“If I ever see you anywhere close to this property, I’ll be calling the police. We never would have lasted. We wanted two very different things long-term, so get out, before I force you to.”
“You miss me. You missed being married, that’s the only reason you got married again. I know you, Joey.”
“You don’t know shit,” I hissed, and my feet had moved, in front of her and sneering down at her before I took a breath. “My relationship with Gabby is none of your damn business and never will be. And if you think so little of me that I’d be that stupid to get married because I was lonely—well, I suspect that rings more true to you than it does me. Get out before I call the police and have you arrested for trespassing. Now.”
Her eyes narrowed, fury sparking in them, and at one time, her angry look had started a hell of a lot of hot angry sex. She was every man’s dream woman, at least in body, but she was absolutely no longer mine.
“She will never give you what I can,” she spit.
Oh, how fucking wrong she was.
“You’re right. Because I know Gabby will give me everything I’ve always wanted, and that’s something you were never capable of.”
It was more than wanting kids. Or a family. It was the understanding and the compassion and the caring, genuine caring, about my life. Lenora had lacked in all of it.
My arrow hit its mark and she flinched.
I raised my brows, impatience licking its way up my spine.
“Five minutes are up.”
She wrinkled her nose, again, adorable and it did nothing to me, but my wife knew how to work a crowd. Knew how to work men into a tizzy. It was her career and she was damn good at it. For once though, I felt nothing.
She left, gaze never dropping from mine until she reached the front patio and turned around.
I shut the door on her. Locked it, and then heaved a sigh and scrubbed my hands through my hair.
What a damn mess she’d caused. But I hope she heard every word I spoke.
Hell, I hoped Gabby overheard it.
Because if I thought for a second there wasn’t a reason Gabby and I were meant to be, had done what we had, I would have gotten the marriage annulled yesterday, or the day before. I wouldn’t be going through the effort to save something for ego alone. Lenora should have known that.
And if Gabby didn’t yet, I’d soon prove it to her.
I found Gabby in my movie room. She’d changed out of the jean shorts and tank top and her hair had been pulled back into a loose braid. Face free of makeup, she was curled into one of the reclining, leather movie theater-style chairs. Short, black shorts, so tight they might as well have been painted on her and wearing a sweatshirt that draped off one shoulder and revealed a light purple bra strap, I couldn’t decide how I found her sexier. Wearing a dress I could untie, my jersey declaring her mine for all to see, or this… Gabby, free from any façade, simply, perfectly, her.
“I’m sorry about that,” I told her, and entered the movie room where she was flipping through a streaming service. “Lenora left.”
“What’d she want?” She didn’t look at me, kept scrolling, clearly not focusing on anything she flipped past. But her voice was dull, and my chest pinched with pain. I’d done that.
No. Lenora had. I’d handled it.
“Me.” I rocked back on my heels, shoving my hands to my hips. “She wanted me back.”
“You loved her.” The sadness in her voice slayed me, cut right through my chest with a knife.
“Of course I did. But that ‘d’ at the end of the word is the most important part of it. Past tense. Not now.”
Had there been any question before today, it was clear now.
“You loved her and married her. And then you married me.”
If she was looking for declarations of love, she wouldn’t get them. Not then. “You’re right. Which means there’s a reason for it. Don’t pull back or push me away because I want to find out why.”
“Is that what this was then?” She flipped her hand back and forth between us. “You testing out our chemistry?”
“No.” Goddamnit, no. She wasn’t even close. “Me being unable to keep my hands off you is because you’re sexy. You make me laugh. Every time you touch me I get hard and that’s not because I haven’t fucked a woman since Lenora, either. It’s you, Gabby. It’s everything I feel when I’m with you and it’s the fact that for hours today I kissed you and held you and laughed with you and all I could think about was all the different places I wanted to fuck you when we got back here and all the different positions I want you in as I do it.”
Her eyes widened with every word, cheeks flushed as I continued.
“Don’t you dare think I’m using you just to get off, either. I could have that anywhere, but I’m not that guy. Lenora’s the third person I’ve been with. That’s it. I don’t fuck and dump like other guys and I wouldn’t. This shit means something to me.”
You mean something to me. What it was, I couldn’t exactly tell her. I hadn’t figured it out myself. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t there, a living, pulsing need and desire for her that itched beneath my skin.
God, my chest burned. I wanted this woman. So damn bad.
I reached for her to hold her, to comfort her and reassure her I meant everything I said but as I did, she pulled back, shaking her head and practically cowered in her chair.
A chill traveled down my back, pulled at my shoulders.
“I’m not… I’m not the girl my mom thinks I am.”
“I know that.”
“No, you don’t get it.” She laughed, but it was cold and brittle. Blinking, she slid her gaze to the windows, the pool and my yard beyond. “My mom, she has this idea of who I should be.”
“I don’t give a fuck of your mom’s opinions. I like you as you are.”
“I’m not the girl she says jumps without looking or is too stupid to make a plan. She thinks I live in my head, but it’s not that.”
I. Really. Did. Not. Give. A. Fuck. Nor did I want to be discussing her mother of all people.
She glanced at me, pain in her eyes and in the grooves of her forehead. “I’ve never been the daughter she wanted.”
“Gabby—”
She jumped from the couch then, flung her arm straight out. “So what happens once we do all this, continue this insanity and you realize I’m not the wife you always wanted.” Lenora. She meant Lenora. “You should consider that.”
I didn’t need to.
What I got from her distance and her pain was that she needed to believe I’d done just that.
“We can take a step back,” I told her, doing exactly that by stepping backward toward the hallway. “But you should know I don’t need it.”
She pushed her lips to one side, eyes filled with doubt.
I wanted to pummel her mom for destroying her daughter’s self-esteem instead of building it up. Rail at Garrett for not doing more to stop it, even if it wasn’t his responsibility.
“Joey.”
I stopped at the threshold and looked at her over my shoulder.
“You should know, what you said… all this means a lot to me too. I don’t want to mess that up.”