“I’m not your wife,” she replies in an exhausted tone.
“Law says otherwise.” I wink at her as I head for the door.
“And this isn’t your home!” she yells after me.
“Not yet, princess, but give it a week,” I holler back.
***
I chuckle as she wanders barefoot into the kitchen, following her nose.
Dylan’s never been one of those girls who’s afraid of a good plate of food and I love that about her.
She eyes me suspiciously up and down as she approaches.
I’ve added a cooking apron to my attire, so she should be happy about that at the very least.
She leans over the cook top and peers into the pots and pans I have simmering away.
“It smells good in here,” she finally offers.
“You sound surprised.”
She leans her hip against the countertop. She’s changed into a pair of tiny pyjama shorts and a tight-fit t-shirt.
She looks like fucking sex on legs.
“Considering you can’t cook, I am surprised.”
“You said it yourself, princess, things have changed.”
I go back to stirring the sauce as I wait for her to crack and ask me what I mean by that.
I’m relying on Dylan’s naturally inquisitive nature to get me through this week – she’s more curious than she’d ever care to admit – and I’m hoping like hell that curiosity is going to extend to me.
I need her to want to know about me again.
“What is it?”
“Lamb rack,” I answer with a grin.
“Oh shit,” she whispers.
It’s no coincidence that I’m cooking her favourite meal.
My wife has always been a total sucker for a piece of meat – and not just the one between my legs.
“Roast potatoes?” She nibbles on her bottom lip as she looks up at me.
I crouch down and pull the oven open wide enough so she can see that I did indeed remember the potatoes.
“You’re really going all out.”
I stand up so I’m directly in front of her. “I want you back, Dylan. I know that’s not going to happen if I don’t make an effort.”
“Andy…” she warns.
“Just sit, okay? I’ll get you a wine.”
“Fine.” She sighs in defeat. “Loosen me up with alcohol; it’s not like it would be the first time.”
She sits down on one of the stools and I pour her a large glass of red.
I can feel her eyes on me as I work and it’s doing crazy shit to my pulse. I’m jumpy and on edge and for a guy like me – a guy who’s normally calm and in control – it’s driving me crazy.
“Okay, I’ll bite,” she finally says. “Where’d you learn to cook?”
“The slammer,” I say as I turn to face her.
A wave of something painful crosses her face before she gets her shit together and looks at me somewhat normally again.
“They let you cook in there?” she questions.
“Gotta fill the days somehow – I worked in the kitchen.”
“Huh… I would have thought they’d have a workshop or something.”
“They did. I chose the kitchen.”
She takes a sip of her drink and watches me carefully.
“Why?”
“You always said you wanted a man that could cook.”
She almost chokes on her mouthful.
“You learnt to cook, for me?”
“You might have tried to forget about me, princess, but everything I did in there was for you – for us.”
“Well then…” She glances around awkwardly before taking another big mouthful of her drink.
“Tell me about the garage,” I hear her say after a few minutes of silence.
“What do you want to know?”
I leave the cooking and sit down opposite her. I open one of the beers I bought earlier today.
“What do you wanna know?”
“You own a business,” she states.
I take a pull of the golden liquid. “Technically we own a business.”
Her eyes widen in surprise. “You put my name on it too?”
I chuckle. “What? Your little detective didn’t tell you that part?”
She shakes her head slowly. “He didn’t.”
“He?” I question. “What happened to Gina?”
Gina was her side kick when I got put away – they worked together, and Gina was the woman Dylan used to do all her digging around.
“I changed jobs two and a half years ago.”
“What? Why?”
I might have been missing in action for three years, and there’s bound to be things I don’t know about, but this news truly surprises me. Dylan loved her job at the magazine, I never would have guessed that she’d leave.
Her eyes glass over and she shakes her head. “It was just time for a change.”
“Princess, what’s wrong?”
She shakes her head again, this time with more emphasis. “Nothing. I’m fine.”
She’s not fine. I’ve fucked up a lot in my life, but I’m still not stupid enough to think that there’s not something upsetting her right now.
“Dyl—”
“Leave it,” she snaps. “I want to hear about the garage.”
I watch her for a long moment and consider pressing the issue further, but I know it’ll be a waste of her time – I can’t force Dylan to talk to me if she doesn’t want to. The woman is like a vault.
“Jeff did most of the hard work – he owns half the place,” I explain to her. “But I’m sure you’ve figured that out already.”
“How long has it been running?”
“About a year. I’ve got your share of the profit put aside. I’m fucking shocked with how well it’s doing.”
“I’m glad it’s successful, but I don’t want your money, Andy.”
“It’s not just my money.”
She looks at me and I can see just how tired she is. She looks exhausted, whether it’s down to me or something else, I don’t know.
“Have you been sleeping okay, princess?”
She ignores my question and takes another large gulp of wine.
“How’d you manage to set up a business from behind bars?”
We’re back to talking about me again.
“Jeff picked my brain and ran all the decisions by me... it wasn’t easy, but we got there in the end… I invested my half of the money.”
I can still remember the day Jeff told me about the unexpected deposit into my bank account.
It felt like the final nail in the coffin.
She’d sold our house. The house we’d restored from the ground up together.
The house we planned to raise our family in.
The house we swore we’d never leave.
She looks at me sheepishly before diverting her gaze to something on the bench in front of her.
“You sold the house,” I whisper, not even attempting to hide the hurt in my voice.
We might have argued non-stop the entire time we worked on that place, but that was just one of the things I liked most about it.
“I had to.”
I still don’t know why she left her job, and having my income disappear can’t have been easy for her – for all I know, she got into major debt.
“Did you need the money?”
I don’t know the exact figure she got for our home, but assuming the money she gave me was half, then it was a hell of a lot.
She stares right at me now, her green eyes looking defeated. “Times were tough for a bit there, but it wasn’t only about the money… I just couldn’t be there without you.”
I’m a hard guy. I don’t cry about shit, but hearing those words come out of her mouth almost breaks me.
“You left me, Andy. I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know where to turn.”
“You should have turned to me.”
I reach for her hand, but she snatches
it back.
“I couldn’t.”
“You should have talked to me.”
“I couldn’t!” she yells this time. “You were locked up. You weren’t there for me.”
“You weren’t there for me either,” I reply, my own voice rising.
“Don’t you put that on me, Andy. You made your choices.”
“You didn’t even hear me out.”
I sound defeated. My voice has lost all volume – it’s barely a whisper.
She’s made up her mind about me – I can see that now, and I’m not sure there’s anything I’m going to be able to do to change it.
“You want to know why I didn’t stick around and hear your side of the story, Andy? Do you really want to know?”
I’m not sure if I do or not, but my mouth replies without my permission. “Yes.”
“I’ll tell you why… I couldn’t sit there and ask you if you did it, because if you said yes, then I’d be in love with a criminal, and what kind of person would that make me? I had to cut you off. I just had to.”
Her response might not make sense to a lot of people, but it makes sense to me.
It’s self-preservation at its finest.
If she gave me a chance to talk, she wouldn’t have been able to walk away – no matter if I was guilty or innocent.
Her only option for a clean break was to walk away entirely and believe that I was guilty.
I can understand why she didn’t question the court ruling – it’s not as though I haven’t made bad calls in the past, and I was literally caught red handed.
It was all tied up in a neat little bow.
The thing that hurts the most is that I never could have walked away from her the way she did me – no matter what she’d done – yet she managed it.
I stand up from my seat and go back to the cook top.
That’s enough of the deep and heavy for one evening – my head can’t take any more of it. Neither can my heart if I’m being honest.
“So, Jeff got things up and running from out here and I did whatever I could from the inside. I trusted him with the money side of things and with hiring the staff.”
“Andy…” she whispers.
I don’t turn.
“And now that I’m out I’ll be in the garage working five days a week, just like Jeff and Tony and the other guys.”
“Well I’m happy for you,” she replies softly.
“Thanks, princess,” I mutter.
“Andy?”
I turn around to face her.
She looks like she wants to say something but stops herself. “Can you let me know when dinner’s ready?”
I nod.
She jumps off her stool and hurries from the room.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Dylan
“I can feel the guilt creeping in, Sare, I feel horrible.”
“Don’t you dare. You’ve got nothing to feel bad about,” she reassures me down the phone.
“But what if I do? What if I’ve been wrong this whole time?”
“We’ve been over this one hundred times, D, they caught him riding the stolen bike for crying out loud. They linked him to the entire operation. He did it. You’re just being swayed by his husky voice and bangin’ body.”
She’s right – I’m not thinking with my head, yet again.
“It is so bangin’.” I sigh.
“He’s still refusing to wear clothes I take it?”
“Mmm hmm. And he cooked.”
“Oh Jesus take the wheel,” she says.
“Right?”
“You’re screwed.”
“I’m totally screwed.”
I hear a knock at the door to my apartment.
“Someone’s here,” I tell Sarah.
“As tempting as it was to come and see the show myself, it’s not me.”
I hear the sound of the latch on the door being opened.
“Hey, ah… is Dylan here?” a male voice asks.
“Oh shit,” I hiss down the phone.
“What?”
“It’s Justin.”
Sarah erupts into laughter. “Oh hell, things are about to get interesting.”
“I gotta go,” I say as I hang up the phone.
This is not great timing for him to be popping in for one of his visits.
My sexy-as-hell, flirty neighbour is at the door, which has just been answered by my presumably half-naked soon-to-be ex-husband.
Fuck my life.
I rush out of my bedroom and into the hallway as I hear Andy inviting him in.
“Nah that’s cool, bro, I’ll catch her another time,” Justin tells him.
I guess he’s a smart man after all.
Andy hears me coming and glances at me over his shoulder.
He’s still only wearing a tight pair of black boxer briefs, and even though this is an entirely inappropriate time to be admiring the view, I just can’t seem to help myself.
“Ah, here she is.” He looks back at Justin. “Princess, your friend is here,” he tells me.
I have to bite back a retort at his use of my pet name in front of Justin. I know it’ll only make him more inclined to do it again if I complain, so I say nothing.
I push my way around my annoying house guest and smile brightly at my neighbour.
“Justin, hey, how’s it going?”
His eyes rake over my body and it’s then that I realise Andy’s not the only one who’s a little under dressed.
I feel Andy stiffen next to me as he too notices Justin’s wandering eyes. His arm is holding the door open above my head and it doesn’t appear he’s going anywhere anytime soon.
“Hey, Dylan.” He nods and glances between me and Andy.
“Oh, this is Andy. Andy, Justin.” I gesture.
“I live next door,” Justin tells him as he extends his hand.
Andy takes it and shakes it firmly. “Cool. I’m Dylan’s husband.”
Justin’s eyes widen and his jaw goes slack.
“I didn’t realise you were married,” he says as he looks back at me.
I could drop Andy in the deep end here and tell the incredibly handsome man in front of me that he’s been in prison, but I actually think he might quite enjoy that. So I don’t.
“We’ve been separated a few years,” I explain.
Justin makes a show of glancing over my attire and then doing the same to Andy.
I can see his confusion. We don’t appear separated in the slightest.
“Well… it was nice meeting you, Andy.” He nods in my husband’s direction. “Dylan, I guess I’ll see you around?”
This is the first time we’ve ever had a conversation that hasn’t resulted in him asking me out on a date, and I’m not sure if I’m relieved or disappointed.
“Good to meet you too, man. I’ll catch you next time,” Andy drawls as he shoves me out of the way and shuts the door before I have the chance to respond.
He stalks over to the couch and drops himself down onto it.
I giggle as I notice the scowl on his face.
“What?” he growls as he grabs the remote and crosses his feet at the ankles on my coffee table.
“You’re jealous,” I accuse gleefully.
“You’ve got a dude that may as well be a fuckin’ male model living right next door, princess. You bet your sweet ass I’m jealous.”
I watch in amusement as he mutters profanities to himself.
“He’s been asking me out for close to a year,” I inform him.
“I can’t even blame the guy, you’re fucking gorgeous.”
I don’t want to get flutters in my stomach when I hear those words, but I do.
“He actually is a male model, you know...” I bite back a laugh as I tell him.
He glances up from the TV and glares at me. “Jesus, Dylan, are you trying to make me feel worse?”
There’s that soft spot I love so much – I’m a total sucker for him when he’s unguarded like this.
“
No,” I reply with a shake of my head.
“What’s the point of telling me that shit then?”
I know I shouldn’t be doing this, flirting and giving him hope, but I can’t seem to help myself.
“The point...” I tell him as I walk backwards out of the room with a flirty smile. “Is that I never said yes.”
***
I’m being carried.
“I’ve got you,” his husky voice tells me.
“Mmmmm,” I moan sleepily.
“Shhh. Go back to sleep, princess,” he whispers.
I feel myself being lowered down and tucked under the blankets.
“Drew?” I ask hopefully.
“It’s me, baby. You fell asleep with your book.”
I blink and try to get my bearings but it’s pitch black in here. “What time is it?”
“It’s around midnight.”
“Why are you up?” I turn over and snuggle further into the blankets on my bed.
“I don’t sleep much anymore,” he whispers. “Get some more rest.”
I yawn and close my eyes.
“Goodnight, princess,” he whispers and I feel his lips press against my forehead as I drift back off to sleep.
CHAPTER NINE
Andy
Drew.
She called me Drew.
I haven’t heard the name for longer than I’d care to admit and it shocks me to the core to hear it fall from her sweet lips now.
I’d almost forgotten about her nickname for me.
These past two days all I’ve gotten from her are criminal references, but not tonight. Tonight I’m Drew again.
I lean back against the timber headboard of her bed and sigh.
She’s sleeping like a baby again.
I’m not the kinda guy who sits and watches a woman sleep while jotting down love notes – that’s not me, but right now I can’t take my eyes off her.
It’s been way too long since I’ve fallen asleep and woken up next to my wife, but now that I’m here, with the opportunity to do exactly that, I seem to want to delay doing it, for just a few minutes more.
She sighs in her sleep.
“Drew,” she breathes yet again.
I grin as I think about the first time I heard the name fall from her pouty lips.
Mr. January: A Second Chance Romance (Calendar Boys Book 1) Page 4