Twisted Up by Lissa Matthews Read Free Book Online

for closeness, for any kind of connection, and he wasn’t capable of giving it.”
    She thought back to all those conversations, to the look in his eyes, to the disappointment, to the anger, to the relief. He knew she hadn’t been happy for a long time because she’d told him on more than one occasion. He didn’t ask her to stay to try and fix things. He didn’t promise he’d try to change. She was emotionally and sexually needy and she knew it, and staying with him wasn’t going to help her fulfill those needs.
    “I’m sorry, Ella.”
    “No need for you to be sorry, Justin, but thank you just the same.”
    “Do you regret it?”
    Did she? “No. My mom always said that when it was time, I’d know. She’d realized even before I did how unhappy I was. I wasn’t fair to him. I should have let him go long before. I wasted eight years of his life and mine. I knew before we ever walked down the aisle that I shouldn’t marry him, that something wasn’t clicking, but I did it anyway.”
    She didn’t need or want to make excuses, drum up reasons why or what if. What was done was done. She couldn’t undo it, she couldn’t take it back, and even if she could, she wouldn’t. “I should have walked away long before I did.”
    “Why didn’t you?”
    Why indeed. “Fear. I was scared no one else would ever want me. Strange to think that when I don’t know that he ever wanted me to begin with. I just don’t know. We were great as friends, bad as lovers.”
    Justin nodded. “I think a good marriage takes both.”
    She agreed with him on that.
    “Do you still see him, talk to him?”
    Ella smiled into the darkness outside the dim truck cabin. There was an odd intimacy surrounding them. There were cars and trucks with lights on, passing them on the road, but it was almost as though she and Justin were the only two people in the world. “Yes. We actually do still talk, more so than we did when we were married. He moved back home to Georgia, and oddly enough, I travel near there on occasion. We’ve met for lunch and dinner and talked about the things that made us friends but not lovers.”
    “Still no regrets?” he asked again.
    She turned toward him. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking or feeling. Since her separation and then her divorce, she’d vowed that no matter what, she’d be honest from then on. Whether it was about how she felt or didn’t feel, what she wanted or didn’t want, what was or wasn’t working for her, she’d be honest. She wouldn’t try to talk herself into someone else’s truths or beliefs or feelings of what was best.
    Just like with Justin. If she hadn’t wanted to be with him, she wouldn’t be riding in the truck, getting closer to Dallas and his home, his bed, with every second that ticked by. “No.”
    It was a few minutes before he spoke. “I have regrets,” he said softly.
    Her eyes widened as she stared at him. He had regrets? About them? She tried to pull her hand from his grip again, but he wouldn’t let go. Was he having second thoughts about this? Maybe she should have put up a bigger fuss, pushed him harder about why he wanted her, why he’d come to see her and made the proposition he had. The only way she was going to find out what his regret was, was to ask. That was another form of honesty, asking the hard questions even if you were afraid to hear the answers. “What do you regret?”
    “Not coming to get you sooner.”
    He said it so quietly that she almost didn’t hear it, but for emphasis, he lifted her hand and stretched her over a bit so he could kiss it. Her heart stuttered to a near stop at his words, at the relief she felt. “Why didn’t you?”
    “Work is the easy answer. I knew you were busy and I couldn’t get away at the time. It gave me an excuse to give you space in the hopes you’d come to me, that you’d let me in again, that you’d start talking to me, sharing with me again. You never did. I didn’t understand why you kept pushing