The Commitment by Unknown Page A

heartbeat.
    "Secret?" Miranda's voice came out in a whisper.
    Jack scratched the back of his neck. He unzipped the expensive leather jacket. "Lucy asked me to move in with her."
    Miranda fought dizziness. "Three days ago you and I were engaged."
    Jack had the grace to look at his feet, caught. "Now you know why I called that off. Sorry you had to find out this way."
    "Sorry?" Incredulous, Miranda stepped toward her sister. "How could you?" she asked Lucy.
    Lucy turned away without answering.
    "I think you should leave now," Jack told Miranda. "I won't have you harassing Lucy. Besides, I have a job search to begin." His mouth pursed with the bitter taste of his last remark. It illuminated what Drake had told her.
    Confusion coursed through Miranda, tinged with anger. "Is Jack the reason you divorced Drake, or rather why he divorced you?"
    Not meeting Miranda's eyes, Lucy nodded.
    I'm going to throw up if I don't get out of here, Miranda thought. Without saying another word she grabbed her coat and purse and pushed past Jack to the door. His smirk made her do something she'd never done in her life. She slapped him across the face just before she left. The satisfaction of seeing the red marks of her fingers on his face and the shock in his eyes justified the tingling in her hand if not the act itself.
    The ache in her chest refused to go away.
    Keeping her mind on the increased traffic, Miranda focused on driving, refusing to replay the scene she'd just lived through. She didn't know where she was going until she pulled into her parking space at work.
    Jack's appearance at Lucy's place, his words and actions, sickened her. That she'd been attracted to such a slimeball spoke about her ability to sense character. She'd have to work on that.
    Now that she knew at least part of the truth about Jack, how was she going to face Drake? How many other people at work knew that Jack had been cheating on her? A stray memory surfaced. It was of arrested conversations accompanied by sideways glances as she entered the break room.
    She leaned her head on the cool steering wheel. Probably everyone knew. Great.
    The pain of humiliation at the hands of her beloved sister left her gasping. She wondered whether the howl trying to escape her throat was going to be hysterical laughter or hysterical weeping.
    Three broken engagements and one unconscious marriage. She was doing just great.
    The car was cooling off. She couldn't sit here all day and stew. She sat up and squared her shoulders, swallowing the howl for now.
    She'd do what she always did when life threw her a curve ball. She'd somehow find a way to get on base. Never a quitter, she had to admit that she'd never felt more like just dropping everything and moving to someplace where no one had ever heard of her. Antarctica would do. A billowing snowy gust blew past the car. She changed her mind--Easter Island. At least it was warm there.
    Putting confidence and determination into her every move, Miranda left her car and entered the building.
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Nine
     
    The intercom beeped. "Your wife just arrived, Mr. McLain."
    "About time," Drake grumbled. Where the hell had she run off to without waking him first? After the passion of the night before he expected, okay hoped, for a more pleasant morning than waking up to a bed containing Pumpkin rather than Miranda.
    He suspected that Pumpkin had been happier to see him than Miranda would have been. He wouldn't mind so much if the dog had better breath. The sloppy doggy kisses were a little much, too. Taking the dog for his necessary walk had given Drake a whole new appreciation of Miranda's endurance. Nobody walked a greyhound. The dog ran you.
    Miranda hadn't been at her old desk or the new one. He tried hard not to care. He tried hard not to think about the fact that maybe she regretted their intimacy of last night.
    He tried especially hard not to think about whom she might have gone to cry to.
    He slammed a fist onto his desk.