Page 16 of Grant’s Heat

love? It’s a kitten, for Christ’s sake.

True. True.

I finished the conversation to take an incoming call from Sean—but as I should have expected, he was only getting in touch to say he’d be working late. But the weird thing wasn’t the call itself. It was my reaction to it. I tried to infuse my voice with disappointment because I was genuinely disappointed. I mean, I think I was.

What I wasn’t…was surprised.

Yes, he kept saying this wasn’t going to be permanent. These late hours were just because it was a new job and blah blah blah. But something deep inside my belly kept nagging at me—warning me, almost—that there was more to the whole situation than just making a good impression at a new job.

More…that I didn’t want to know about.

“No,” I ordered myself at once. “Stop it. Right this second.”

My damn frantic brain had a way of running off down its own path when I had too much time to myself. Lately, all I had was time to myself.

So I spent the next hour making up stories as to why my husband might not want to be spending time with me. Completely normal behavior, right?

One. Maybe I was putting too much pressure on him to start a family. Maybe deep inside, Sean didn’t really want to have a baby just yet. Maybe he saw what his sister and Sebastian were going through with her pregnancy, and it had caused him to change his mind, and now he was afraid to tell me how he felt.

Two. Maybe, for Sean, all the extra money we would have to spend on infertility treatments wouldn’t be worth it.

Three. Maybe all the projects that were half done or needed to be done around the old house we owned were seeming like more significant priorities than bringing a child into the world. Which, if we were honest, would just continue to cost more money that we didn’t have.

On a rare occasion when we had been able to sit down and talk and I dared to bring up the topic of starting a family, my husband swore he still wanted the same thing I did. All I could do was trust he was being honest with me.

But actions spoke louder than words, and to make a baby, people had to have sex. We were barely doing that these days. Sean and I used to have a legendary sex life. Now it was sad and almost embarrassing how infrequently we made love. Yes, there had been the exceptional I-got-the-job passion marathon, but after that, everything was vanilla and tedious and seemed more like a chore for Sean than something he just couldn’t get enough of—like it used to be. Neither one of us was at an age that our libidos should be waning, either.

Of course, he always said he was just tired or stressed out because of work. I tried to be understanding, even sympathetic. I attempted to be the initiator, the aggressor, even the caretaker. But at some point…

I’d started to seriously consider possibility number four. Had Sean met someone else? Were his needs being taken care of outside our bedroom? I hated myself for letting teenage insecurities rear their ugly, useless heads, but I couldn’t help it. Sean was spending more and more time away from me, and I couldn’t keep ignoring what was happening to my marriage.

Robert jumped on my lap, purring while rubbing his face on my offered fingers. “Hi, sweet boy. I’m so glad you chose me. I think I needed you more than either one of us realized.” The sweet sound of his vibrating body calmed my nerves, and I focused on that instead of letting my thoughts run off and turn down into the darkness. I didn’t want to do destructive things—to myself or my property. Even worse, to other people’s.

Maybe Grant was at his place a few neighborhoods away, in Naples. If I texted him and he just happened to be there and wasn’t busy, he could stop by. He had told me to call him anytime I felt like I needed an outlet. Now was definitely one of those times—and there was no harm in one friend reaching out to another in a time of true need.

He’d also mentioned, at least a few times, about wanting to learn some of his favorite recipes that we made in the kitchen. I could offer to give him a private lesson or two.

There would be no harm in that.

“Good God,” I groaned to myself. Could I actually hear the ridiculous things I was suggesting? To have that man come over to my house this late at night while I was home alone and feeling vulnerable? No harm in that? Really, Rio?

Of course not.

Because the only recipe that’d be cooked up in that situation was an old classic called Disaster.

Soon, my eyes grew heavy with exhaustion—and I was grateful for it. I needed to go to sleep and forget about Grant Twombley. While I was at it, forget about the shit show my marriage was becoming. Everything would look better after a good night’s sleep. I had to believe it—though that also felt as realistic as thinking Santa would come down the chimney and leave me pretty turquoise boxes while I dozed.

Sean crawled into bed beside me sometime after eleven o’clock. I lay still as could be, pretending to be asleep after I smelled the beer on his breath, even from my side of the bed. So what the hell did that mean?

I hoped the answer was that he’d just knocked one back with the crew after clocking out and time got away from them all while they shot the shit at some watering hole. He wasn’t dumb enough to drink more than one and get behind the wheel. Typically he was responsible and called me or paid for a ride, so I took comfort in that history and fell asleep fully.

The next morning, we went through our usual morning routines, acting like everything was fine. After a quick kiss at the door, we headed to our cars. Goodbyes and promises of coming home on time to spend the night together were shouted over the rooftops of our vehicles as we loaded up for the morning commute.

Instead of crying off the makeup I’d quickly applied, I vowed to stop feeling sorry for myself while I drove into the prep kitchen in the industrial section of a downtown suburb. A heavy dose of Def Leppard, and I was back on solid ground. Despite the lighter than usual traffic—and still humming the chorus to “Hysteria”—I still arrived after Hannah.

Does the woman ever sleep?

The adorable blonde popped out of her adorable car, dressed in her adorable chef’s jacket and pants, an adorable smile already in place. All at the very non-adorable time of four thirty.