New Uma faces the good and the bad, remember?
There’d been toasts in nice restaurants where he’d shown her off to his friends. Intimate dinners at his place, before it becametheirplace. They’d toasted the future, kids, life together,love.
Toasted their tattoos. Together. Sure, he’d pressured her into it, but it had seemed fun, sweet. He’d gotten a massiveUMAcarved into his shoulder and insisted that she do the same. TheJOEYon Uma’s back seemed so innocuous now, compared to the rest. A scrolling beacon of perfection lost among the barely legible scribbles that Joey had eventually drowned her in.
Uma’s mind skittered away from theforgive-medinners she’d sat through. The nights she’d watched the food cool after slaving over it for hours, nights he’d stayed out with no explanation, times he’d come home drunk and coerced her into having sex with him. Those had been the worst. The feelings of confusion, distrust, even guilt, listening to him blame her for his bad behavior, his absences. She’d stopped forgiving him eventually and had, finally, tried to get away. That hadn’t gone over so well.
“So.” Ivan picked up the ad and shook it, yanking her back to the present. “Guess we got you here under false pretenses. Sorry about that.”
Uma blinked at him through the haze of memories. Something about this place had her disappearing into her head more than usual.
He didn’t look sorry, she noticed.
“I wouldn’t call it false pretenses. I’d say the description was pretty accurate. Besides, you don’t need to apologize to me,” she said, sounding snippier than she’d intended, “but you might want to say something to Ms. Lloyd.”
“Yeah. She know about it?”
“What do you think?”
“Damn. You tell her?”
“Of course I told her! I had to! You know what I called her? The day I got here?”
“What?”
“I called her an old hag.”
He sputtered midsip. “You’re shittin’ me!” There was laughter in his voice, lighting him from inside, and suddenly those sweet freckles made sense on that stern face.
Uma couldn’t help but smile along.
“Not shitting you at all. I called my boss an old hag. On my very first day of work.”
“Oh man. Wish I coulda seen her face.”
“It was like this.” Uma pursed her lips, made big eyes, and Ivan laughed—a round, delicious, velvety sound.
A thin veil of happiness skimmed over the ache inside her, shimmering between them.
Their eyes met, snagged, held, until Uma’s shied away, reaching for something, anything, to distract her from the palpable presence in the room—this unwelcome attraction. Her gaze settled on the bed, unmade, sheets a mess.
“Thanks for letting me sleep out here the other night.”
“Anytime, babe. Or should I go back to calling you princess?”
She made an irritatedpfffsound that she didn’t really mean. Her brain was sluggish, slower than her mouth, which went ahead and asked questions she hadn’t even thought about yet. Silly things like “So, whydon’tyou have a wife, Ive?”
His eyebrows popped up into one of those sly, full-of-themselves looks guys sometimes had. “Why, you interested?”
Uma flushed again, hoping he couldn’t read how quickly her mind slotted herself neatly into the big, white house behind them.
“Nooo.” She drew it out, sounding petulant rather than cool. “You just… You’re a good-looking guy. Aren’t there women around here?”
“Haven’t met the right one, is all.” His eyes were still warm when they focused fully on Uma, making her nervy with expectation. “Wouldn’t mind a family one day, though.”
She went for a joke, way too uncomfortable with the whole conversation. “Well, you’ve got that house up there. The tricycle. You’ve practically got a little sign that says ‘Insert wife here.’” When no response came, she got fidgety under his gaze and eventually looked away. “This place is great, though. Really great.”
Ivan nodded. Uma nodded. It was like a fucking bobblehead convention.
