Page 32 of Cruel Kiss

"Jesus, Todd?—"

"Somebody came to me this week." He talks over me, fast, as if he'll lose the nerve to get the whole spiel out if he doesn't maintain momentum. "Not a fed. I know feds now, I can smell 'em. This wasn't that. This was somebody else, and they didn't want to arrest me."

My mouth has gone dry. "What did they want?"

"Doesn't matter." He shakes his head hard. "I'm not telling you. I'm leaving tonight. And I'm not telling you where, either,because the less you know, the better for you and the kids. If anybody ever asks, you don't know a thing. That'll be the truth, and you're a terrible liar, so it's better if there's nothing to lie about. Lies were always my game."

I don't have pity for him. I can't, not after what he did to me. He deserved the damage I dealt, the public humiliation. For shaming me about my body and cheating on me and trying to rip my life out from under me… Yeah. Well-earned.

But I do feelsomethingfor him. Whatever is less than pity.

This world has come completely off its hinges.

"So you're leaving," I repeat. "For good?"

He nods. "Or for as long as good lasts, anyway."

I don't really know what to say. "Then why follow me here? Is there something you want?" The way he shifts on his feet tells me I've hit the right button, so I press further. "There is, isn't there?"

He flinches, but he doesn't deny it. "Yeah. I want something."

"Then ask, so I can tell you no and move on with my life."

He looks down at his shoes and whispers, in the meekest voice I've ever heard, "Don't let them hate me."

I blink. "What?"

"The kids." He presses his lips together to get himself back under control. "I know I don't get to ask for anything. I know that. I gave up the right to ask you for anything the day I—" He stops. "The day I did all of it. I know. But they're gonna grow up, and they're gonna ask about me, and you're the one who's gonna be there to answer. I'm not asking you to lie."

"Good, because I won't."

"I'm not asking that. You don't lie to them, you never did, I always—" He laughs weakly. "I always hated that about you, honestly. You'd tell 'em the truth about stuff even when a nice lie would've been easier. Santa. The dog dying. All of it." He wipes his nose with the back of his hand. "I'm just asking you to leave them one version of me that isn't only this. If there's one good thing you can remember about their dad, someday, when they're old enough… Just don't take that away from them, too."

I don't say anything.

I don't promise. I can't. I don't know what I'll do when Isabella is fifteen and asks me why her father disappeared, and I won't stand in a parking lot lying to a man about the future just to make him feel better as he wallows in his own unforced mistakes.

But I don't tell him no, either.

I just stand there and let the not-answer sit between us. Todd looks at me, and I think he understands it for what it is. Not a yes. Not a no. Just the most either of us can give.

"Okay," he says softly. "Okay. That's fair."

Then his eyes go past me again, to the SUV, to the man in the dark coat, and finally to the front doors of the camp, where any second now, two children are going to come spilling out into the afternoon.

He starts to leave, then stops. "Is he good to them?" Todd asks.

Right then, the doors open.

Ronan comes out with Isabella on his hip. She's got both arms around his neck and a construction-paper crown on her head. Hayden is at his elbow, walking fast to keep up, narrating over the top of his sister about something.

Ronan sees Todd.

He stops. Just for a heartbeat. His face doesn't change—for Isabella's sake, I'm sure—but his eyes do.

I catch his gaze over the roof of the parked cars and I give him the smallest shake of my head.No. Not this. Wait.

He doesn't move toward us. He stops right where he is on the walkway, adjusts Isabella higher on his hip, and says something to Hayden that makes the boy pause and look at whatever he's pointing at up in the maple tree. Buying us a minute.