It was so ridiculous it made me chuckle. “Yeah, man. We do.”
He raised an eyebrow, rolling his eyes upward like he was mentally calculating. It was a response I was familiar with. When his eyes widened, I grinned and nodded.
“Yeah.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Wow.”
“She is something,” I said, grinning despite the sour mood that had fallen over me.
“So, you two are like…” Anderson tilted his head as he checked his two cards before folding them. “Empty nesters?”
I snorted, almost spitting out my beer. “Isn’t that a term used for retired people?”
He shook his head, chuckling. “No, I’m pretty sure it’s used for people whose kids have just moved out of the house. You’re just like a really young empty nester.”
I knitted my eyebrows, taking a slower drink. “I guess I never thought of it that way.” The notion did fit us, though. Blaire had been our primary focus for the past eighteen years, and while we had taken some time for ourselves—especially me with my custom furniture business—it had been all about the family dynamic. With Blaire off at school, it had instantly shifted to a relationship dynamic.
Fuck. It had happened so fast it could’ve given me whiplash. I hadn’t even gotten a chance to prepare for the shift. I’d been behaving like the father I’d always been—the provider—focused on work in order to give my girls everything they deserved. When in reality I should’ve been behaving like a husband focused on his wife.
We’d never been just husband and wife. We were Daddy and Mama long before we’d gotten married.
No wonder Tara was out of sorts—we didn’t have a clue how to be husband and wife and nothing else—not that we weren’t parents anymore, but on the day to day scheme of things, we were in a whole new world.
And I had no idea how to behave in it.
Triple fuck.
“Raise,” Anderson said, his firm voice bringing me back to the present and calming my inner panic. The two guys next to me smacked their cards down and hissed. I checked mine and quickly folded.
A laugh from outside the door garnered Anderson’s attention, and he all but forgot about the hand.
“Excuse me,” the voice said from outside the door.
“Mrs. Grady…Presley.” Anderson jumped up, rushing to the door. From the way he said her name—like he had mine earlier—I assumed she was one of his clients that didn’t make him put on the bullshit act. Good for her.
They chatted outside for a few moments, and we held off the round until he came back, a tall blonde on his tail. She was pretty, with blue eyes and a kind smile, but she had nothing on the brunette sleeping it off in our bed upstairs. The thought of Tara made the split in my chest ache.
She stopped Anderson when he tried to pull out her chair. “What?” he asked. “You haven’t won yet.” He retook his seat. “Is Mr. Grady ill?”
“He’s asleep,” the girl said with a shrug, and I pressed my lips together, sympathizing with her immediately.
Wonder if she’s having the exact same issues we’re having? I doubted it, but I decided to like her just in case.
“Lady’s action,” I said after dealing the cards around the table. I pushed away some of the longer hair that had fallen into my eyes, still not used to the new cut Anderson and his crew had given me yesterday.
She raised, causing me and Anderson to fold.
“No messing around, huh?” Anderson asked.
“Now that sounds more like a person and not a British robot!” she said, and I was certain I liked her.
“Touché.” He raised his beer to her before taking a swig. When Presley looked around, Anderson jumped up and brought her back a beer before she could blink. “Habit,” he said, and it was only then that I realized he’d been doing that for me since I got here as well, and I felt like an asshole.
Great.
She took a quick drink before dragging a load of chips to her stack, and I wondered if I should pack it up and head back to the room. Losing all my money seemed like a better situation than returning to the quiet room where I had nothing but time to sit and think about all the mistakes I’d made in the last three months and how I suddenly didn’t know how to behave around my wife.
“I do love this game,” she said, smiling at Anderson.
“That wasn’t a lucky first hand?” he asked, hopeful like the rest of us.
“I’ve played this since I was eight. It’s how I paid for college.”
“No shit?” I asked. “Great.” I chuckled while dealing the next hand. “Remind me to track your fiancé down tomorrow when I’m broke and beat him down for falling asleep tonight.”
She laughed so hard she made the guy to her right jump. “I don’t think you’d want to do that.”
I leaned back in my chair, stretching my arms over my head to try and ease the knot that had formed between my shoulders. “If you keep playing like that? I assure you, I will.”
Anderson snorted beside me. “Dude, you didn’t hear me say his last name?”
I shrugged and shook my head.
“Grady. It’s Owen Grady,” Anderson said, leaning forward over the table.
The face of one of my favorite boxers filled my head, and my eyes widened. “No shit?” The idea of trying to fight that dude almost made me laugh. I was fit, but wouldn’t survive one hit from him. I grabbed my beer and held it out to her. “Cheers to you. You can take my money. I won’t say a fucking word.”
The next half hour passed with a few laughs and lots of money lost, but it was enough to keep the thoughts at bay, which is all I needed. The beer helped, too.
“Well?” Presley asked, looking from Anderson to her chips. “What do you think?”
“I think you ruined my night off,” he said, and her mouth dropped open.
“I’m an asshole,” she said, her shoulders sinking.
I laughed right alongside Anderson.
He pushed back from the table. “You are far from that, Presley.” He handed us another beer before sitting back down.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You in for another round or should you get back to your husband?” I asked after their exchange had halted the game.
“First, he’s my fiancé, not my husband. Second, I’m so in. Third, do you need to get back to your wife?”
The laughter died in my throat, despite knowing she was only joking with me in the same way I had her—though I doubted she was unsure in her relationship as I was in mine at the moment. I sucked in a quick breath and smiled. “That’s probably a good idea,” I said, passing the deck to Anderson. “I’ll see you in a couple days, yeah?”
“It was really great meeting you, Presley,” I said after Anderson had taken the cards from me. “I actually am a fan of Owen’s, so I hope we see you two around.”
“Absolutely,” she said, the worry in her eyes clear enough for me to see it from the door. It was kind of her to be concerned over a complete stranger, which only made me like her more. I hadn’t expected to make friends on this trip, but I wouldn’t deny that in those moments I’d needed it more than I wanted to admit.
“Don’t tell him I said I’d beat him down though,” I said, turning out the door and making the long trek down the hallway, trying to remember every twist and turn Anderson had taken to get there.
And all the while, as I found my way back to the main lobby, I couldn’t decide if I was hoping Tara would still be asleep or awake. If she was up, I might press her to talk to me, to open up so we could get to the heart of what was going on and give me a chance to fix whatever I didn’t know was broken.
But the idea that it might be unfixable whispered for me to live in denial just a little while longer.
7
Tara
“No Quinn today?” Grant asked, handing me a paintbrush as I walked into his office.
I took it and shook my head, stepping up to the smaller canvas he had up on
the easel in the corner. “I told him to meet me at the bar afterward.”
“And he knows you’re having sessions with me, alone?” He arched an eyebrow at me before dipping his brush in dark purple paint and streaking it over the canvas.
I shrugged. “He knows. He probably doesn’t realize why I’m talking to you.” I picked a lighter shade of purple—that is the only color that filled the space beneath the canvas, variations of purple—and worked on the other side. I’m not sure how he knew how much easier I could speak if I was actively doing something, especially painting, but he was renowned for being perceptive, and I was beyond appreciative of it.
“Want to tell me about the Wonderland room?”
I snapped my eyes to him, curious how he could possibly know that we’d went to one.
“Your keys are coded. I know when you use one.”
I nodded, the breath leaving my tightened lungs. Of course.
“Not great,” I said, swiping the brush harder down the paper.
“Was the room not to both of your liking?”
I chuckled, the image of me riding Quinn just before I went down on him covered in an allergy-inducing concoction filling my mind. It had been perfect…until it wasn’t. “The room was incredible. My choice in indulgences was idiotic.”
He scrunched his eyebrows together. “Why do you say that?”
I lightly touched my cheeks that felt completely normal this morning, but I’d kept checking them anyway to feel if they were still swollen. “I’m allergic to licorice, and I didn’t read the bottle…”
“Oh,” he said, not needing me to elaborate. He set his paintbrush down and pulled his cell out of his pocket, typing frantically over the screen before pocketing it again. “That has never come up before. I’m terribly sorry. We’ll have to increase the font sizes on our explanations of what is what in the Candy Shop, as well as have a disclaimer explain the possibility for food allergies before entry is allowed.”
“Whoa, you are a businessman, too. Not just a Cupid-Yoda.”
He laughed. “Now I’m Cupid-Yoda?”
“If it fits…” I grinned and continued to paint.
“And with what happened during your first fantasy I’m guessing you’re still not feeling sure about anything right now, are you?”
“No,” I said, sighing. I focused on the brush stroking the paper up and down. “I’m more at odds than I was before.”
“Has there been any change?” He asked, reclaiming his brush and smooshing it against the surface to get a fuzzy circle effect.
“Yes.” I continued with my up and down lines, my stomach flaring with need at the thought of how hot we’d been for each other both times before…we weren’t. “I feel it. The passion is there, but now I don’t know if it’s been there all along or if it’s just this place. The scenarios. And the fact that it keeps fizzling out before the end...” I stopped moving the brush, staring at the shades of purple without seeing it. I only saw Quinn. Those blue-gray eyes that were so focused, so intense with want. “Maybe I’m trying too hard. Putting too much pressure on everything.” How could I not with what I had seen?
You should tell Grant.
“That is a fact. No maybe about it,” he said, shaking his head.
“You think?”
“I know. You over analyze everything, Tara. It’s not always a bad thing, but when it effects your view of yourself and your relationship negatively? It can be detrimental.”
A lump formed in the back of my throat as I turned to face him. “I don’t want that to happen. I don’t want to ruin us. I just want to know if we’re the same us without her or…”
“I know,” he said when I didn’t finish. “But you remember what I said? You have to open up. You can’t keep shutting him out.”
I knew that. I did. I just didn’t have a clue how to communicate anymore.
“I won’t force your hand,” he continued. “But I want you to realize how much worse it could get if you keep everything inside. One day it will all come out, and it may not be the prettiest way. People could get hurt. Including Quinn.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat and nodded. “I know. You’re right. I thought that after the first fantasy the ice would be broken and it’d be easier to talk, and then that didn’t go well, and neither did our first Wonderland room. I just wanted to connect again before I unloaded everything on him.”
Grant gently gripped my shoulders, pinning me with his gaze. “Then you need to loosen up too. You’re putting way too much significance on the fantasies that are meant to be a fun experiment, not the determining factor on the rest of your life.” He arched an eyebrow at me. “Are you ready, yet? To tell me what you’ve been keeping from me as well as him?”
The story was on the tip of my tongue, but I tied it. I couldn’t say the words. If I did, that would make them real. The fantasy would be broken. Midnight would strike and I’d turn into a pumpkin and Quinn would ride into the sunset without ever trying to look for my glass slipper.
“Not yet.”
He sighed but tapped my nose. “Fine. Go. Have a few drinks, and try not to focus on every single detail of every single second. Lose yourself to the experience. You’re married with your husband all to yourself for the first time in years. Indulge.” He pointed a finger at me. “Allergy conscious, of course.”
A blush heated my cheeks, and I chuckled nervously. “Right. Get drunk. Eat responsibly. Got it.”
He laughed, nodding. “Perfection,” he said before practically pushing me out the door. “I want Quinn in here and knowledgeable at least once before you leave,” he said.
Okay. Okay.
It was a good twenty minutes before I’d told Quinn to meet me in the nightclub—my attempt to ignore last night and kind of recreate our stranger fantasy—but I headed in there anyway. I could at least get one or two drinks down in an attempt to loosen up, like Grant had ordered. Maybe it would do me some good to be a little buzzed before he showed up. Maybe it’d help me figure out how to tell him exactly what was going on in my overcrowded head.
There was only one barstool open, so I quickly snagged it, bumping the oversized, muscly man sitting in the one next to it. “Excuse me,” I said, touching his giant bicep as I hefted myself onto the stool and ordered a drink.
“No problem,” he said, flashing me a kind smile that had me doing a double take.
“Holy hell, you’re Owen Grady!” I blurted before I could think about squealing in the boxer’s face.
Whoops.
He chuckled. “Last time I checked.” He extended his hand to shake mine.
My eyes widened as I took in his gorgeous exterior. Every cut of his body was toned and shaped and cut—I’d seen my fill on more than enough fights I’d watched with Quinn—but that wasn’t what shocked me. The fact that I sat within inches of this Adonis and not even a flicker of desire made my heart race. The notion and certainty of how much I loved Quinn and how much I only had eyes—and body, apparently—for him made my heart overfill. But that had never been my problem…it was him. The lawyer visit made me question if he’d ever really wanted a wife before or if he’d just needed one since I was the mother of his child.
The bartender set my glass of Cabernet Sauvignon in front of me, and I quickly took three good long gulps. Loosen up and stop thinking! I forced Grant’s orders in my head and sucked in a long breath after I set my wineglass down.
“I’m Tara. My husband is a huge fan of yours,” I finally said, feeling Owen’s eyes on me.
“That’s nice,” he said, glancing around the club. “Where is he?”
“He’ll be here in a little while. My session ended early.” I took another drink.
Owen shifted to face me, half leaning against the bar. “You’re taking them alone?”
I nearly choked on my sip but swallowed it down. “Yes,” I said, resisting the urge to explain to a total stranger why I felt the need to do that.
“Does he do yoga while you’re in there?
” Owen asked instead of prying, and I sighed in relief.
“No,” I said, chuckling. “We paint.”
“The dude is crazy.” He shook his head. “Brilliant, but crazy.”
“I can see that.” I nodded and traced my finger around the rim of my glass. “Where is your wife?”
“Presley isn’t my wife,” he said and shifted in his seat. “We’re, um…we’re engaged.” He struggled over the last part, and I arched an eyebrow at him. “She got sick on the Gondola ride earlier today. Altitude.” He shrugged.
My lips parted open, and suddenly I wanted to track this Presley down and ask her if it’d happened during a fantasy. And if it had then tell her we should be mortified BFF’s.
“That’s too bad,” I said instead.
“Yeah, she was really…”
“Embarrassed?”
“That. And pissed. But she shouldn’t be. I’ve seen her in every kind of situation before.”
I shrugged and took another drink. “So has my husband—sixteen years—but that doesn’t mean I want to look like an ass in front of him.”
He chuckled. “Presley didn’t look like an ass. She looked like someone who didn’t like the shift in altitude. And I doubt your husband would feel that way about you, either.”
“Want to bet?” I asked, finishing the glass of red and asking for another. The bartender made quick work of refilling it while I recanted a very censored version of my experience in the Candy Shop yesterday.
“You’re not serious?” he asked, laughter in his eyes.
“Oh, you see? So funny.”
He waved his hand back and forth. “No.” He cleared his throat. “I wasn’t laughing about the situation, only that it happened to someone else and not just us.” His shoulders dropped, and his eyes went distant, no longer in the club.
When he remained quiet until his glass was drained, and clutched it before him so hard his knuckles turned white, I placed my hand on his oversized thigh, drawing his attention. “You all right?”
He blinked several times. “Yes. No. I don’t know what is going on with me lately.”
“Is it this place?”
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