by Kira Barker
I just stared at him for several seconds flat, but the tiny voice at the back of my head was whispering that he had a point there.
“Look, I know that things are going a little fast, but—“ I started, then had to cast around for words when none came. “Just keep my box for a little while, okay? Unless you think we’re done and don’t want to see me again? I thought we were friends.”
I hated myself for using such a low blow, but guilt usually worked with Adam, and I wasn’t above manipulating him if I had to. He might deserve better, but he’d also been behaving like an ass of late.
“We are,” he finally agreed, then sighed. “I’m sorry. I just hate watching you ruin your life.”
And there we went again.
“Don’t you see that I’m happy?” I asked, unable to keep frustration from leaking into my voice. “Darren’s good to me. He loves me. Admittedly, he’s a little pushy, but what should I be waiting for? I love him. Why shouldn’t I be with him? Just because you don’t like him?”
Adam grimaced and changed the topic.
“I didn’t find her. His Juliette, I mean. Do you believe me now that something is very sketchy about this?”
I shook my head, unperturbed.
“I heard him talking to her on the phone a couple of nights ago. She was clearly that ex-fiancée, or something.”
“Do you even listen to yourself? ‘Or something?’ That leaves an awful lot of room for interpretation.”
“Who else but his ex would he be gloating to that we got engaged, huh?” I shot back.
Adam’s eyes went wide. “He asked you to marry him?”
“Yup,” I replied, not without spite.
“And you were stupid enough to agree?”
I hadn’t expected him to be ecstatic for me, not exactly, but this went beyond rudeness. Fixing him with another glare, I crossed my arms over my chest.
“Yes, I was stupid enough to agree to marry the man who loves me for who I am and who doesn’t think I’m stupid because of every single decision I make. Happy?”
My words hit him like a knee to the junk, but I was beyond caring now. Some of my anger he didn’t deserve, but I didn’t know where else to turn. Before Darren had come into my life, Adam would have jumped at a chance like this. What did it say about our relationship that things had changed so drastically now?
I made as if to grab for the box, but Adam stepped back, bringing it out of my reach.
“I’ll keep it for you, however long you need me to. And, you know, you could drop by for coffee some time?”
Shaking my head, I turned to go, but he deserved better than that, even if he was behaving like an ass. I could have been more diplomatic, too.
“Sure. Just let me get settled and maybe find something to do with myself in the meantime so I don’t go crazy. But then we’ll have coffee.”
I hated how much like a lie that sounded, but I meant it.
“Looking forward to it,” Adam replied, then shut the door, leaving me standing in the hallway with the growing pile of boxes that contained my life. I wondered if that was a metaphor for something.
Chapter 23
I continued stewing about Darren’s rashness until the evening, watching my beloved apartment empty at record speed around me. I’d told the movers to do the bedroom last, but they managed to have everything except the furniture packed up and ready before the end of the day. On my own, I likely would have needed an entire week, and while I was still grumpy about it all in general, I enjoyed not having to ruin my back over this.
With nothing to hold me in my now empty apartment, I called a cab and went over to Darren’s, following the moving van. James had clearly been informed and helped the men unpack, managing to be complacent toward them and still sneer at me somehow. He directed them to what indeed turned out to be a private storage facility, then disappeared from sight, leaving me to my own devices.
I wasn’t surprised that Darren hadn’t come home by ten. Disappointed, yes, but not surprised. It had been obvious for both of us that after his brief vacation things would have piled up on his desk. That didn’t mean I had to like going to bed on my own, alone, after practically having been evicted.
I’d intended to remain up until his return but must have dozed off with my tablet, because when next I became aware, his strong, warm body was once again curled around me and he was snoring softly into my hair. Too groggy to make a scene now, I fell back asleep. And when I woke up in the morning, he was gone already.
We managed to play this very game for three consecutive days until I had enough and called him at lunchtime. I only got his assistant who said she’d leave him a note. He never called back, and never mentioned the note when I woke up the next morning just before he was leaving. A quick kiss and he was gone, no match for my coffee-starved brain.
It wasn’t all bad, though. In those first few days, James and I managed to establish a routine that left us both with the freedom of pretending that the other one wasn’t there. While I traipsed down the stairs for breakfast, the bedroom was miraculously and impeccably fixed; during the day, James was nowhere to be found, but the second I left the house, the vacuum came on behind me; and in the evening, James had usually been a ghost if he hadn’t been preparing meals—meals that now, equally miraculous as everything else, appeared out of thin air at my newly designated place at the dining room table. When alone, I preferred to eat at the kitchen island, but that was one hiccup I managed to ignore.
Not many of my things had made it into the house, actually. Half of the walk-in closet now housed my clothes, and there was a new cupboard for my shoes. I’d never had many knick-knacks standing around, but those I found in a box stored away in the last corner of the pantry. My books were the only thing that had not been unpacked, either at Darren’s direction or because James had hoped not to have to do that, too, I didn’t know. Either way, sorting through them and finding a new home for them in the library, den, and bedroom was what I occupied myself with on my first full day at Darren’s.
After that, I was bored, and like the week before, I still had no idea what to do with myself.
Taking care of my apartment was one thing I knew I should put on my to-do list, but I was strangely reluctant about it. With no chance to talk to Darren yet, it became kind of the great unresolved issue in my life. I had no reason to return, and almost none to hold on to it, but as the end of the month drew nearer, I didn’t even consider canceling my utility bills.
Friday evening—finally!—Darren made it home at an hour where I was still up and about. I’d been waiting for him all afternoon since I’d seen two instead of just one places set in the dining room, and that didn’t exactly make me any less anxious for his return. The moment the door opened, I pounced on him, only to be met with a huge bouquet of red roses.
That pretty much put a damper on my “how dare you!” speech that I’d carefully crafted and honed all week to the point where my protest now puttered out and died a silent death.
“I’m so sorry that I’ve been neglecting you all week,” he said after kissing me, then shrugged off his suit jacket and started herding me into the dining room, where, of course, a vase was already waiting to accept the flowers. They were barely out of my hands when Darren gathered me close and kissed me in earnest, and the remainder of my protest went up in flames.
“I missed you so much!” was what came out of me instead of said speech, and when I saw his chagrin yet charming smile, I knew I’d made the right decision all over again.
“I know, I missed you, too. I don’t think I’d have made it through this week if I hadn’t known I’d get to go home to you and hold you all through the night.”
My heart melted, and although I was still kind of miffed, it was hard to hold on to that, too.
“It was kind of boring for me, you know? New house, only half my stuff, James straightening every single doily if I just walked by…”
Darren grinned and kissed my nose briefly.
“There are no doilies anywhere in this house,” he pointed out.
“There could be now for all you know,” I replied, a little defensive. “Remember, you told me I could buy things and rearrange to my heart’s content?”
He looked around as if he was searching for my great new remodeling project.
“And? Did you buy anything?”
I shrugged, then hedged, “Well, a new purse, shoes, and a matching dress? I know you’ll love them on me.”
“Just as I love you out of them,” he teased, then walked to the table to hold my chair for me. That was a bit much, letting me know that he had a reason to be on his best behavior, but after the last few days I didn’t mind the pampering.
James appeared from wherever he’d been hiding and started serving dinner while Darren got the wine. I waited until we were both concentrating on the soup before I finally spoke up.
“You know, I would have appreciated a little warning about the movers. It’s one thing to agree to move in with you, and another to find myself without my old home ten hours later.”
Darren looked up from his soup but didn’t reply right away.
“What sense would there have been in waiting? You were reasonable about why it was a good idea, so I didn’t expect you to throw a fit over me trying to speed things up for your convenience.”
“I didn’t throw a fit,” I pointed out, hating how petulant that made me sound. “I just don’t like these kinds of surprises.”
“You liked me proposing to you well enough.”
I stared at him for a moment, then spooned more soup into my mouth, trying to come up with a good comeback.
“You know what I mean,” was what I eventually settled on.
“Actually, no, I don’t,” he replied, a sharp note in his voice. I glared back at him, and after a couple of seconds he relented. “But I see your point. I won’t do it again.” And there was that charming smile again that made it so incredibly hard to stay mad at him. That smile should have come with a warning label.
“Very funny,” I grumbled, but already I felt a bit more placated. “It’s just harder to move on than I thought.”
Intent on finishing my soup, it took me a while to realize that Darren had put down his spoon and was looking at me. When I eyed him askance, a muscle in his cheek jumped, but his voice was smooth as he replied.
“You miss your old job?” he asked, his voice carefully neutral.
If that wasn’t a loaded question, I didn’t know what was.
“I miss being among people,” I offered, trying to backtrack where suddenly I’d made myself a scapegoat for everything. “I barely spent a day alone at home during the last decade, and now I’ve been here, cloistered away, for four entire days, with nothing to do, and you don’t even have time for a ten-minute talk in the morning or evening.”
“I’d make time if it was for something important,” he pointed out.
I snapped my mouth shut and looked away, waiting until the soup had been removed and the main course served. Any other day, the delicious steak would have made my mouth water, but now I tore into it mostly to have something to do other than take the knife and fork and go after Darren, who—not surprisingly—cut his steak with measured precision.
“Our first real fight, huh?” He finally broke the silence after chewing on a bite for almost a minute.
“Seems like it, yeah,” I agreed, unable to keep from cracking a smile when he rolled his eyes at me.
“And over something completely pointless, too,” he went on.
“Uprooting me first, then depriving me of basic human contact is of no concern to you? Charming.”
He snorted, clearly untouched by the scorn in my voice.
“You’re pissed at me because I haven’t been around all day, not because I rushed things along. Other women would have been glad if their husbands tried to help even a little bit.”
“Guess what? I’m not ‘other women,’” I huffed and stabbed another bite with my fork. “And that’s exactly why you love me.”
“That I do,” he agreed, laughing softly. “Are we really fighting over this? You know that the door is always open and you could have just walked outside. Or grabbed the keys to any of my cars and driven into the city, or wherever you wanted—I know that you know where I keep them. As for the movers—“
“If you tell me now that I could have not let them in, I’m going to start screaming,” I replied, fixing him with my glare.
“It was a viable option, you know?” he objected, but wisely held his tongue when I kept staring at him.
We finished the main course in silence, but it wasn’t as oppressive as before. Darren seemed lost in thought, and I tried to make up my mind if I was ready to forgive him yet or should put on more airs. The problem was, I was starting to feel really stupid, and I knew that he wasn’t the kind of guy easily brought to his knees by such silly notions. I knew that he highly valued my intellect and rationality, and if I took my scrambled emotions out of the equation, there wasn’t much reason left to stay mad at him.
“Do you think it will always be like this?” I finally asked over cheese and grapes, today’s dessert.
Darren shrugged but didn’t look particularly perturbed.
“Quarreling over stupid things instead of talking about them like adults? I hope not.”
Irritation licked up my spine, but I did my best to ignore it and take the high road.
“You’re right. But you have to agree, you neglected me. You made me feel as if you had to have me whatever it takes, and the moment I was completely available to you, you moved on to other things.”
“If you need someone to keep you company and make you feel important, you’re going to be angry with me a lot of the time,” he pointed out.
“It’s not that. And I know where I stand compared to your job,” I replied.
“Do you?”
That he sounded surprised was actually insulting.
“Yes, I know that I don’t stand in any competition with your job,” I said. “But I will support you any way I know how to. Except for sleeping with your clients, but then I don’t think you’d want me to.”
His mouth quirked up into a smile before he could rein in his features, and he sent me a long look.
“What?” I asked, batting my eyelashes at him. “Don’t pretend you didn’t just suggest that I miss sleeping with other men. But I do miss sleeping with you.”
“And I plan to rectify that as soon as we’re done here,” he promised.
Looking at the food, I weighed my options, then got up and walked over to his chair.
“You really prefer cheese and grapes to me? I’m disappointed.”
He laughed, the sound alone doing more to smooth my ruffled feathers than anything he could have said.
“You’re right. I owe you, what, four days of attention? Let’s see what we can do about that, shall we?”
I was surprised when instead of just leading me upstairs, he picked me up, making me laugh and cling to him tightly as he started staggering up the stairs.
“You’re no good to either of us if you fall down and break your neck!”
“Don’t worry about that. You’re the kind of woman who could even raise the dead.”
My laugh was dangerously close to a hyena’s by then.
“Stop it! That one was just too bad!” I howled.
“You think? Just wait until you hear this one—“
That’s when I decided I had to shut him up, preferably with my tongue gliding against his. Thankfully, he was only too happy to follow along and did a damn fine job making up for the last couple of days.
It was hours later that we lay tangled in the sheets, sweaty but content, when he turned to me and eyed me with consideration.
“I know I could have handled all this better. Please forgive me?”
I knew him well enough to realize that his apology was a rare thing.
“Of course. For you, anything.”
Darren smiled and leaned over for a quick kiss but clearly wasn’t done yet.
“If you’re really that bored here, why not find a new occupation? You could always volunteer for some charity work in the meantime,” he suggested.
I’d considered that already, but hanging out with either the soccer moms who shunned me for the dough I had—my own or by association—or the socialites who despised me for screwing their husbands didn’t really sound too appealing to me.
“Unless you want to see me hand out food in a soup kitchen, I think I’m not exactly suited for that,” I replied.
His face remained impassive, but a hint of annoyance drifted into his gaze. I couldn’t help but feel my own irritation return but did my best to keep my temper in check.
“How about helping me?”
“You?” I asked, perplexed. “How?”
He shrugged and reached over to brush a sweaty strand of hair out of my eyes.
“For a long time I’ve never had anyone to do this with, but now that you’re in my life, I’m thinking about hosting a dinner party. What do you say? Just a little get-together, a few people who will think themselves highly regarded by getting an invitation.”
“How many people are we talking exactly?” I wanted to know.
He made a noncommittal sound. “Maybe fifty or sixty.”
Compared to some of the events I had accompanied him to, that wasn’t much, but while the house was huge, it wasn’t ballroom-size huge.
“I presume you don’t expect me to cook?”
“Of course not.” He laughed. “But I’d be much obliged if you’d oversee managing the catering and everything else. My assistant can give you the number of a very capable event planner if you want to get some professional help.”
The idea was both daunting and kind of fun.
“But why do this now, all of a sudden? Just because you can?” I wondered.
“Because I have nothing to hide,” he replied and stole a kiss from me, remaining close enough that I had trouble focusing on his eyes. “I’m not ashamed of you, and I want everyone to know that we’re happy. Including you.”