The picture Sage has taken of her with theDIVORCED AFValentine’s piece was propped there.
She touched her wedding ring lightly.
He was trying. He really was.
I can’t be married to someone like this.
Did he still feel that way?
Lauren inhaled.
She had clients. She had deadlines. She had a future forming faster than she could process.
And somewhere inside that future, Tom was tugging at her thoughts like a loose thread she both wanted to pull and was terrified to unravel.
Her phone buzzed against the desk.
Tom.
Her pulse jumped, traitorous and immediate. She stared at the screen for one beat, then two, then answered before she could talk herself out of it.
His voice came low, careful. “Tomorrow?”
She wanted it. God, she wanted it.
“Yes,” she breathed.
There was a soft exhale on the other end. “I’ll make it worth your time,” he said quietly. “I promise.”
She closed her eyes, steadying herself. “Tomorrow, then.”
When the call ended, the screen went dark, but the warmth of his voice lingered.
She set the phone down, breath unsteady, her whole world tilting toward the day she’d just agreed to.
Tomorrow.
CHAPTER 56
Tom
Tom couldn’t keep still.
The site buzzed with drills and chatter, but he barely heard any of it. He’d been up since dawn, running on too much adrenaline and not enough sleep.
He couldn’t sit in an office. Not today.
So he worked. Hard. Hauled lumber he could have left for the construction crew, carried supplies across the site. His pulse thudded in his wrists, his chest, his jaw.
He was going to seduce his wife.
He’d made moves, sure. Kissed her, pulled her close, whispered all the right things.
But he’d neverofferedhimself. Not the way he wanted to this time. He’d never risked that kind of… vulnerability.
What would that even look like?
Red silk flashed behind his eyes. The lingerie she’d bought for him.
