Page 45 of Cowboy Daddies

“I’d like to talk about some texts I saw on your phone last night.”

She froze with the fork on its way to her mouth. “You checked my messages?”

“No, but I checked on you when I woke up late and realized you’d never come to bed. I found you passed out on the couch. You were so out of it you didn’t even wake up as I got you comfortable.”

It had been a late night thanks to a client dinner after an already long day. She vaguely remembered sitting down when she got home, promising herself it would only be a few minutes, and then she’d go shower and get into bed. None of that had happened, of course.

“You still had your phone in your hand,” he continued. “I noticed it was dead, so I plugged it in for you and a bunch of messages started popping up. They came too quickly for me to read them all, but I got the gist of it. Is this a new thing, or has it been going on for a while?”

She could feel his eyes drilling into her, but she didn’t meet them. Instead, she drew in a deep breath and then calmly let the fork continue its journey to her mouth. Chewing gave her a minute to think about how she wanted to respond.

He had to find out eventually. She’d expected it. Hiding things from Carter never worked for long, he was too attentive. But explaining wasn’t going to go over well. “It doesn’t mean anything. It just sort of happened. I…” She trailed off with a jerk of her head.

“Just sort of happened?” There was a note of incredulity in his voice. “Hiding things from me doesn’t ‘just sort of happen’, Allegra. That was a choice you made.”

“It wasn’t like that. I didn’t plan any of this, Carter.” She took a sip of wine, and then a much longer one that almost finished the glass.

“So, all these long days and late nights… they’ve all been…?” He didn’t even sound angry, but there was a note of disappointment in his tone that was worse.

She closed her eyes and blew out a heavy breath. “Yes.” After a second adding, “I’m sorry. It was supposed to be a one-time thing.”

There was silence across the table, and it drew out for long enough that eventually she needed to look. He was just watching her from his seat. Brow furrowed, expression solemn, just… watching.

“Are you mad?” she asked in a soft whisper.

“How long was this going to go on before you finally told me?”

“I-I don’t know. I guess I was hoping it would get better before I had to.” It was the wrong answer.

He started to say something and then closed his mouth. A muscle jumped in his jaw as he reached for his glass, but instead of drinking the wine, he just pulled the glass over and began tapping the side of it with his fingernail over and over.

Ting. Ting. Ting. Ting.

She cleared her throat. “Carter, I⁠—”

“Eat your dinner, Allegra. I could hear your stomach growling when you came in. I’m guessing you didn’t have time for lunch again today.”

She swallowed and looked down at her plate. Despite being slightly queasy from nerves, she was still ravenous. She picked up her fork and began to eat without answering. He wouldn’t like the answer, and he didn’t need one anyway. Her silence was as good as an admission.

But just because he expected her to eat didn’t mean he was done talking. “I thought you knew better than this. I thought I could trust you, but apparently not.”

One stolen glance at his expression sent her back to her food without a word. He didn’t want her input; that much was obvious. And honestly, there was nothing she could really say at this point that would help matters.

“It stops now. Tonight,” he said with a note of finality that made her cringe.

She didn’t want to know what that meant.

Allegra heard him pick up his fork and start pushing food around his plate, but she didn’t look up to see if he was actually eating. Only when her food was gone did she look up. She reached for her glass, but at some point, she’d emptied it.

“Is there more wine?” she asked. Her voice was soft, hesitant. He considered wine part of the dinner experience, but they rarely had more than one glass with a meal. Tonight though, she had a feeling she was going to need some fortification.

“No. I don’t want you tipsy for this conversation.” He dropped his fork and went to the kitchen. A second later he returned with a glass of ice water and set it in front of her. “You probably haven’t been getting enough water lately anyway.” It wasn’t a question.

“Thank you.” She didn’t correct him, but to her credit, it wasn’t one of the things she’d let slide. Mostly thanks to the fancy water bottle he’d gifted her at Christmas. She’d gotten used to carrying it around with her everywhere, and it tracked her ounces for the day.

Oh well, at least I have that going for me. It felt like she didn’t have many other successes she could have reported.

“Done?”