Page 32 of The Marriage Mistake

The groundskeeper told me about the plants and the landscape design, waving his arm in a big arc, covering ground with huge steps while I scurried to follow. I knew nothing about gardening—all I had were a few pot plants which I routinely killed and then replaced—but I was interested. I inhaled the crisp, heavy scent of the rain and walked down to a small platform overlooking the water. The groundskeeper left me there to enjoy the view and told me to head back to the house when I was ready. He gave me a little salute and a smile, and he was gone.

The rain grew heavier as I watched lightning strike the ocean. Now that I was in it, the storm seemed angrier. Gulls huddled on rocks on the shore, feathers trembling. Waves crashed, and the scent of salt and brine filled my nose. Wind gusted, and I tilted my face to feel the full brunt of it.

It felt good, in a wild, windy, unfamiliar way. I wasn’t outdoorsy by any means, but there was something about standing here, on what felt like the edge of the world, watching the might of the Atlantic Ocean crash and recede against the shore under a stormy sky, that made me feel alive.

Yes, I would miss this, I realized. I’d been here six days, and the jagged coastline, the lush forests, and the smell of the air had already burrowed themselves under my skin. Sure, there were rabid raccoons and way-too-charming men to contend with, but maybe…maybe my life in Chicago hadn’t been as satisfying as I’d previously thought.

I was learning a lot about myself these days.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” a voice said behind me.

I turned to see a man with ink-black hair leaning against the side railing of the lookout platform. He wore no jacket but held a big black umbrella. He was tall—almost as tall as Jack—and had a kind of refined elegance clinging to the lines of his face and body. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him. He wore a black sweater and dark jeans over a pair of sturdy-looking rain boots. Though he was mostly dressed for the weather, other than a missing jacket, something about him felt out of place. He looked from me to the view, and he surveyed the ocean like he owned it.

This was his land. His house.

I straightened. “One of the best views I’ve ever seen,” I said truthfully. “I apologize for intruding. I’m just waiting for my—my husband to finish work in your home.” Husband. The title was clumsy on my tongue, like the letters didn’t fit right in my mouth. Because Jack wasn’t really my husband, was he?

The man’s dark gaze returned to me, and a small smile curved his lips. He was pleased that I’d guessed—or knew—that he owned this place. “I’m happy to see someone enjoying it. Days like this, when the ocean is dark and furious, are the reason I built this place. Although typically, I enjoy the view where I’m warm and dry indoors.” He tilted his head toward the house, and something in the way he moved, or spoke, or looked in that moment made my brain click.

“You’re Oren Blanchard,” I said, straightening. “You founded ActuRisk.”

He looked at me anew, a slight frown marring his features. “That’s right.”

“I use your software every day,” I said, aware that a smile had spread over my lips and I was on the verge of fan-girling myself into mortification. But I couldn’t help it. “The latest update was great. The improvements in the user interface have made it possible for me to convince some of my clients to switch to the software. The new reports feature is particularly good, and I’m glad you implemented my suggestion with the pivot tables. I mean, it probably wasn’t because of me that you changed it, but I submitted I don’t even know how many tickets asking for the feature—” I stopped talking and clamped my lips shut, flushing.

Mr. Blanchard was watching me with the strangest look on his face. “You’re Ember Knightly,” he finally said as he snapped his fingers. His smile spread. “The dogged, determined, detail-oriented woman who won’t leave my team of developers alone.”

I flushed hotter, scrambling to figure out if that had been a compliment or an insult.

“You’ve made our product better than we could ever imagine. Come inside. Have you eaten? I want to pick your brain about this latest update, because everyone around me keeps telling me it’s great, but I can tell by the look on your face that you’ve got comments.”

“Well…”

He laughed, and the sound sent a tingle of pleasure and pride through me. It wasn’t the rush of heat that Jack’s laugh elicited, but it was still pleasant. Safer. Extending his hand, he said, “Nice to finally meet you, Ember.”

“Mr. Blanchard,” I replied, shaking his hand as rain pattered the backs of our palms.

“Oren. Please. Now, please,” he said, pulling his hand free of mine to sweep it toward the sprawling, castlelike mansion. “I want to hear everything you have to say about ActuRisk. No criticism is too small or too big. Everything you’ve got, Ember. And let’s get out of this rain before the storm really hits us.”

We walked back to the house, crossed a beautiful patio, and entered through the big French doors at the back into a beautiful, modern home that made the most of the view. Giles materialized and didn’t seem surprised to see me with his boss. As we shook off the worst of the rain and stripped off our jackets and shoes, Giles listened to Oren’s request for more hot drinks and food and disappeared with a bow. Oren gestured to one of the pristine white couches and took a seat on an armchair to my left. He pulled it closer and put his elbows on his knees, then looked me in the eyes and said, “Now. Tell me everything you’ve come up with.”

If I hadn’t spent the past week in the presence of an attractive man whose gaze made me feel like I had a thousand stage lights glaring down on me, heating my skin, putting me on display, I might’ve been intimidated. And Oren was intimidating—he was a titan in the industry, and he’d made a fortune in tech—but he didn’t trigger the same kind of physical reaction Jack did.

So it was easy to tell him all the things I liked about his software, and all the little things I didn’t. I even told him about the bug that made it so I had to click the submit button twice to get a report to run, and he was on the phone with one of his developers a minute later to get it fixed. It felt like I suddenly had a superpower to make my work life easier.

And that’s how Jack found me: eating cake on Oren Blanchard’s sofa, with the man himself leaning toward me with a smile on his face. My husband’s gaze flicked between us, and a furrow formed between his brows. I set my fork down and put my plate on the coffee table, then patted my mouth with a napkin. “Hey,” I said. “Oren, you know Jack, right?”

Oren’s brows lifted, and he stood to shake my husband’s hand. I could’ve been wrong, but it looked like he shook it a hell of a lot more firmly than he’d shaken mine. “Jack Mars. I was almost ready to tell you and your brothers that I’d find someone else to do security for me, and then I find out you’re married to Ember Knightly. You’re a lucky man.”

Jack’s frown deepened, and then his gaze cut to me. “I’m aware,” he said. “You know each other?”

“Only through the somewhat indirect medium of software support tickets which have become the bane of my team’s existence these past years,” Oren replied with a laugh. “Now. Have you fixed the issue? Are we back online?”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Jack replied. “I need to show you something.”

Oren nodded and gestured at me to come with them. “Lead the way,” he said. After a quick detour to grab my shoes, I scurried after them.

Jack walked us through the beautifully decorated but slightly soulless home, out through the front door, and around to the side of the house where a green communications pit was nestled in the grass, its lid removed to expose a mass of neatly organized wires. We walked under the eaves, which extended far enough that we weren’t getting wet. Jack stepped onto the lawn and knelt by the box, reached inside, and pulled out a cable at the exact same moment a peal of thunder clapped overhead.