She said not a word. I didn’t either but she knew I met her daughter and I’d be all kinds of stupid not to see the resemblance so I decided not to play dumb.

We checked each other out for a while and finally, I spoke.

“Hey.”

Lame, yes, but what else did you say?

“You’re Sylvie,” she replied.

“And you’re Chelle,” I returned.

She lifted up her chin, exposing a long, slim, elegant neck.

I tipped my head to the side. “How did you find me?”

She didn’t hesitate to answer. “Only one nice hotel close to Tucker. He wouldn’t put you in anything but the best he could find. The best of the best isn’t close and he wouldn’t have you anywhere that wasn’t close.” She shrugged. “So here I am.”

She knew Creed. That wasn’t a surprise, they’d been married. She also knew how he felt about me. That, also, wasn’t a surprise, he’d told her.

But she called him Tucker.

Weird.

“And they gave you my room number?” I asked.

“For two hundred dollars,” she answered.

Seemed she paid Creed loads of attention and not just about me.

Time to move this on.

“Okay, Chelle, what can I do for you?” I asked.

“You can let me in,” she replied.

I shook my head but did it gently and dipped my voice low. “I don’t think –”

She lifted up a slim, elegant hand, slim, elegant gold bangles clanking as she did so and dipped her voice low too. “I’m not here to be ugly, Sylvie. I promise. I just want to talk.”

“About what?” I pressed.

“About things I’d rather not say in the hall.”

Goddamn it!

If I didn’t let her in, I’d seem bitchy. That said, I totally didn’t want to let her in.

I had no choice, really, and that sucked.

I stepped back, opening the door as I did and moved aside.

She walked in and it looked like swanning but I had the feeling that long-legged grace came naturally.

I closed the door, followed her and when I arrived in the bedroom area, I saw she’d stopped and was examining my zipped up, beat up, leather satchel.

I stopped well away and offered, “Do you want me to make some coffee? I’ve got one of those little pots and plenty of java.”

She looked to me and shook her head. “I’m good.”

I nodded and fell silent. She was here, I didn’t invite her. It was up to her to lead.

She regarded me closely. “I’m not what you expected,” she stated quietly.

“Nope,” I agreed, giving her no more.

I actually didn’t know what I expected, Creed was hot, successful and all man, he could get anyone, even someone as beautiful as Chelle. But she was way more polished and stylish than I would expect would turn the eye of a man like Creed.

She pulled in a delicate breath and asked, “He hasn’t spoken of me?”

Shit. I didn’t want to be doing this but I really didn’t want to get into this crap. So I had to put on the brakes before we even really started.

“Okay,” I threw out a hand, “I don’t want this to go bad. From what I know, you understand what’s happening, not a little bit of it, all of it. So I think you get I’m gonna be around as in around… a lot.”

She didn’t flinch but that didn’t mean I didn’t catch how much that cost her.

“So,” I went on, “I wanna be careful here, I don’t wanna create bad blood. You and Creed get on, so I’m gonna try not to f**k that up. So don’t take offense when I say this but, giving you the honesty, I’m not gonna talk to you about what Creed and I talk about. I’ll say this. I know a little bit about you. I know you both love your kids. I know you’ve made good ones. I know you got a new man. I know you know about me and I know the break with Creed wasn’t good for you. Can we leave it at that?”

She didn’t answer me.

Instead, she stated, “He wanted no memory of you.”

I didn’t get this so I asked, “What?”

She swept her hand up and down her front. “After you, he told me it took years but when he couldn’t bear it anymore, the nightmares, the anguish, the longing, in an attempt to bury it, he f**ked everything that moved. After you, he told me, he did everything he could do to drown out the memory of you. After you, there were no blondes. After you, there were no women who were slim and little and looked like they needed protecting. After you, those women ceased to exist. He didn’t even look at them. He wanted no memory of you.”

Okay, I liked this and hated it, in equal measure.

“Do you know why that was?” I asked and she nodded but I went on, “If you really do, Chelle, you know that was more than being about me.”

“True. But we both know it was mostly about you.”

Okay, she was probably right about that.

I pulled in breath, opened my mouth to speak but she got there before me and when she spoke, she was whispering.

“I have never…” she swallowed, “not in my life, not in all the time with him, except when the kids were born, I have never, ever seen him the way he was at lunch on Friday.”

I shut my mouth.

She closed her eyes and I saw her draw in breath through her nose before she opened them again and continued whispering.

“Please, don’t hurt him.”

That was so unexpected I felt my body give a small jerk.

Then I started, “Chelle –”

She shook her head and raised her hand. “You’re everything to him.”

I shook my head too and returned, “I was. Now, I know he feels the way I feel about being back together, but he’s got your kids and he adores them.”

She nodded. “I know that. I know that, Sylvie, but we both know the love we have for a child is not the same as the love of a lifetime. I know he loves them. He’d do anything for them. That’s not what we’re talking about. That’s a different kind of everything. And if he’s told you even a little bit about me, you know I love him. I want the best for him. That will never change, he’s with me or he’s not. I know from what he told me, you’re the best for him. You were with him since the beginning, you came into his life just a year after his Dad died. So that girl before, that girl that became the woman he loved was everything to him. But time has passed. Now, I need to know you’re still the woman who will see to him, who will make him look like he looked at lunch even though he tried to hide it so he wouldn’t hurt me. Who made him look like I’ve only seen twice in my life and that was when Kara and Brand were new to this world and placed in his arms. Who made him look happy.”