“Trust me, it's hilarious.”
They keep bickering back and forth, voices overlapping, neither of them willing to back down. Ezra's poking for sport, River’s snapping, which leads to a brawl, and I’m stuck between them, wondering how the hell I raised one and grew up with the other.
All I want to do is bang their heads together, tell them both to shut the fuck up, and go home.
Not for the quiet.
But for her.
I want to be there when Willow walks through the door. I want to see her face, catch the way her eyes light up as she talks about her day.
Just the thought of her smiling sparks something deep inside me, something warm and dangerous and alive. For the first time, I’m not sure I want to push it down or pretend it isn't there.
I’m really sick of fighting it.
Chapter 14
Elijah
River has been in a godawful mood since we got home, and fighting with Ezra hasn't exactly improved it. I told him if he carried on winding him up, I’d print pictures of him wearing mam's underwear and stick them on every lamp post in town. The thought of every potential woman he could sleep with seeing him like that shut him up immediately. Honestly, sometimes he wasn't even a kid when he did that, but even as a teenager, he'd get drunk and dig out the heels. Mam wasn't impressed when he broke one or two.
I’m stirring the Bolognese, mind focused on the sauce, when I hear the click of heels. Shit. I forgot she was still here.
Rose appears in the doorway, red dress clinging just enough, pearl necklace glinting, hair loose around her shoulders, makeup applied like always. “You look good enough to eat…” she purrs, sauntering closer, the fake sweetness suffocating.
I stiffen, tightening my grip on the spoon. “You signed the papers yet?” I ask, even though I know the answer.
Her finger drifts down my arm slowly, ignoring me entirely. I shrug her off, irritation sparking.
“Still banging on about that? I thought we had moved past that. It was a mistake.”
I don’t know how anyone can be this fucking infuriating.
Her hand slides up my chest, nails grazing over the fabric. “You're the only one I want, Elijah.”
I catch her hand before it can cross any further. “A mistake is a one-time thing, something you don't mean to do. You don't accidentally fall onto someone's cock more than once and then come back home to me.”
Her fake smile tightens, the mask slipping for half a second before she pastes it back on. Rose has always been good at that—full of pretty lies, she actually begins to believe them herself.
“You're being dramatic,” she says lightly, like I’m the problem here. Like I imagined, all those nights she didn't come home. “You know I love you.”
I let out a slow breath through my nose and turned back to the stove, refusing to give her what she wanted. “You love what I give you. Security. A house. Overpriced clothes and multiple spa weekends. You don't love me.”
She scoffs, offended, and steps closer again. Too fucking close. “You think you're some saint? You've shut me out for years. I got lonely.”
That does it.
“Lonely?” I repeat quietly. “You had a husband who broke his back for this family. You had a son who loved you and a daughter who wanted a mum. Yet, you still chose to crawl into someone else's bed.”
Her chin lifts, defensive. “It didn't mean anything.”
Ah, the famous “it didn't mean anything” line.
“That's the problem, Rose. It meant nothing to you.Yet you were willing to burn everything for it.”
She opens her mouth, probably to spin it again, but I cut her off, fed up with her bullshit. “Don't touch me. Don't flirt with me, and don't insult me by pretending this was an accident.”
I push her hand away, hating that I have to touch her to remove her. “You want forgiveness? Sign the papers. You want to play Happy Families? Try it with someone who hasn't already seen what you really are.”
