Chapter Twenty-Five

Chelle

The days after that night had been a whirlwind of writing and sex and watching Nash when he wasn’t looking. He just fit in her apartment, with her pets, in her life, and it was messing up everything because their marriage was set to self-destruct.

Chelle had always loved disappearing from the everyday into her fantasy world, where satyrs and nymphs plotted to take down the gods and level Olympus down to the bedrock. Not anymore.

Now, instead of hearing her characters’ voices in her head as they took the story from here to there every morning, she found herself listening to Nash singing silly, made-up songs to the dogs.

She’d also always loved the calendar featuring pics of cute rescue dogs in their new homes that hung right by her desk. Not anymore.

Now, instead of seeing sweetheart fluffer-doodles catching frisbees or playing tug, all she could see was December twenty-fifth circled in red.

As a woman who’d promised herself that she wouldn’t let anyone make decisions for her ever again, she’d relished the freedom of making choices based only on what she wanted to do.

Now, instead, of only thinking about her preferences, she took into consideration what Nash wanted, too, and how they could find a happy medium—say, for instance, the pan-African fusion restaurant they both loved rather than the Ethiopian place that she craved every day but was on his list of once-a-month places to go to eat.

Even worse, she didn’t mind any of it—except for that date next week on the calendar. Oh sure, they’d agreed not to start divorce proceedings until after the new year, but Christmas was the end of it. No more movie nights where she missed half the movie because they got distracted by each other. No more waking up to the smell of fresh brewed coffee mixed with bacon and eggs. No more falling asleep with her head on Nash’s chest as his breathing got slower and steadier, until it seemed like there was nothing in the world that could touch them.

Sleeping with him had definitely been a mistake.

It mixed everything up in her head, and now she didn’t look at Nash and think orgasms, she looked at him and thought home.

Take this moment, for instance. Usually, she’d have her noise-canceling headphones on, listening to the same song over and over again while she wrote, but her headphones were across the room because she was listening out for the sounds of Nash coming home after an afternoon of putting out fires at his mom’s house.

She was out of her seat a few minutes later, as soon as the dogs started barking at the front door.

She took a second to check her hair in the mirror above her dresser before hustling out of her room. She angled her leg to block the dogs from escaping and reached for the knob.

“Hey there, stranger,” she said as she opened the door, a welcoming smile already in place.

The teasing words were out of her mouth before she realized her mistake. It wasn’t Nash standing on the other side of the threshold. It was Uncle Buckley in his trademark cowboy hat and never-seen-a-particle-of-farm-dirt boots.

“I know your marriage is just a farce, but I expected you to do a better job keeping up appearances rather than calling your husband,” he made air quotes around the word, “a stranger. I swear, you aren’t good-looking enough to be that dumb.”

Even after years of being out on her own and out from under her father’s patriarchal umbrella, her apology was at her lips before she realized it was forming. Clamping her mouth shut tight before it could slip out powered by decades of conditioning, she inhaled and exhaled a steadying breath through her nostrils as she reminded herself that their rules didn’t apply to her anymore. She didn’t have to accede to the men in her family just because. She was her own woman. She made her own decisions.

It took a second, but the urge to apologize subsided. “What are you doing here?”

“Seeing if you’re ready to end these shenanigans yet,” Uncle Buckley said, shooting a worried glance at the open space between the door and its frame as Mary and Groucho continued to growl from behind her.

“You’re not getting control of the foundation.” There was no way in hell. It helped too many people for her uncle’s greed to win out. Just this morning she’d sent out approvals on a grant that would help with job training for folks staying at a domestic violence shelter and another for prepaid cell phones for those who were in dangerous situations but weren’t yet ready to leave.

“We both know that’s not true,” he said, cocky and confident the way only an asshole could be. “Are you going to stuff those mutts in a closet and invite me inside?”

Chelle crossed her arms and didn’t bother to wipe the fuck you off her face. “No.”

“Fine,” he said with a sigh. “We’ll do this here, then. I have a judge ready to declare your marriage invalid for the purposes of your dad’s will because it’s all fake.”

Her bravado disappeared in a flash as her stomach dropped all the way to the building’s sub-basement and didn’t make a rebound. It was like her entire insides were now just empty.

“If that was true,” she said, fighting to keep the worst of the worried shakes out of her voice, “you wouldn’t be here telling me this.”

He shrugged his narrow shoulders. “This is an act of mercy. Give up now, and I’ll allow you three months to wind down operations at the foundation. If you don’t, everything will cease the minute the judge rules my way.”

It was a bluff. It had to be. She already had an appointment set with a judge about the will. There was no way, even with all of the Finch family connections, her uncle could work around that.

But her roiled gut said otherwise. “I won’t let that happen.”

“Well, actually, it’s not up to you.” He held out an envelope that she reached for on automatic pilot. “Consider yourself served.”

He slapped the envelope into her hand and stomped off on his cowboy boots, looking every bit as self-satisfied as a peacocking asshole could. That was it. She was definitely murdering a peacock shifter in her book.

Decision made, she stormed back into her room and sat down at her desk, stuffing the court appearance notification into a drawer, annoyance and guilt eating away at her stomach lining. This was what happened when she paid more attention to fake worlds and fake husbands than reality. Now the people the foundation helped would suffer. If she hadn’t been so busy with things that didn’t matter in the long run, she would have realized that Uncle Buckley not being in her business the last couple weeks meant he was up to something—in this case, that something was setting up a hearing with a judge friendly to his side of things. If the judge ruled her marriage didn’t meet her dad’s requirements in the will, there were no other options. She needed to pull herself out of the made-up stories and make-believe married life and concentrate on what really mattered.

She was still seething quietly to herself ten minutes later, when Nash got home. He didn’t stop to give the dogs a scratch behind the ears. He just came straight to her door, looking at her as if he needed to confirm she was still there. His blond hair was going every which way, like he’d been repeatedly shoving his fingers through it.

He took one look at her and grimaced. “So I guess you saw the pictures?”

Her stomach dropped all the way to her toes. Pictures? There was no way this was good. She shook her head.

“It’s nothing.” He gave her a smile, but it wasn’t even a single dimpler. “It doesn’t matter.”

That was highly unlikely.

“Show me.” Nash started to pocket his phone, but she nailed him with a do-not-fuck-with-me glare. “You do not get to make decisions for me. Only I get to do that. Let me see the pictures.”

Reluctance obvious, he mumbled something to himself about just trying to help and handed over his cell. The photo he had pulled up was of the two of them at the pet café. It was taken at an angle that emphasized every oversize curve on her body, and the lighting had been tweaked just so on every one of the lines on her forehead, around her mouth, and branching out from her eyes. In addition, every gray hair on her head sparkled in the afternoon sun. She didn’t look haggard, exactly, but she looked every one of her forty-two years and then a decade or two.

Whatever. It’s what she looked like. She saw it every time she looked in a mirror. It wasn’t a surprise or a shock even if it hurt almost as much as the headline above the picture.

HARBOR CITY’S MOST ELIGIBLE BACHELOR HEDGES HIS BETS WHEN IT COMES TO BEING THE LAST MAN STANDING WITH PLUS-SIZED MYSTERY SENIOR.

The sting of those words was so sharp it felt like a physical slap. She managed not to flinch, but reading it was still a big ouch. She would have liked to have said the headline didn’t hit its mark, but no one knew better than a writer the power of words—especially when they were the truth.

“Don’t worry.” Nash swiped his phone back. “I’m already talking to my lawyer about—”

She stopped him with a wave of her hand. “It’s fine.”

“Chelle,” he said with too much pity in his tone for her not to respond by throwing up an emotional wall.

“It’s the truth, isn’t it?” Did she sound as blasè as she was shooting for? No, but she’d power through anyway. “It’s what we agreed to. You win the bet. I meet the conditions of my father’s will. It is what it is.”

A vein ticked in his temple as his jaw went rigid. “That’s not all it is.”

“For now.” God, just saying that out loud was like having layers of skin scraped off with a rusty file, and she had to move away from him, putting physical distance between them like a practice run for what was inevitable. “We only have a little bit of time left and then that’s all there is to it.”

Something crossed Nash’s face, the hint of an argument he was having with himself, and Chelle lifted her chin, daring him to fight with her. Honestly, it would feel good to get out all of the emotions swirling around in her. Fear. Anger. Frustration. Yeah, this was what she needed. A fight. A good, old-fashioned verbal brawl to decrease the pressure.

He crossed his arms over his broad chest and shook his head. “I know what you’re doing.”

Fire burned through her, eating away at the niceties and sharpening all her rough edges. “Are you about to mansplain me to myself?”

“Nope.” He strode toward her, closing the distance in only a few strides. “I’m gonna do this.”

Instead of opening his mouth and letting loose with all of the “well actuallys” and the “you knows,” he scooped her up and carried her over to the bed, where he sat her down on the edge and dropped to his knees in front of her.

“Lift your ass.” Feral. Demanding. Absolutely focused solely on her. “Please.”

There was no way he could miss the fact that she was suddenly wet enough that she’d soaked the center of her yoga pants. But instead of taking that as a yes, he waited for her to make the next move. She had the power here. She could tell him no and he’d walk away—maybe a little bowlegged, but she had no doubts. He wouldn’t try to bully her into doing what he wanted. He wouldn’t demand his due. He wouldn’t guilt her into fulfilling some role he’d perceived for her. It really was her call—and there was only one move she wanted to make.

Balancing her weight on her palms, she lifted her hips.

“If there’s only a short time,” he said, his low voice as rough as his movements as he yanked her leggings off and then tugged her down to the edge of the bed and shoved her thighs apart, “then I’m going to spend as much time as possible right here.”

And when he finally lowered his head to the apex of her thighs, she had already forgotten about Uncle Buckley, the photos, the headline, and everything except for Nash.