Alexa…
A notification pinged on one of my laptops. Here we go again… I triple-checked my security settings, clicked through to the porn site, and gave a Nolan-worthy sigh when I saw the video already had over a hundred views.
Me
Your dick just popped up on the internet. Ciao.
Cloud Nine’s website and Jay would both have to wait.
Nolan
I’m deleting the app now.
Me
Good luck with that.
CHAPTER 8
NOLAN
Alexa had been quiet over the past six weeks. Silent, in fact. If it weren’t for Marielle complaining that her website was glitching every other day, Nolan could almost believe he’d imagined the whole visit.
There was also the app on his phone. Yes, he’d threatened to delete it, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to do it, not until he’d drunk too much wine one night and found himself in bed with his hand on his cock and Alexa on his mind. He’d tried pushing her out, replacing the bratty blonde with an imaginary brunette. But when the brunette looked up at him, her face had morphed into Marielle’s, and Nolan deflated like a limp spaghetti noodle.
That was when he’d deleted the app, and then he’d spent the rest of the night regretting it.
The tossing and turning hadn’t mattered.
The app was back in the morning.
A black dot on his home screen, casting its shadow on the vineyard, quite literally. Nolan had taken the wallpaper photo on a misty morning last spring, and any time he had an existential crisis and wondered whether he should just give up, he only had to look at his phone to remind himself all the hard work was worth it. Now, Alexa had even ruined that.
She hadn’t messaged him since the day she left, and he didn’t know what to say to her either. Marielle’s interruption followed by Alexa’s hurried departure had left a murky swamp of unfinished business between them.
“It’s doing that thing again.” Marielle shook her iPad as if that would help. “I hate technology.”
Today, she was working on the second cottage—Nolan couldn’t quite bring himself to call it Galega—albeit at a slower pace than the first. The theme was “Tuscan farmhouse meets Old Americana.” Think whitewashed oak, rustic stone floor tiles, a wrought-iron chandelier, checked fabric, and a rocking horse.
“What thing?” Nolan asked.
“My web store has a message saying ‘Sorry for the inconvenience, I’m on vacation,’ and it’s right across the homepage. When I spoke to the hosting provider, they said there isn’t even an option for that message as part of their default package, so I must have done it myself.”
“And you didn’t?”
She gave him a puzzled look. “I’d surely remember.”
Once again, Nolan considered messaging Alexa and asking her to stop tinkering, but the glitches mainly happened in the evenings, which meant instead of Marielle hanging around with fabric swatches or suggesting they get dinner, she went home to try and fix the problem. He was enjoying the peace.
Did that make him a bad person? Probably, but it wasn’t as if he were the one tampering with the website, and Alexa would only deny it anyway. The same way she’d denied fucking with one of their former neighbours by sending a copy of the guy’s dating profile to his wife after the asshole made a pass at Ruby and seemed reluctant to take no for an answer. She’d later suggested the neighbour as a suspect in Ruby’s murder, but it turned out he’d moved back to Idaho to live with his mom after his wife beaned him with a frying pan.
In a weird, sadomasochistic kind of way, Nolan missed Alexa’s meddling. She’d always looked out for them, even if her methods were usually unorthodox and often over the top.
And he regretted the way things had been left between them. That day had preyed on his mind for years, the two of them sequestered in a hotel room while the cops searched Blackstone House and the media bayed for blood outside. The photo of him walking away had featured on several news websites, a lasting reminder of how badly he’d handled things. Alexa had come to him for support, for reassurance, and he’d given her the opposite. Even Grey, king of the douchebags, had called him a moron when he heard what happened. Not that Grey knew the whole story. Nolan had left out the part about the kiss.
Anyhow, he’d been halfway through an apology, one he needed to make as much as Alexa needed to hear, when Marielle had interrupted them in the study. At some point, he’d have to finish.
“Maybe you could try rebooting?” he suggested to Marielle.
