenty minutes with him and still felt traumatized by everything that had happened. No, she amended. Not everything. The part where he’d begged.
No man had ever gone on his knees to her before. When Peter had proposed, it had been on a beach in St. Barts. They’d been walking along, after a wonderful dinner. The sky had been the cliché of an artist’s sunset paint palette, the air warm. She’d been happy, content and maybe a tiny bit drunk.
“I wonder if you’d like to marry me.”
She could hear the words now, slightly hopeful, a little chagrined. No wild declaration of love, no promise to make her the happiest woman in the world. Just Peter being Peter. Or at least the man he’d presented to her and the one she’d fallen in love with.
She’d looked at him, surprised by the unexpected question. “You’re proposing?”
He’d given her that lopsided grin of his. “Badly, if you have to ask. I have a ring back in the room and I was going to do the whole champagne-flower thing, but you’re just so beautiful here on the beach and I want us to be together.”
“You bought me a ring?”
“Yes. Your mom helped me with the size.” The bashful expression returned. “I hope you like it.”
She’d faced him then, taking his hands in hers. “I love you, Peter. So much.”
“I love you, too.”
He’d kissed her then, in that way of his. Kissing him had always given her butterflies in her stomach. Even years later, when she’d sensed he was distant but didn’t know why and didn’t have the time to find out, she’d felt the flutter. Shortly after that, he’d announced he wanted a divorce—shocking enough but not as horrifying as his cruelty as he severed every connection between them.
