She barely glanced in the direction of the table.
Her shoulders slumped forward and she looked like she had been carrying a school bus full of endangered children.
She didn’t greet him. She shuffled toward the living room.
“I guess you didn’t get my invitation to dinner.” His voice held sharper notes than he had intended.
She startled and stopped her shuffling. She looked at him questioningly.
“I sent you flowers.” He gestured toward the bouquet in the center of the table. “With a card asking you to dinner.”
Something shimmered in her eyes. Hope? Desire?
“I’m s-sorry,” she stuttered.
She didn’t sound like the confident woman he had heard standing up for a resident at the nursing home.
He watched as she wilted before his eyes.
“You didn’t tell me you were working.”
He cringed inwardly at his accusatory tone, but he couldn’t manage to rein himself in. Rage tore through him, and though he wanted to make amends, he found himself growing more and more angry.
Why? He didn’t take the time to explore his reasoning.
He slammed his glass into the sink, cursing himself when it shattered. He walked toward her, not meaning to be menacing, but unable to stop himself even as he watched her eyes grow and fill with… what? Terror?
Anger swirled around his gut. Why the hell would she be afraid of him?
“Why would you get a job here when you’ll be leaving when this whole charade is over?”
She looked away. He marveled at how she could look so beautiful and so harried at the same time. Slips of wavy blonde hair had escaped her ponytail and danced around her exhausted face.
“Relax. It’s a temp job. I’ll be out of here before the ink dries on the divorce agreement.”
He fought the urge to step back. Her words sliced into him, and for a millisecond he wondered if she felt the same way when he spoke to her with such rancor.
But she was the one who brought this on. She was the one who left him.
He had never spoken an unkind word to her in all of their years together. They had never even had a fight.
He watched her as she slipped out of her sweater, revealing a light purple scrub shirt with short sleeves.
And a giant bruise on her arm.
He closed the distance between them and grabbed her arm to examine the injury.
“What the hell happened to you?”
She jerked her arm away from him.
“Work-related injury.”
“Who laid their hands on you?”
He could clearly make out the shape of fingers embedded in her pale, delicate flesh.
“It’s fine, Gabe. A resident had a tough moment. No biggie.”
“Of course it’s a biggie when someone thinks they can assault you. Unacceptable.”
She made eye contact for the first time since mentioning the divorce agreement.
“Don’t worry about it.”
He ran a finger over the purple shadows of the bruise. He marveled at the smoothness of her skin. At the sweet bumps that rose as he touched her.
“You shouldn’t work in a place where you’re in danger.” Her muscle flexed under his fingers. “Don’t worry about money while you’re here. The printing business is half yours, anyway.”
He meant it as a kindness, so why did she jerk away from him?
“I’m not in danger, and you don’t have to take care of me.”
She turned away and collected some things from her bag.
How had he managed to offend her? He had been trying to be nice. To soften his earlier tone.
He had fucked up last night. He had fucked up when she came home. And he had fucked up again. Only this time he didn’t know how or why.
She used to like him to take care of her.
She closed the bathroom door with more force than he had ever witnessed from her.
What had happened to his delicate flower?
He waited for her to emerge. When he heard the bathtub filling, he wanted to rip the door off the hinges and join her. Make up in the most beautiful way he could think of.
Instead, reason won. Though his stomach growled with hunger and his stirring erection growled with desire, he packaged up dinner, tossed the flowers in the trash, and went to bed, where he stared at the ceiling until his alarm went off in the morning.
He had managed to fight the urge to slip out to see her when she finally emerged from the bathroom, but he hadn’t managed to come up with a way to—once again—apologize for his shitty behavior.
***
Mackenzie rushed through her morning routine, hoping she could slip out of the house before Gabe awoke.
She bumped into him as she exited the bathroom.
So much for that strategy.
She tried to get around him, but his hard, bare chest against her palm was too familiar. Too magnetic.
Though her brain tried to communicate for her to move out of the way, some other part of her begged her to touch him more. All over.
Luckily the man couldn’t stand her. He stepped aside, but she couldn’t help but notice that he didn’t take his eyes off her.
As she started to pass him, he got in her way again.
There was only so much she could take.
“I’m sorry,” he sputtered.
“No, I’m sorry,” she returned.
“About last night.” He reached out and touched her upper arm, warming her to her lovesick soul.
“No, it’s fine. We were both tired. I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have been so harsh.”
“You had every right—”
“It was a really long day.”
Awkward silence took the place of their awkward conversation. She wasn’t sure which awkward was worse.
She cleared her throat. She hadn’t felt such intense lust since… well, the last time they shared space.
“I’ve got to, you know,” she gestured to the door. “Got to head out.”
“You work this early?”
She hesitated. No, she wasn’t on until seven. But she couldn’t tell him that she had been trying to avoid him. And she couldn’t bring herself to lie to him.
“I have some things to do before work.”
His raised eyebrow gave her the most bizarre urge to smooth it with her fingers. Or her lips.
Ugh.
“Errands? At five-thirty in the morning? I don’t remember you being such an early bird.”
He reached over and picked a fuzzy off her shirt. She struggled for something to say. Her heart was so tightly wound around his teasing, familiar tone that she could barely breathe, let alone think of a response.
“I have to stop by my mom’s.”
“Is she okay?”
Blast his concerned voice. Building a wall around her rotting heart was so much easier when he was an ass.
“She’s fine. I just, I um…”
“It’s okay. I get it.”
Her eyes darted to his. What exactly did he get?
“You’re avoiding me.”
She looked away, ashamed. She managed to mumble, “I’m sorry. It’s been very awkward.”
“I agree. Which is why we should get our weekly date out of the way. Maybe if we have some time to relax together, we can figure out a way to survive the next month and a half.”
She swallowed hard, nodding.
He was right. They needed to get past this awkwardness and figure out a way to live together more peacefully.
He suggested a place they could meet for dinner. She agreed, thankful it wasn’t a place that held any special relationship memories.
“Kenzie…”
She closed her eyes when he leaned forward. He planted a sweet kiss on her forehead. She died.
“Have a good day.”
She scurried out of his reach before she humiliated herself again and threw herself into his arms.
She could only handle so much r
ejection in her lifetime, and her quota had been exceeded.
She put on her boots and repeated her new mantra over and over in her head.
I will never attempt to seduce my husband again for as long as we both shall live.
Chapter Nine
Gabe attempted to quell the unexpected disappointment that splashed around his gut when Kenzie had to cancel their dinner date. Again.
An unexpected sleet and hail storm had moved in, and the coworker who was supposed to take over Kenzie’s shift had slid off the road on her way to work. Kenzie had apologized profusely, and he had pretended it was no big deal.
Kenzie wound up staying and covering the overnight shift. Gabe spent the night pacing the house.
When he tired of pacing, he hugged her pillow and breathed her scent. Breathing her in caused a tidal wave of memories and emotions. None of which he could handle.
As morning rays of sunshine streamed into the living room, Gabe brewed a pot of coffee. Sipping the much-needed caffeine, he found himself drifting to the spare room. The one she refused to use. The one with all the memories.
The one where dreams went to die.
He opened the door and stared at the one portrait he hadn’t had the heart to take down.
The day when he and Kenzie had been happiest.
The day they had promised to make each other happy for the rest of their lives.
The day they had been full of dreams and possibilities and hopes for the future. When they had conquered all of the potential problems that threatened a young couple and made a plan for their future.
A future where they would create and raise a family and their love would grow along with her belly.
They had been so eager to begin.
And they had finally conceived right before their second anniversary.
He closed the door and swore to himself, then used the adrenaline to force himself to function at work all day.
If he had known how rapidly his day would have plummeted downhill, he would have shut down the shop for the day and caught up on sleep.
Instead, he dealt with the sudden resignation of his top manager, the only person aside from him who could run the big jobs that were pouring in.
Without his help, Gabe would have to tell some of his customers that he’d be unable to fulfill their orders.
He had never, in the history of the company, had to disappoint his customers.
There was no time to hire and train a replacement, and his manager was unable to hang on beyond that afternoon. Gabe hadn’t registered what the reason was—something about an emergency out of state. Gabe knew he should feel bad for the guy, but he was too focused on how quickly his life had been flushed down the shitter.
Then again, he knew one person who knew as much about the company as he did…
And that person happened to be back in town.
***
“I’m sorry, Gabe, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
That’s what she should have said when he asked her to work with him.
Instead, she had nodded. Of course she’d help him. What choice did she have?
She called Antoine and asked if she could go to part-time. He had seemed disappointed at first, but he ultimately agreed.
Mackenzie couldn’t thank him enough.
She needed the nursing home job. Not for the money, though that was certainly a plus, but for the self-esteem.
For the feeling of caring and nurturing someone else.
For getting out of her own head.
For the chance—the slightest, most remote chance—that she wouldn’t lose herself in the world of Gabe. A world he had made clear was not open and accessible to her any longer.
Mackenzie splashed water on her face. Just a few brief weeks working with the man whose shoulders she had once built her dreams upon. Maybe less if Gabe could hire a replacement and she could train them sooner.
She let herself into the shop an hour before they were scheduled to open, using the same keyless entry code she had always had.
Waves of emotion rippled over her as the smell of ink and new paper brought her back to the days of working side by side with Gabe as they built this business from the ground up.
After four years of physical separation during their college years, when they had decided that they had to follow their own paths and see if their relationship could survive a long-distance relationship, working together had been a dream come true. For her, at least. She could see, smell, touch, and communicate with Gabe any time she wanted to. At home, at work, always.
She had never felt suffocated. And he had never acted like he was being strangled by her presence.
Until the difficulties had begun, and the walls around her—regardless of where she was, if Gabe was there with her—started closing on her with daggers of steel preparing to impale her.
Mackenzie fought off a panic attack, forcing herself to breathe.
She couldn’t start the day this way.
Gabe needed her to be fully functioning. She could do this.
By the time he arrived—promptly at eight—she had already warmed up the machines and printed out an itinerary of jobs that needed assigning.
“Eager to get to work, I see.” He handed her a take-out cup of mint hot cocoa, her favorite kind.
“Thank you,” she held the cup to her nose and inhaled the minty chocolatey decadence. She hadn’t had one of these since, well, since he last gave her one.
She pointedly ignored his assumption that she was eager to work. She couldn’t exactly tell him that she had been eager to avoid him.
She shifted into business gear, running down the lists she had made on her clipboard, inquiring about the current employees. She was amazed at how easily she could shift back into her old position as partner. Though she had never been very good at standing up to anyone, she had always excelled at running her shop smoothly and efficiently.
Slipping back in felt the same as slipping on her favorite pair of worn-in jeans.
“I thought you’d be a little rusty, but I guess I was wrong.”
She broke eye contact almost as soon as she had locked eyes with him. She couldn’t handle the pride in his expression, the joy in the tiny crinkles beside his eyes.
She didn’t want him to be proud of her for this.
This wasn’t her. It wasn’t hers. It had nothing to do with the person she was. The person she had morphed into.
Heck, she didn’t know who she was or who she was becoming. How could she expect him to?
“If there’s a different way of doing things, let me know.”
“No, you’re perfect.”
He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. Before she could process the gesture, he was sauntering off in the other direction. Whistling between sips of coffee.
This was too familiar. Too much like before.
Too likely to break her heart again.
***
Gabe handed the box of chocolates he had picked up on the way home to Kenzie. She deserved the treat.
“What’s this for?”
She held the box carefully, as if venomous snakes might tear through the cardboard.
“For your hard work this week. It’s much appreciated.”
She looked away. She didn’t smile.
He sat on the couch beside her.
“You are far more competent than Pete ever was. He was good, don’t get me wrong, but you’re a natural. You get the place.”
She rubbed the top of the box, but still refused to look at him.
“Kenz? Everything okay?”
When she looked up, her eyes were misty.
“Shit. Did I say something wrong?”
“No.” She shook her head with a slight, haunting smile. “I just got off the phone with my mom. She’s been hurt.”
“What happened?” His heart thudded against his chest.
“She slipped on the ice. She’s okay. But she needs some help for a little while—she had emerge
ncy surgery on her leg. I have to go stay with her.”
He clenched his jaw. She was leaving him.
“I’ll still be able to work at the shop—you don’t have to worry about that. One of her friends will check in with her when I can’t be there.”
That wasn’t what worried him. But what did? Why the hell did his heart feel like it had leapt into his dry throat? Why did he suddenly feel like he wanted to punch a hole in the wall?
“I know it’s a violation of the court agreement to live apart, but I won’t tell if you won’t.”
He shook his head, desperate to rid it of the dark cloud that returned full blast at the idea of being alone in this house without her.
The past week had brought light into his mind again—the tiniest sliver, but any light was a welcome respite from the gloom he had been living with for over a year.
Gabe watched as Mackenzie packed her few items into her bag. She was leaving. She didn’t even plan to leave a trace of herself behind.
“I’ll go with you.”
His bold statement surprised her as much as it surprised him. Her pixie mouth formed into an “O,” and her cheeks drained of color. She searched around the room as if looking for the demon who had spoken.
“I’ll stay with you at your mother’s house.”
Let her argue her way out of this one.
She had come back to make their marriage work. He knew that wouldn’t happen, but he wasn’t going to allow her off too easily after tearing the scar off his still-fresh sores. The sores she had left to fester.
“That’s really okay.” She rushed to excuse him. “I swear I won’t tell the court. I’ll give them all positive updates.”
“I don’t want to lie.”
His mind made up, he stormed past her to retrieve a bag of his own. He carelessly tossed clothes in before moving on to the bathroom for his shower stuff and toothbrush.
“When are we leaving?”
“Gabe, we need to think about this…”
“Think about what? We are under court mandate to live together until our next hearing date. You need to live with your mother, so that means I need to go with you.”
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