A muscle in his jaw twitched. “I respect your loyalty. It makes me love you even more … but I loathe that your loyalty is to him.”

“It’s not to him. It’s to us. We can’t start our relationship off being deceitful.”

Robert’s response was quick. “Our relationship started over five years ago, so technically speaking, you are being disloyal to us.”

I pulled back, grinning. “Like you haven’t been with any other women in the past five years.”

For the first time ever, I saw Robert’s eyes shuttered and evade mine. “Point made,” he finally responded.

“Dinner. Thursday. I’ll pick you up.”

I nodded, knowing what he was leaving unsaid: breakup with Cohen by the time he got back from his business trip.

****

Present

Kayla

“And did you? Break up with him?” I questioned as I walked my mother-in-law to the front door. She’d stopped by and had lunch with my mother and I while Josh had to go into the office for a few hours. My mother had left about thirty minutes ago, and I’d damn near begged Deborah to share more of her and Robert’s story with me.

Deborah looked down at my daughter, Victoria, bouncing her on her hip, and replied, “I sure did.”

We both laughed.

“Cohen was no match for Robert.”

She shook her head. “None at all. But, surprisingly, it would take him a little while to learn that lesson.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “Oh, what happened?” I squealed, wanting to hear the rest of this story.

“Unh unh.” Deborah shook her head. “You’ve got enough of the story out of me. It’s time for me to take my granddaughters out for our girls’ day. I need to go pick up Kennedy and Annalise. Can you believe out of my ten grandchildren only three of them are girls?” She cooed to Victoria, tickling her under her plump cheek.

I smiled wide at the sounds of Victoria’s laughter.

“I’m sure you’ll have more granddaughters sometime soon.”

Deborah’s head popped up. “Are you? Have you heard something?” she questioned excitedly.

“No.” I shook my head adamantly. “I’m not and I haven’t heard. I was just saying …” I kept to myself that the way Joshua kept hounding me, I was sure we’d have another baby within the next year.

“Okay then. We’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

Smiling, I pressed a kiss to Victoria’s caramel-colored cheek and ran my hand through her silky straight hair. After handing Deb the diaper bag, stuffed with everything she might need, I held the door open for them. I’d already told her how brave I thought she was going out alone with all three girls. Well, alone, aside from her her security guard.

I shut the door behind them, and prepared to go up to my own office and read over some files before Joshua got home.