“He. Did.What?”
“Oh. It’s... It’s why I’m not with him. He thought I was only a mom, not a wife. Didn’t like that the athletic girl he married became a soft, squishy post-partum mother. I told him, too, that it was crazy to think I’d get back to the gym right away with a marriage on the rocks and a newborn, but Eli’s brain takes a hiatus when it’s focused on his own wants. I don’t like to saythings about him in front of Zack,” I hint, trying to end this conversation.
Mercer nods, but that only means one part of the conversation is over. “I will not disparage him now, then. I will only praise you. You are stunning. Curvaceous. Voluptuous. I am speaking merely in an objective way. Everything about you is...Sensuous, and the fact that you gained all of these delicious curves from carrying this amazing child could only make any man or monster more eager to woo you.”
“Woo? No, no. No one’s going to woo me. No one would want this hassle,” I throw up walls as fast as I can, realizing too late how his words tempt me to fall into a fantasy where someone wants to make things last. Mercer might like my looks. He might like Zack. That doesn’t mean that this could be love, or even something relationship-ready.
“What if he promised to try very hard? To give everything within himself to do it properly? Even if he is still learning what humans like. Whatyoulike?” Mercer hints.
“Mom! Mercer! I’m done!” Zack bobs up, dripping and grinning. “Can I go on the ride?”
Mercer smiles and rearranges his tentacles. “Okay, remember, you have to hold your breath when I say ‘go’.”
“I will!” Zack scrambles into position and laughs as Mercer bobs him through the water. All the while, he continues looking at me, making this whole watching-a-kid thing look so easy.
Maybe it feels easier with help, Madelyn. You know that.
“Even if a guy tried very hard, I’d be a lousy person to date,” I say gently. “I’ve been hurt, I have a difficult thing going on right now with my ex, and I’m just getting settled. Plus, even if someone likes the way I look, even if they like my kid, that doesn’t mean it will work. There are so many layers to making things work. I didn’t dig deep enough the first time. I didn’t find out... I didn’t find out what I needed to know.”
“If a man wants to show you, he will. If he wants to make it work, he will.”
The piece of advice I finally had to learn the hard way—if he wanted to, he would.
“May I please have a chance? I don’t mind if it takes until Zack graduates from high school for me to earn the right to hold your hand and sit beside you,” he says.
I swallow a gasp. That’s so oddly specific. A sign?
“I mean, there’s no harm in trying, I guess.”
Mercer’s smile is as toe-tingling as his fierce looks are spine-chilling. “Then I want to try.”
Chapter Eight: Dinner
I disliked Madelyn’s mate from the first second I realized that she was raising a child alone. I blame it on my own childhood. In an age when krakens were mating for life and raising dozens of children over decades, with vast clans of families protecting and aiding each other... There was my father, a foggy memory, chasing mermaid tail and singing back to the sirens. Literally.
To find out that this Eli has not only threatened to take Zack away (although Madelyn doesn’t know I saw that heinous text) but that he left because he “hated” her sweet, sensuous body?
I could sink a yacht, I’m so angry. I feel all the rage of the ancient Earth Shaker inside of me, and I take it out by swimming aggressive laps around the lake under the guise of “supervising” swimmers and boaters.
It has the effect of tiring me out—a bit, but it doesn’t make me any calmer. If anything, I feel like a wave that’s been dammed up, waiting to “crash out.”
Samantha tells me I’m using that term wrong. Doesn’t matter. I am ready to prove that I amnothinglike Madelyn’s former mate, not in terms of looks or anything else—which is why I show up just a little early for our dinner, with fresh flowers and a freshly cleaned catch.
“Hi! Come on in,” Madelyn invites breathlessly, flushed and looking as though she’s been sprinting.
“But wipe your feet. Mommy mopped.” Zack hurls himself at my waist, and I scoop him up in a coil of tentacle and dangle him over my head. “Where are your feet?”
“Never had any. But my tentacles are squeaky clean.” I settle him on my shoulders. “The house looks beautiful, Madelyn. Here.” I hold out the flowers. “Something to make it even brighter, not that it needs it. It looks organized. No one would know you haven’t lived here for years.”
“The garage isnotin the same condition,” she chuckles, sweeping her arm back to motion me inside. “You really don’t have to cook. I have steaks, and we could cheat and microwave potatoes—”
I silence her with a stern look. “I want to cook you a meal. Perhaps you will return the favor another night.”
“But I should be doing you favors already,” she protests, showing me to the kitchen.
“Being allowed into your home and to spend time with you and Zack is a huge favor. Zack and I are going to make a beautiful meal, aren’t we, Zack?”
“Can I look at the pictures in the cookbook?” Zack asks.
