A Second Chance by Bernadette Marie Read Free Book Online

regret. “Matt, I think since the
day we decided to get married, we knew it wasn’t going to be
forever.”
    “ Yeah.” He ran his fingers
through his hair. “You deserved better than me. I never should have
asked you to marry me. You were still in love with Carlos, and I
ruined a twenty-year friendship with someone I considered my
brother.”
    Damn the drugs. Tears were filling her
eyes, and she shouldn’t care at this point. She was lying here
bandaged up because they were trying to save her life. “Are you
sorry you married me?”
    “ No, I’m not sorry.” He
cleared his throat again. “It was great, while it lasted.” Finally,
he sat back down, and she adjusted to see him better. “It’s just
that I think when two people share their lives, they should love
each other. I mean…” He was stumbling through his words. “What I
want to say is… well… I did love you. I loved you like one of my
best friends. You know?” She nodded. That’s how she’d felt and she
agreed. They should have been in love. “The hardest part was to
know that you loved Carlos and you still do.”
    He was right again. It was always
obvious that she loved Carlos more than she ever loved Matt.
Acknowledging that only gave the pain she was feeling more depth as
it drove into the pit of her stomach.
    He stood again and paced. “God, this
is killing me.”
    “ Matt, what’s going on?” She
tried to sit up, but the bandages and wires held her in
place.
    “ I shouldn’t have
come.”
    “ Then why did you?” Her
voice slipped into anger, and by the look in his eyes he’d
noticed.
    “ I needed to make sure you
were okay.”
    “ I’m fine. I’ll live. For
now anyway.”
    He pursed his lips. “That’s not
funny.”
    “ It’s not supposed to
be.”
    “ I’m getting married.” The
words hit her like a fist in the stomach.
    “ Married?”
    “ Yeah. I didn’t want to tell
you like this…”
    “ My guess, Matthew, is that
you didn’t want to tell me at all!” The anger inside of her ramped
up her heart rate. She heard the beeping on the machine speed up,
and she took a deep breath.
    “ You should calm
down.”
    “ Go to hell. You’ve been
gone one month. Did you move on so quickly? Did I mean so
little?”
    He shot a look at the door again. “I
think I should go.”
    “ I think you should be
honest with me.” The monitor to her side began beeping even faster,
and she wondered if a nurse would burst through the door and make
him leave, but no one came.
    “ You want me to be honest?”
For the first time he made eye contact with her. “Fine.” He stuffed
his hands back into his pockets. “After Regan found out she was
pregnant, you began pulling out pictures of you and Carlos and the
kids. They were everywhere. You called him more often. You had
lunch with him to discuss the kids. God, Madeline, it was like you
had both of us on a string.”
    The deep breaths she’d been trying to
take stuck in her lungs. She’d done that. She’d been that
insensitive, and she didn’t know it. “I’m sorry if I got
sentimental.”
    “ It’s just that, well, I
couldn’t get a grip on it. I couldn’t share in that joy with you. I
didn’t love you like he loved you.” He sat back down and took her
hand in his. “I strayed. God, it hurts to tell you that. I had an
affair. I fell in love. I’ve never felt this way
before.”
    Now she was holding her breath to
stifle the anger. But tears that should have surfaced because her
husband was telling he he’d fallen in love with someone else never
came.
    He looked away and then back at her.
“She’s pregnant and we’re getting married and having a
baby.”
    “ Nice and tidy,” she said
through gritted teeth.
    “ Yeah, well just think,
maybe you and Carlos can work things out. He’s spent the last five
years waiting for our marriage to fall apart so he could have you
back.”
    “ You are so stupid.” She
snapped out the words so fiercely that pain shot through her