I rubbed the spots where the belt had been. “What?”
“How does it feel, knowing the Westons would have paid twenty-five percent instead of the twenty you had your clients agree to?”
Each word hit me one at a time, like a slap across cold skin, and they settled inside me before they returned to my face and punched each cheek.
“Is that what this was about? All the edging you’ve done to me this evening? You were just trying to get back at me?”
“No.” There was a lightness in his eyes and on his lips. “Quite the opposite.”
“Then what?”
He backed up to the door.
I literally couldn’t believe what was happening. “Where are you going, Colson?”
“I want to see how badly you want me.”
He had ignored my question.
“Now?” I leaned up, pulling at the knot at the top of the rope. “Or …”
“No, not now. Now, unfortunately, for you, is over. You had your chance to show me, and you failed to do so. I hope, for your sake, next time goes differently.”
He opened the door.
“You’re leaving me? Like this? You’re not even going to do what you promised?”
“I promised nothing.”
“You said you were going to fuck me!”
He smiled. “That was part of the edging. Just like this is.”
I drew in some air, and it burned like the rest of me, my body so wound and desperate that I ached. Everywhere. “I hate you!”
“I know.” He smiled as he walked out and closed the door behind him.
ELEVEN
COLSON
Ellie’s little arms were tightly wrapped around my neck as I held her against me in my ex’s kitchen. “Daddy, I don’t want you to leave.”
Drop-offs were the toughest—in both directions. She became more attached to the house she stayed in, having to get readjusted, only to do it all over again when it was time to swap.
“But you’re going to Disneyland this weekend with Mommy, Matt, and your little sister. Don’t you want to go see Mickey and Minnie Mouse?”
As her tiny body clung to me, she squeezed with more strength than I’d realized she had. “Yes! But …”
“But what, baby?”
“You’re going on the airplane without me.”
I rubbed circles over her back. “I bet there’s an airplane ride at one of the parks that you can get on, and you’ll feel like you’re with me. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”
“Yeah …”
Lindsey took out a homemade cookie from a covered cake tray on the counter. “Guess what I have, my little Lemon.” A nickname she’d given Ellie shortly after she was born because, like her, her hair was the color of the fruit. “M&M cookies—your favorite.”
