Page 51 of After-Hours Heir

“Yes,” he said.

“Since when?”

“It has always been planned,” he lied. Easily. Smoothly. “It just didn’t come up today.”

“I have… I have work to do.”

“Yes,” he said. “I wouldn’t expect you to come with me.”

He didn’t want her to. He wanted to get away from her, away from this. As soon as possible.

“Well. You were telling the truth, then. We really won’t see each other all that much.”

“No.”

She froze, her eyes making very purposeful contact with his. “I won’t share you with other women.”

He hadn’t even thought about other women. Not one time. “I won’t share you with other men.”

“As long as we are agreed. If we are having sex, then there is no one else.”

“Satisfactory.”

“Thanks, Spock. I really appreciate it.”

Spock. He did get that joke. He didn’t think it was funny, though. Mostly because he didn’t see that there was anything wrong with being logical. It made the world work a whole lot better than acting out of your own selfish interests. Than following your own feelings.

Isn’t that what you’re doing?

No. He was being logical. He was leaving because he needed distance. Because he needed to be…himself. She made him feel not himself, and it stood to reason that he ought to get some time on his own.

It didn’t matter what she thought. It didn’t matter…

He wasn’t acting from feelings. He didn’t do that. He wouldn’t even know how.

You’re a liar. You feel plenty.

Anger. Vengeance. Yes, that was true.

But anything else…

Joy. Maybe joy is what you felt upstairs.

“I may be gone for quite some time,” he said.

“Well. I guess my life will go back to normal, then.”

He smiled. “I suppose it will.”

CHAPTER TEN

EXCEPTNOTHINGFELTNORMAL. She missed him, which was the strangest thing. Rattling around his house, which had nothing personal in it, she missed him.

In a fit of rebellion, she began to decorate. Adding bright pops of color, ridiculous, decorative artwork. She made an eclectic wall with decorative plates and framed photographs of possums and raccoons. Frankly, she thought it looked amazing with pink decorative frames and the stark neutral palette of his penthouse. He would hate it. She didn’t care. He wasn’t here.

If she was going to be the one primarily living in the penthouse, then she should be the one who got to decide how it was decorated. Not that she got any real joy or satisfaction out of that.

She had spent so many years without him.