by Liora Blake
A weighted silence surrounded them and all Anya could hear was the thundering of her heartbeat. A prickling sensation erupted over her skin, making her suddenly aware of her nakedness in a way she didn’t like. JT must have seen the gooseflesh rise on her skin and began to trace his fingertips along her forearm.
“Tell me what you want for breakfast, beautiful. Consider me an all-inclusive resort with you in mind. Just name whatever it is you want and I’ll make it happen.”
His sweet, simple words made the emotional freak-out that was building inside of her ebb just enough to remain manageable, and she answered him with the first thing that came to mind.
“Apple fritters,” she said.
JT propped his head in one hand, a lazy smirk on his face.
“That was quick. Sounds like apple fritters have been on your mind.”
Anya blushed a little. “The morning after our first night together, when I woke up and realized you were gone, it bummed me out. I knew having breakfast with my one-night stand wasn’t a given, but I had this thing about wanting to go get apple fritters together,” she admitted, sneaking a glance his way.
JT was staring at her the way Alec looked at Tara all too often: like she was the cutest thing he’d ever laid eyes on—and that look positively ruined her.
Anya cleared her throat. “So I want what I didn’t get then. A big cup of coffee and an apple fritter. Or, I don’t know, maybe three apple fritters.”
“Then I’m on it. You’re getting as many apple fritters as you want.”
JT kissed her shoulder, her forehead, the tip of her nose, and each corner of her mouth. Then he shot her a knee-weakening smile, one that made her glad she was already lying down; otherwise, she would have swooned right onto the floor.
20
JT
Apple fritters were not JT’s first choice when it came to doughnuts. He was a glazed twist kind of guy. Simple, straightforward, and sugarcoated, which was all a doughnut needed to be. Not that it really mattered much because you were going to be hungry again in a few hours, anyway. Doughnuts were not exactly power foods, but this morning was all about Anya and she wanted apple fritters, so he was damn well going to get them for her.
He was on his way back from the local doughnut shop with two large cups of coffee and a half dozen apple fritters. The fritters were still a little warm from the fryer, and JT broke a few traffic rules on the way home in hopes he would get there before they cooled off. He wanted a front-row seat to watching Anya enjoy her first few bites, and if the fritters were still warm, he suspected that would make the whole scene even better. Hell, if it didn’t sound a little fetish-y, JT would consider dragging her back to bed and feeding her the damn fritters.
The only thing that kept JT from treating the cul-de-sac like a drag strip and racing his way into the driveway was the possibility that the Kangs’ grandson might bolt into the street at any moment. Even still, his SUV bounced a little when he lurched to a stop in the driveway. He grabbed one coffee in each hand, then the bag of doughnuts, and started into the open garage with a stupid-looking grin on his face.
Before he managed to make it inside, he faintly heard a car pull up behind him. The next thing he heard was the car’s horn, two little beeps that stopped him dead in his tracks.
Maybe it was the way that he swore the horn tone was somehow snootier than other cars’, or maybe it was the pushy way the driver used it. Either way, he knew who was behind him before he even turned around.
He pivoted slowly, taking in the sleek red Audi idling with a quiet purr at the bottom of the driveway, effectively blocking him in by the way she’d parked, and a vague sense of claustrophobia crawled up his spine. Feeling boxed in was something he was familiar with, especially in the final months of his marriage.
JT did not miss that feeling.
One of the best things that had come out of his divorce was that he rarely felt trapped by his circumstances anymore. His financial situation might be daunting, but at least he was in control now, instead of treading water like a madman. Now that he’d had almost a year to distance himself from those feelings, he had no interest in experiencing them again. All he wanted to do right now was go inside the house, where his future happened to be waiting for him—and for her apple fritters.
JT straightened his spine and approached the car warily. It had been six months since he’d last seen Nicole in person—their spotty communications about the house happened via text or email—and his realizing that suddenly made her unexpected appearance feel a lot like an ambush.
Nicole killed the engine and emerged from the car gracefully, like she was starring in a car commercial instead of showing up uninvited at her former in-laws’ house. Even her outfit—skintight workout clothes and running shoes—was on point, and like always, she looked like the picture of fitness goals attained. Lean, feminine muscle and smooth skin, wrapped up in a pair of low-rise leggings and a cropped yoga tank that barely covered her strappy sports bra. Her hair was pulled back into a sleek ponytail, and her olive skin was highlighted by natural-looking makeup.
And yet, somehow she wasn’t the mythical, powerful creature he’d once thought she was. He might have chalked it up to the way their divorce tarnished his perceptions, but she also looked thinner than usual. Her clavicle bones protruded too much, and her eyes didn’t carry the same determined glint he was used to.
JT’s brow furrowed. This part, concern for the woman he had married, would probably never go away. Even if nothing inside him tugged with desire, he might always have to fight the urge to fix it when he thought she might not have what she wanted. Only a sense of self-preservation stopped him from asking her if anything was wrong.
Nicole rounded the car and propped a hand on her hip, resting against the fender of the car.
“I come bearing good news. The kind that’s actually worth telling you in person,” she said, smiling coyly. Instead of continuing, she raised one perfectly plucked eyebrow, goading him to ask her instead of simply getting on with it.
JT clenched his jaw. He was in no mood to play games. The window he had for serving Anya warm fritters was closing with every second he stood out here.
“And?”
Nic’s gaze narrowed at the edge in his tone. “Don’t you want to guess?”
“No,” he ground out. “Just tell me, Nic. I have plans.”
An icy look transformed her features from beautiful to severe. Her lip curled up as she flicked a pointed look at the bag in his hands, which was decorated with brightly colored illustrations of dancing doughnuts.
“It looks like your ‘plans’ involve developing a serious heart condition.” She sniffed a little. “The man I was married to always had workout goals that were bigger than a doughnut.”
JT didn’t reply. There was nothing to say. She wanted to joust with him, implying that he was a lesser man now, which was fine. JT didn’t have to play along. Even telling her to back off would have been a waste of breath, so he shifted into Marshal mode and fell back on his interrogation skills by not saying a word.
Mere seconds later, she caved, rolling her eyes. “Fine. Go get yourself a dad bod, see if I care.” She pasted an indifferent expression on her face, drawing a hand down her ponytail to smooth it. “I came here to tell you that we finally have a real offer on—”
The door from the garage into the house swung open and Nicole was cut off by Anya’s voice.
“Sweet Jesus, JT. Are you ever coming inside? You can’t promise a woman apple fritters, then make her wait this long.”
Anya reeled to a halt midstep, a goofy grin on her face that brought one just like it to JT’s face. She was standing there pretending to be put out, wearing his t-shirt over her favorite leggings, which had a wild fuchsia-and-yellow pattern printed on them. Her hair was up in a messy topknot and she looked full of life, of light—everything he wanted to nurture in her and make part of who he was. She was the person he wanted to grow with, every single fucking day.
Her smile blanched quickly, though, once she figured out that she had just walked into . . . something.
“Oh. Sorry, I didn’t realize there was someone out here with you.” She glanced from JT to Nicole and then waved a hand toward the door. “I’ll just go inside. Leave you to it.”
“Hold up,” he said. “Here’s your coffee. Sorry if it’s cold now.”
Anya grabbed one of the coffees, freeing up one of his hands, which he immediately wrapped around her shoulders.
“This is my ex-wife, Nicole,” JT said, looking squarely at Nic, who wasn’t bothering to hide her pointed appraisal of Anya. “This is Anya. We’ve been dating for a while now.”
Anya’s body tensed in his embrace, even as she politely extended her hand to Nicole and the two of them exchanged a stiff, awkward handshake.
“Okay, then,” Anya muttered. She slipped out of his embrace and reached for the doughnut bag. “I’ll just take those, if you don’t mind. It’s probably time for me to head back over to the house anyway. We’ll hook up later, if you have time.”
Despite her easy tone, Anya’s mouth had worked into a flat line, and JT had to stop himself from unceremoniously telling his ex-wife to hit the road so he could start making it up to Anya for the cold coffee and lukewarm fritters. Instead, he handed her the bag and leaned in, lowering his voice.
“Don’t eat those yet.” Anya cut him a glare out of the corner of her eyes. JT sighed. “Just wait for me, okay? Please?”
She relented with a nod. Without saying another word, she scampered down the driveway and started across the street at a near jog.
When JT turned his attention back to Nicole, she gave him a triumphant little smirk, as if she’d just won some battle of feminine wiles. She was adept at employing her beauty and her brains to ensure she always came off as the alpha female in the room, and there was nothing she liked better than knowing it worked, especially when JT was involved. Her smirk faded, though, when JT’s flat expression made it clear that what had worked on him before, wouldn’t work today.
“Somebody’s parents must be away for the weekend,” she quipped. He shot her a glare and she heaved a sigh. “As I was saying, I have good news. We finally have an offer on the house.”
JT crossed his arms over his chest. “We’ve had offers before. Three of them. Why should I bother getting my hopes up about this one?”
“Because it’s a real offer. Ten thousand dollars over our asking price, so long as we’re willing to close by the end of the month.” She propped a hand on her hip. “Not that it matters what you think, but I didn’t kill those other offers out of spite, JT. I just wanted to make sure we get what it’s worth. There’s no reason for us to walk away from that house and not get every dime we can out of it.”
JT let out a scoff. “‘We’ aren’t getting anything. You are.”
Nicole’s lip curled. “Can you blame me? It’s not like I have anything else to show for all those years together.”
JT wasn’t sure why his breath caught so sharply at that jab, when he’d been able to ignore the others. Maybe because, of all the mistakes he’d made in his life, the one that cut him the deepest was having failed his wife. There was nothing he could say to defend that.
Nicole made a frustrated sound. “God, JT. I didn’t come here to fight, okay? I thought we could go over the offer and then sign the papers for the real estate agent. Maybe then we could do brunch at Fiore. You know, celebrate. For old times’ sake.”
Nothing about a pricey brunch appealed to him. He’d never cared much for that restaurant’s champagne cocktails and their weird versions of eggs benedict when he and Nicole were married, so it sure as hell didn’t appeal now, when all he wanted was some damn fritters and Anya’s company.
“We’re divorced,” he reminded her. “Divorced couples don’t celebrate, and they sure as hell don’t ‘brunch.’”
“Well, we could try,” she urged, tipping her chin just enough to look genuinely hopeful that he would eventually cave and agree to “brunch” with her. When he didn’t, he could practically hear the clink of her armor sliding back into place.
“We at least need to go over the offer if we want this to go through by the end of the month,” Nicole said. “The agent sent you an email with the offer. All we have to do is sign it, so let’s just be civil with each other long enough to get that done, and then you can get back to your little doughnut date with the blonde. After the house sells, we’ll really be done with each other. Completely.”
Nic’s voice faltered on the last word, and hearing it gave JT pause. If he wasn’t imagining things, then it seemed like the finality of selling the house was affecting Nicole in an entirely different way than it was him. She looked like a door was closing behind her, and he felt as if one was opening in front of him.
This was what he had been hoping for over the last year. Without the burden of a mortgage payment, he would finally be able to move forward—once and for all. He could move out of his parents’ basement, find a place of his own, and finally have a fresh, new start. Freedom was within his reach, finally.
JT turned on his heel and made his way toward the house, calling out to Nicole as he held the door open for her to follow him inside.
“Let’s finish this.”
21
Anya
Skulking behind the front window curtains, Anya watched JT disappear into the house with Nicole and tried really hard not to snarl.
Or cry.
Or stuff another fritter into her mouth.
She’d ignored JT’s request that she wait to eat, without an iota of guilt, either. Her belly was barking orders to be fed immediately, and her heart had been sucker punched; therefore she was going to eat her damn apple fritters. Now. Not whenever JT finished his little tête-à-tête with his ex and finally sauntered over here. The very idea that he expected Anya to just sit here, hungry and teetering on the edge of a meltdown, made her want to eat all the fritters.
Logically, she knew that nothing was going to happen in that house that she needed to concern herself with. Other than his awkward “we’ve been dating for a while now” declaration—which only made her feel like a chess piece in whatever game it was JT and Nicole were playing—as far as Anya knew, their extended hookup was ending when the Greenes returned home in a week. When it did, JT could pursue whoever he wanted to.
Including his ex-wife.
And Anya could see why he might want to. Simply put, JT’s ex-wife was gorgeous. Nicole’s face belonged on the cover of a magazine, and her body made Anya reconsider the half-eaten apple fritter in her hand. She was the epitome of a feminine ideal—or at least the toxic beauty industry’s version of that ideal. Anya wasn’t particularly prone to the unwinnable game of comparing herself to other women, but even she found it nearly impossible to stand next to Nicole and not feel as if she didn’t measure up. JT and Nicole must have stopped people in their tracks when they were together, fielding inappropriate questions about their plans to procreate. Those two would have gifted the world with one gorgeous kid, that was for sure.
Anya shoved the last bite of her fritter in her mouth, yanking the curtains closed with a sigh. This was insane, standing here peeping between two panels of brocade like a nosy neighbor with no life of her own.
She did have a life. There were a million things she could be doing right now. The lawn was looking a little shaggy, her laundry was forming a rather large pile, and Mr. Snickers needed his breakfast. Time to start moving on, one to-do list item at a time.
Once Mr. Snickers was lounging contentedly on his cat tree perch with a satisfied belly, Anya gave in to her own urge for another apple fritter and grabbed her phone to check her email. She scrolled right past all the spammy-looking stuff, then skimmed a long message from her mom so she could savor it in full later. Just underneath that email, she spotted a name she didn’t recognize, followed by a partial subject line that read Greetings & Congratulations - - Welcome to . . .
Anya snorted. That email heading looked like it probably had something to do with a foreign prince whose billion-dollar investment account was tied up in an offshore account he wanted to transfer and just needed Anya to let him “borrow” her checking account. Or a long-lost great-great-great-uncle who had died and left her a massive estate, and she simply needed to pay the pesky probate fees. No matter what, she was about to be rich, rich, rich.
She popped the rest of the fritter in her mouth, hovering over the sender’s name so it would show her the email address, fully expecting it to reveal something obviously phishy.
The name Samuel Brooks appeared, followed by an address that made her wish she hadn’t eaten the rest of that fritter in one bite. Chewing slowly, she tried not to choke as her thoughts raced, trying to connect the dots.
An email addressed to her. A subject line with the word congratulations in it.
From the Fenton program.
This could only mean one thing, her brain squealed, like a peppy cheerleader who just needed to pipe down. Anya needed to be able to think straight for a second. She’d experienced enough emotional turbulence for one day and couldn’t risk latching on to any irrational hopes.
But that was hard to do when all she could think about was the way her career would open up if she had, somehow, won the Fenton. She would have a place to live and create for the next year, all while earning a stipend that would help free her from worrying about how to pay the bills every month. It was everything she wanted yet was terrified to imagine.
Anya focused on her breath until her thoughts settled, determined to wait to open the email until she was as calm, cool, and collected as a freaking FBI bomb technician. When that moment finally came, she wished for one more thing.