Chapter Thirty-Two

Chelle

Surrounded by mistletoe, garland, and potted poinsettias in her building’s ornate meeting space that had once served as a glass-encased conservatory, Chelle had never wished more that she was anywhere else than the building Christmas party.

Okay, that was a lie. There was one specific place she wanted to be—with Nash. Too bad she’d fucked that up. Karmel was right. She may have—may have—okay, fine, had let her toxic baggage from her family take over and the results were shitty. All she knew was that she had to make it through the party and then she’d brainstorm what to say to Nash when she finally got next to him again.

So, she mixed and mingled and complimented everyone on their ugly Christmas sweaters, all the time watching the clock for a socially acceptable time to ditch the party, grab her dogs, and Uber her ass out to Gable House. It was on one of those furtive glances at the huge ornate clock that hung above the doors that she spotted the top of her uncle Buckley’s signature cowboy hat moving through the crowd.

She held onto her flute of champagne a little tighter, not wanting it to slip out of her suddenly clammy palms as her heart raced. Her uncle hadn’t made an appearance at the foundation or her apartment since the judge’s ruling came down. There was no way he was going to be anything but nasty when they came face-to-face. She did not have the energy for that today.

Downing the rest of her champagne, she scanned for the safest passage away from her uncle who, no doubt, was with the building’s resident Grinch, Suzanne. Chelle’s luck being Chelle’s luck, however, meant that everywhere she turned there were people making any kind of getaway as slow as a slog through the snow with her short-legged dogs. She tried going toward the open bar but turned back almost immediately. Then she went left with the goal of getting through to the back exit that led to what had originally been the servants’ stairs when the building had still been a Gilded Age mansion. She made it halfway there before two couples from the third floor started caroling so badly and off-key that everyone around them stopped dead to watch the train wreck.

Yeah. Maybe the open bar had not been one of her better decisions.

Determined to get out of there as her anxiety had her pulse roaring in her ears, she turned around—careful to avoid the cake table with the five-layer copy of the building iced with real buttercream—and nearly slammed into the crabbiest cowboy in the West himself.

Her gut dropped down to her toes.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite niece,” Buckley said with a smarmy grin. “I see your lawyers got one past the judge.”

Annoyance at his arrogance whipped her spine straight. “You mean they did their job and did a better job than your lawyers.”

“For now.” Buckley looked around dramatically, his gaze sliding over the people in the packed conservatory as if he’d just seen them for the first time. “Where’s that so-called husband of yours?”

Beads of sweat dampened her hair at her temples as panic ate away at her ability to come up with a quick lie. There was no way she’d give Buckley the satisfaction of the truth, since she was determined to fix the mess she’d made of her marriage.

Finally, her brain clamped down a plausible fib that would hopefully lead to the least number of questions. “With his family.”

Buckley tipped the brim of his cowboy hat back, revealing more of his sour face. “But not here supporting you during your big party?

“That’s too bad.” Suzanne hooked her arm through Buckley’s and snuggled in close, nothing but schadenfreude gleaming in her eyes. “I’m sure it’s breaking his heart not to be here with you.”

“It’s fine,” Chelle ground out through clenched teeth.

These two were perfect for each other. Both of them mean-hearted control freaks who loved to exert whatever power they had. They were exactly like the evil wizard and his spell-spinner girlfriend in Chelle’s books, who worked against her nymph assassins and satyr warriors for control of the forest and—

She let out a shocked gasp as everything fell into place at that moment, in her mind, so completely and instantly that she was surprised no one else in the room heard the pieces banging into place. The wizard in her books wore pointed-toe boots and what could be described as a very glittery cowboy hat. The spell spinner had the exact same short pixie haircut as Suzanne and even had the same mole at the base of her throat.

Why hello, subconscious, nice to see you’re going strong even when I don’t notice.

“Look at you keeping up a brave front,” Buckley said in a loud voice with false cheer before lowering his volume and letting his natural bullying tone through. “Good luck trying to hold onto that energy when my lawyers get you on the stand. It’ll make the whole procedure that much more enjoyable for me if you try.”

All of the air whooshed out of her as fear grabbed hold of her with its sharp-taloned fingers. “But the judge already ruled that my marriage met the requirements of my dad’s will.”

Uncle Buckley took her ice-cold hand in his and patted the top of it patronizingly. “Poor girl. There is such a thing as appeals. Whether or not your marriage constitutes fraud is exactly the kind of thing I think the appeals panel will see my way.” His lips curled upward into a grin that would have made her heart catch with worry if the anxious adrenaline wasn’t already pumping it at twice its natural speed. “And wouldn’t you just know that all three of the judges on the appeals panel are golfing buddies of mine? We meet up at the club every Tuesday.”

The satisfied expression on his jerky little face said it all—fait accompli.

She pressed a fist to her stomach and tried to remember how to breathe, but the only thing filling her mind was the people who would be negatively impacted when Buckley shut down the foundation. It had all been for nothing. All the hard work of taking what had been a throwaway tax write-off and making it a force for good in Harbor City, her shithead of an uncle and the bullshit requirements of her dad’s will, in the past.

She fucked it all up. All of it. The foundation. The books. Nash. Everything.

That’s when she heard the bark.

High pitched.

Happy.

Definitely yappy.

Turning, she spotted Nash walking over with both Mary Puppins and Groucho Barks in his arms. The dogs were ecstatically wagging their butts so hard they were practically levitating. Meanwhile Nash was glaring so hard at Uncle Buckley, Chelle wasn’t sure he would notice if the dogs did start floating.

He stopped beside her, not behind her or in front of her acting like a human shield. While the dogs were distracted from her uncle by being right next to the humongous cake, Nash was not. When he did finally stop mean-mugging Buckley long enough to look down at her, everything about him loosened up. She felt the same shift in herself, like recognizing like, love recognizing love, home recognizing home.

“Hey, Chelle,” he said, the double dimpler on full display.

Something warm and hopeful filled her chest until it seemed like there wasn’t enough room in her lungs to take a breath. “Hi, Nash.”

“Sorry I’m late.” He lifted up his arms with the squiggly dogs. “I let myself into the apartment, but when I opened the door, these two sprinted out and made a beeline down the stairs, right for the party. I barely caught them before they ran into here.”

“Those dogs are a menace,” Suzanne snarled. “I promise you this, at the next tenant meeting I’m going to get the board to vote to make this place an animal-free building.”

Uncle Buckley chuckled. “That sounds like a wonderful plan for these two fraudsters trying to make their so-called-temporary marriage seem like it was even the slightest bit real. I told you at your so-called wedding no one was going to believe someone like you would ever be enough for a man like him.”

Mary and Groucho tensed, the fur along their spine going straight up, and started making the scariest sounding growl two pugs could do. Nash squared his jaw and his double dimples disappeared so fast it made Chelle’s breath catch.

But instead of pushing his way forward or acting on his own, he turned to her and asked, his voice a harsh rumble, “Can I take care of these assholes for you?”

For a second, Chelle didn’t know what to say. Here he was asking her, not assuming or mansplaining or any of the other bullshit. Yes, part of her wanted to yell “release the hounds” so the pugs could bite Suzanne’s and Buckley’s ankles bloody. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t help things in the long run.

No, for that she needed to get devious. And she had just the plan.

“That. Is. It. I have had enough.” She grabbed a flute of champagne from a passing waiter and chugged the whole thing as her uncle and Suzanne watched slack-jawed. When she shoved the empty glass into the top of the cake, it caused enough of a distraction that she had a second or two to not be the center of attention for everyone except Nash. He never took his eyes off of her.

She shot him a look that all but screamed “go with me on this” but couldn’t say a word before everyone—and yeah, literally every pair of eyeballs in the room—was staring at her.

She glared at Nash. “I can’t take it anymore. The constant advice no one ever asks for. The ‘well actually’ monologues. The diatribes that start with ‘you know.’ The verbal pats on the head because there’s no way I could understand anything—even something as simple as how to walk my cat on a leash.”

He flinched back, squinting at her in confusion. “Those were all good ideas.”

Fuck.

She thought he’d seen the look, would understand. She was debating shutting her entire plan down when he gave her a quick wink. Warmth washed through her, and she reached deep down for all the past resentments and frustrations from being pushed around by misogynistic assholes like her uncle.

“Oh yeah,” she said, really leaning into the rush that came along with making a scene. “And moving my furniture just because you thought only you could pick the best place for my coffee table?”

The dogs wiggled in his arms, but Nash made holding them in place look easy. “But the cat—”

She interrupted without hesitation as the crowd stopped pretending to be doing anything but watching this trash fire. “Sir Hiss was fine with things the way they were before you barged into our lives and then repainted my kitchen!”

“If we’re married—even temporarily—isn’t it our kitchen?”

“Is your name on the deed?” She crossed her arms and drew herself up to her full height. “No, it’s not, so it’s my kitchen and you had no right to change my canary yellow paint. You don’t get to control me!”

“Is there anything I am allowed to do?” Nash asked. “Or am I supposed to sit quietly in a corner rather than be ordered around like a puppy?”

“Oh, come on, we both know there were plenty of times when you wanted to be told exactly what to do,” she scoffed.

A red flush ate its way up his face. “That’s private.”

“Is it?” She laughed even as on the inside she was praying that she hadn’t taken the shitshow too far. “Is no one else allowed to have an opinion except for you? I’ve had more than enough of that. First with my dad, and then with this fake cowboy uncle of mine, and I have had it. I’m done with you. I’m done with all of you.”

“You know, there really are better ways to express your frustrations,” Nash said, talking to her as if she was a small child who, of course, was simply confused by the big, bad world. “For example, you could—”

“I can’t take any of you and your mansplaining bullshit anymore.” She let her head fall back and let out a loud, dramatic groan before straightening up and taking her dogs back from Nash. “I’m so glad we’re getting a divorce.”

There was a collective gasp in the room, but Chelle didn’t stick around to watch the fallout from her little performance. All she could do was head back up to her apartment and hope like hell that Nash followed and she hadn’t just ruined everything.