She shrugged as if she was entirely unbothered by my refusal, but if that was the case, she wouldn’t have come up to me at all. “The offer stands.”
I didn’t respond, simply turning and walking away, but my legs felt unsteady as I threaded through the tables and out into the cool night air. By the time I got to my car, my hands were shaking again. I sat behind the wheel for a moment, breathing deeply and willing my pulse to slow.
It took a few minutes longer than I would have wanted it to, but finally, I felt steady enough to leave. As I pulled out of the parking lot, I didn’t drive toward my mother’s house. Instead, without even fully deciding to do it, I turned toward Alex’s place.
Halfway there, I made a pit stop, and when I got back in the car, I headed directly to him. My husband. My chest felt lighter as soon as his building came into view in the distance, but Mallory’s words echoed in my head as I parked and climbed out.
Money talks.
It was awful that she was right, but as I walked toward Alex’s door, I knew one thing with absolute certainty—I wasn’t going back to my mother’s house tonight. At this point, I was of two minds about whether I would ever go back to live there at all.
CHAPTER 34
ALEX
I’d started hoping Jane would show up. Technically, she still lived somewhere else and had a life at home that didn’t involve me at all, but some part of me had begun to mark the evenings with the possibility of her.
Tonight, she didn’t disappoint. I was on a late-evening call with my laptop balanced on my knees, my tie loose and my sleeves rolled up when the door opened and Jane walked in. Her arms were laden with grocery bags. Her gaze flicked to mine after she’d turned and locked the door behind her.
With her own key. Because again, I’d started expecting her to show up and I wanted her around, even when I wasn’t here to let her in.
I smiled when our eyes met, but she pointed at my laptop and mouthed something that might’ve been, “Carry on. Don’t worry about me.”
As she started toward the kitchen, I raised a finger to my headset. “Hold on one second.”
Jane glanced at me over her shoulder, gray eyes widening in exasperation as she pointed at the laptop again like I was a misbehaving child. I chuckled and turned back to the screen. “No, keep going. I’m listening.”
She rolled her eyes and headed straight to the kitchen, pulling things out of her grocery bags with purpose once she’d put them down. Vegetables appeared. Meat. Something green and leafy that looked expensive and judgmental.
I tried to focus on the call, but the guy was carrying on about margins while my wife tied her hair back. Watching as she slid her fingers through those silky, white-gold locks, snapping a purple tie off her wrist and piling it all up, I realized I wasn’t listening to anything that was being said anymore.
Yeah, that’s it.This was the moment my productivity flatlined.
“Alex?”
“Mm?” I said, my eyes very much not on the spreadsheet anymore.
“What are your thoughts about that?” the guy on the other end of the call asked, sounding genuinely interested in my response.
In the meantime, I didn’t have a single fucking clue what he was talking about. “I’ll take it under advisement and have Nate get in touch with you before the end of the week.”
Less than two minutes later, I’d successfully managed to end the call and I snapped my laptop shut, standing up with my hands itching to get on her. The scent of gently frying garlic was already wafting through the air when I walked into the kitchen, my wife expertly dicing some onions to add to the skillet.
“I thought you were having dinner with Zara,” I said, moving toward her. “This is looking great, though. Can I help?”
“I had an appetizer. I wasn’t really that hungry.” She almost didn’t even look up at me, slicing the sharp blade of the knife through the onion with such precision that I felt sorry for it. “And no. Thank you, but I’m fine.”
“That wasn’t a question,” I said mildly as I stepped up behind her, snaking my arms around her waist and pressing a kiss tothe side of her neck. “I haven’t seen you all day, and ifyou’recooking,I’mcooking.”
She sighed and finally turned her head to glance up at me, a slow smile quirking on her lips. “Fine. You can help, but you have to listen.”
“I’m an excellent listener.” I breathed in the scent of her for a beat, then realized what I was doing and lifted my head away from her neck, letting go and taking a big step back instead. “What can I do?”
She slid a knife out of the wooden block on the counter and handed it over, then pointed at a pile of leaves in a bag. “Chop that.”
“What is it?”
She stared at me, amusement sparking to life in her tired eyes. “Are you serious?”
