Heart Like Mine by Amy Hatvany Read Free Book Online

are rules I need to follow. I have to be careful.”
    Relieved, Kelli met his gaze and gave him another smile. “I can be careful.”
    “I’m sure you can,” Victor said with a short laugh. “How about I take you on a real date this week? If we feel like it might go somewhere, I can tell the HR rep for the restaurant and just see how things go.”
    Kelli nodded, pressing her lips together. The fact that he wasn’t going to try to sleep with her right away made her like him even more. He was responsible. So mature. He made her feel safe. As they got to know each other over the next couple of months, she began to believe she’d finally found someone who might accept her for exactly who she was. Someone who’d take care of her.
    Even now, in some ways, even though they were divorced, he still did. He let her stay in the house his mother had left him so Kelli wouldn’t have a house payment and the kids wouldn’t have to move. He made sure she got her job back at the restaurant where they’d first met. He paid his child support on time and she never had to worry about the kids’ tuition, either. He took care of the scholarship applications. She’d been the one who told him to leave, but she hadn’t really believed that he would. By the time she realized her mistake, it was too late. She couldn’t find a way to get him to come back. She tried to seduce him, once, after he’d moved out. She’d left Max and Ava with Diane and gone to his new house wearing only a black bra and panties beneath her trench coat, like one of the daring characters she read about in her favorite romance novels.
    “Kelli,” he’d said, clearly surprised to see her when he opened the front door. “Are the kids okay? Why didn’t you call me?”
    “The kids are fine,” she said. “They’re with Diane.”
    His expression went flat. “Then what’s going on? Why are you here?”
    She put her hands against his chest and gave him a playful push. “To see you, silly,” she said. “I thought we could talk.”
    Victor sighed. “We don’t need to talk.”
    “Are you sure?” Kelli said, quickly untying her coat and flashing him right there on the front porch. She held her breath, waiting for him to take her in his arms, for everything that had gone wrong to be righted.
    But he only stared at her, the pity in his eyes too much for her to bear. “Kelli,” he began, but she stopped him by closing her coat and shaking her head.
    “No, it’s fine. I get it.” Something went hard inside her then, and shattered. “You’ve turned into him, you know. Leaving your family like this.”
    Victor tilted his head toward his shoulder. “Into who?”
    “Your father.” She spun around and raced down the front steps before he could respond, knowing that she had just delivered what had to be the fatal blow to their marriage. After her saying that to him, there was no way he’d ever return to them. She drove home crying, mortified that she’d believed sex would so easily win him back. What an idiot she was. And in the end, she lost him, just like she’d lost so many other things.
    All she had left were her children, whom she adored above everything else. She felt as though they were the only evidence that she was a successful person—they were both smart, were kind, and carried an innate sense of self-worth Kelli had never possessed. She hoped that how she’d mothered them had something to do with this. She wasn’t perfect as a parent by any means, but she knew she treated them better than her parentshad treated her. No matter what they did, they knew how much she loved them.
    She pulled into the parking lot of the Loft, checked her makeup in the rearview mirror, and practiced her smile. Not too big—she didn’t want to look desperate. But she wanted Victor to see the girl he fell in love with, the girl he took for long walks around Green Lake, the girl whom, when the single blue line doubled in the restaurant bathroom, he’d gotten down