ETHAN
“The list you wanted,” I said, handing her the tablet as I read the messages coming in on my phone. In the chaos of the previous day I’d almost forgotten I’d given her my word, and I was a man of my word. Not feeling the weight lifted from my hand, I paused, looking over at her, thinking she’d fallen asleep. However, she merely stared out the window as we drove toward the house.
“Ivy,” I called out to her.
Silence was what I got in return. And I was sure she’d heard me because she shifted even more so toward her door and away. I hated many things, but nothing pissed me off more than being ignored.
“Mrs. Callahan,” I called out to her again.
This time she merely wound down the window, taking a deep breath of the cold air, her gold-blond hair blowing all round. Part of me thought to leave her alone but…
“Wife!” I snapped at her.
And she snapped back, not in words. She grabbed the tablet from my hand and flung it out the window. Sitting up, she tapped Toby on the shoulder.
“Yes, ma’am.” The bastard was a little too happy.
“Can I get a phone?” she asked him softly and her face was far too close to his for my own liking.
“And who are you seeking to call?” I asked her.
Still silence.
“Toby, I don’t need to call anyone, just so I can listen to music and get Internet, please,” she said to him then sat back, closing her eyes.
The corners of his mouth turned up into a small smile and I had half the mind to beat the shit out of him. However, knowing him, he’d only laugh outright seeing me get worked up over a woman. Fine. She didn’t want to speak. I wouldn’t speak to her then.
“Toby, get her whatever she wants. One less thing I need to concern myself with,” I muttered, putting the phone back into my coat jacket and leaning back into the seat as well.
The car was silent the whole way back to the house. And no sooner had we gone through the gates and pulled up at the door, the butlers already waiting, had she jumped out on her own, slamming the door behind her as she stomped away, like a child. Rolling my eyes, I stepped out and rounded the car, stopping right beside Toby, again with that ill-advised look of humor on his face.
“Next time my wife refuses to speak with me and thus addresses you…your next words should be ‘You’ll need to speak with your husband, ma’am.’ Understood?” I didn’t wait for him to reply and walked up the stairs into the house myself. Taking off my coat and handing it to the butler, I prepared myself for our most likely fight. I highly doubted she’d be able to keep her anger bottled inside for long.
When I got to our wing, she was pulling the doorknob to her former room in confusion. Hearing my footsteps, she glanced up at me as I already began to take off my cufflinks.
“We were attacked. The house is still on lockdown. Only a Callahan’s fingerprints and voice can open the doors till I unlock everything…like this.” I grabbed my doorknob of my door. “Ethan Callahan.”
The door beeped before opening. She glared at me and lifted up her middle finger, only her middle finger, to show me her wedding ring.
“Right, you’re a Callahan now.” I smirked. “Whenever you’d like to be added to the system, let me know. Until then you can either come inside before I close the door, or you can sleep in the hall, like a dog not a wife.”
She cracked her jaw to the side, and I waited. When she glared at me and didn’t move I shrugged, walking into my…our room, closing the door behind me.
Insane woman.
Pushing her out of my mind, I walked to my closet, throwing my coat onto the couch and pulling out my pistol. I thought back to my mother’s gift to her. It was just like her. If there was anything my mother loved, it was a good gun. If there was anything my father hated, it was my mother with a gun, most likely because she’d end up shooting at him. She’d actually shot him twice.
Wait… Taking out my phone, I called my aunt.
“Ethan?”
“Make sure no one ever tells my wife that my mother shot at my father. I’d rather that tradition die with my mother.”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart, but what’s spoken between the Callahan women are secrets even to their husbands—”
“I bet he’s regretting that food comment now.” I heard my uncle Declan snicker over the line.
“Tell Uncle I don’t have regrets,” I said.
“Tell him yourself,” she said. I heard her hand him the phone.
“Ethan.”
“Uncle.”
“I’ve always wondered what I’d say to you when this day came,” he said as I put my ear piece in my ear and threw the phone to the side.
“And what day is that?”
“Your wedding day. Well, I’m a little late on account of the fact that you threw that wedding without much warning, but luckily good advice never expires.”
“And how are you sure it’s good?” I asked, taking off my shirt.
“Because I’m happily married. So was your father and so was your grandfather. Obviously we got it right.”
“Very well, impart your sage knowledge if you must, but please not now. I’d like to get some sleep before someone else gets on my bad side,” I said, pulling off my shoes.
“So damn hardheaded.” He sighed as I heard what sounded like a bottle opening.
“Don’t you think it’s a little early for scotch?”
“Nope,” he replied, and I smirked. Obviously he wasn’t next to my aunt anymore. “Ethan, the secret to being happily married, no matter to what type of person, is losing.”
“Come again?”
“I know it must be difficult for someone like you, who’s done everything to always win. However, wives are different. They have the ability to let you know they are pissed even when they aren’t speaking.”
I paused, glancing at the camera in the upper room of my closet. “Have you been spying on me, Uncle?”
“No, why?” He sounded honest, which made me doubt him more. “Anyway, what I’m trying to say is you will have no peace with an angry wife. Fighting is good, it’s healthy, makes for good sex too—”
“Goodbye—”
“However, there comes a point in every battle you must concede to defeat. Did you know Aunt Coraline thought it would be a good idea to go see the aurora borealis and sleep in a fucking tent? She hates tents. She fucking hates being in the forest. The last thing I wanted was to haul my ass up to the ice block that is Canada, to see the sky change fucking colors, on top of which listen to her bitch about how damn cold she was or how many bugs there were. She’d love it for about ten minutes and then want to leave. A younger me would have tried to explain this to her rationally. We’d fight. She’d ignore me for days until my blue balls and I gave in. We’d go to where she wanted and she’d do exactly what I knew she’d do and we’d spend time looking for a hotel. Thank God I’m no longer the younger me. I said, sure, honey, let’s go. She was all excited packing while I looked for a hotel. So when we got to the fucking ice capital of the world and she had her magical moment I was the hero who already had a hotel waiting. No blue balls. No fighting. Just us in a well-heated suite. Why?”
Because you’re a whipped bitch? I thought. But waited for him to go on.
“Because I lost the battle and won the war. There will be many moments you know to high heaven and back that you are right with evidence. None of that means shit to a pissed off woman and you’ll be dragged off to crazy land with them. In their minds you’re the dick who’s not getting pussy. So just lose. It’s easier. You’ll live longer.”
“Thank you for your wise advice. However, Ivy is different. She’s more rational—”
“Who are you talking to?” I heard my uncle Neal join him.
“Ethan. He believes his wife is different and rational.”
They both laughed, and I hung up. They should thank God they are family.
Dressed for bed, I walked into my bedroom and closed the blinds as the sun came up before walking over to my bed. I was just about to lie down when she knocked just as I knew she would.
Sighing, I pressed the button next to my desk table to open it.
“Glad to know you aren’t a—”
“YOU FUCKING BASTARD!” she hollered, throwing one of my own vases at me. It shattered over the bed and as the shards fell onto my bed I wondered two things. First, how the fuck did I think she was rational, and second, why the bloody hell were there vases in my room? Those were the only two thoughts I was able to have before she started to throw more shit at me and I was forced to dodge. “How the fuck can you just leave me outside!”
“I…” I ducked a book. “I told you to come inside!”
“ON YOUR TERMS!”
“IT’S MY FUCKING ROOM!”
“OUR FUCKING ROOM!”
“THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE COME INSIDE!”
“YOU PISS ME OFF!” Before she could grab anything else I caught her wrist, pushing her up against the door.
Taking a deep breath…why I was yelling, I had no idea…it hit me; I was in crazy land. Closing my eyes, I tried not to hear both of my uncles’ laughter in my head.
“ARE YOU—”
I kissed her, and she struggled until I pressed my body firmly up against hers. I wasn’t sure if she even realized, but she relaxed into me, her breasts brushing against my chest, her mouth opening more for me, but I pulled away. She stared up at me wide-eyed, somewhat dazed, and before she remembered she was pissed I spoke up.
“If this is about Klarissa—”
“It’s not about her!” She snapped.
And now I was confused. “What else if not her?”
“You really are slow.”
“Would you like to go back outside?” I couldn’t stop myself from saying.
“You—”
“Get on with it so I can sleep.” I fought out.
She just glared.
“Ivy.” I sighed, dropping my head. Lose the battle. “I’ll apologize, but I should know my mistake, dear.”
“You’re mocking me.”
“No. Just tired.” Tomorrow was back to war and I needed her to focus her rage elsewhere.
“It’s about me. I don’t have the time or the energy to be pissed for the sake of others. The most important person to me is me,” she declared, pulling her hands from my loosened grip and crossing them over her chest. I tried to ignore the fact that it made her breasts rise up, but they were hard not to notice.
“And what about you?”
Frowning, she muttered, “Never mind.”
KILL HER! I wanted to throw her out the damn window! What the fuck did she mean never mind? If it wasn’t important, what the bloody hell was all of this for?
Stepping back and away from her, I moved to sit at my desk, not sure if I should go to sleep when I had a maniac now sharing my room. She marched over to the bed, throwing her purse to the ground before stripping down completely. Grabbing the comforter, she flagged the broken shards onto my side of the bed before curling under. Just as my eyes were closing and I was relaxing into my chair, that was when the mad wench decided to find her voice.
“Would you kill me too?” she whispered.
“Not the wisest question right now.”
I expected her to flip out again, but instead she just lay there.
“If you didn’t need me for whatever plan you’re coming up with, you would have married Klarissa. However, you want too badly to win, so you’d rather stick to your plan and have her killed…so what about me? What happens when I’m not useful to your plan? What happens if you need some other woman for your support? Will I end up dying? I heard your uncle Neal…he killed his wife so—”
“Uncle Neal’s wife betrayed the family. She almost got the whole family killed from what I was told. He chose blood over her. She was in the wrong for making him make that choice,” I cut in before she actually did piss me off.
“Fine, but—”
“No buts. I married you. I chose you…I knew that meant till the day I die. I told Klarissa the first day she appeared in front of me that I was never going to marry her. That I would never love her. She dared to hope somehow I’d see the light and fall. However, I am a man of my word. Always have been.”
“A gangster with sophistication and morals.”
“If I knew you would keep repeating that I would have tried to make it catchier.” I yawned.
She snickered. “What is your word to me?”
She wasn’t serious.
Rising off the chair, I walked over to her side of the bed. She stared up at me and I down at her until I reached down and lifted her up, lying down on my back with her resting on top of my chest.
“When I put that ring on your finger I believe my exact words were: I bind my life to yours, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. It is a symbol of my eternal love, my everlasting friendship, and the promise of all my tomorrows. An outward reminder of our inner unity. I forsake all others, I chose you, until death do us part.”
She held her hand up for us both to look at. “It doesn’t count if there is a lie in it.”
“What lie?”
“When you say my eternal love and my everlasting friendship…when did you fall in love with me? And when did we become friends?”
Of all the women in the world… Sighing, I closed my eyes. “Ivy…no one is taking your spot at my side. I am not abandoning you, so for the love of God, shut up and let me sleep.”
IVY
He fell asleep just like that, with his arms wrapped around me.
“Who says you aren’t romantic?” I whispered softly.
Closing my eyes…and there was the familiar feeling in my chest. One that I hadn’t felt in a very long time.
Rolling over in his arms, I stared up at him. He looked so gentle when he slept. With those long eyelashes and his hair, a slight mess. Like he had not a care in the world. Even though his heart was right under my hands. Putting my head on it, I closed my eyes. He didn’t realize how scary it was…knowing that your lifeline was attached to one person and that person had no reservations in getting rid of people he found no use for.
But I believed him.
Or at the very least I wanted to believe him.
There was no other option but doubt and that led to pain and I was tired of pain.