Golden Cage Mommy Mutiny (Elyse) novel Chapter 51

I shook my head and told Ethan, “Of course you can’t stay in my life.”

He fired back, “I’d checked your records, you are not married.”

The confidence with which he weaponized his badge still amazed me. I looked at the faint circle

where his ring had been and said, “Right. But you are married.”

“I can divorce her,” he insisted, stepping toward me as if that solved everything. I slipped my hands

behind my back so he couldn’t reach them.

“No,” I said. “What I mean is–since you’re married, handle your own life. And keep your wife from

showing up at my door again.”

His expression sharpened. “She came to you?”

When I mentioned Kira, something cold flickered through Ethan’s eyes–the same coldness he’d

used on me six years ago.

“She was the one who told me I didn’t really love you,” he said quietly. “That I was just too deep in

my undercover role.”

He let out a harsh breath. “But I figured it out too late. The lies were fake… the feelings weren’t. I punished myself for six years, thinking you’d never come back, never forgive me. That kind of despair-”

he laughed bitterly, “-that’s why I gave up and married her.”

Then he looked at me with something like hope. “You said you don’t hate me anymore. It’s been so

many years… can’t we start over?”

The sudden confession was almost laughable.

Not hating him didn’t mean forgiving him; it simply meant I had stopped tying myself to the past so I could live again. I thought for a moment before speaking.

“Do you remember the fat tabby cat on campus?” I asked. “The one I used to feed all the time.”

The topic shift stunned him, but he nodded slowly and said the cat had been clingy and that I adored

1. it.

I continued, “Once, he flipped out and bit me. I had to get a rabies shot, and it hurt like hell.”

When Ethan stayed silent, I added, “Later the same rat came running up to me, purring like nothing happened. And you told me back then–don’t feed an animal you can’t trust.”

He stiffened, realizing where I was going.

Chapter 8

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“That bite still hurts when I think about it,” I said. And if you ask me whether I hate that cat now? Of course I don’t. Why would I hate an animal?”

I paused before delivering the part he needed to hear.

“But I sure as hell wouldn’t keep it.”

Ethan’s face drained of color.

He understood perfectly–even a stray cat sat no differently in my heart than he did.

“I’m doing well now,” I said. “And it would be even better if you and Kira stopped interfering.”

I turned and walked back into my studio.

Through the window, I saw him standing there for a long time, his presence nothing but an eyesore.

I pulled the blinds shut.

Then, like the kitten outside, I curled up on the couch and slept a long, dreamless afternoon.

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