What she wouldn’t give to be able to read minds. To be able to figure out what Brant was thinking right that moment. He’d been silent all the way to her apartment, and the silence felt somehow darker, tenser, the minute he stepped foot inside her living room and closed the door quietly behind him.
“Home sweet home.” She spread her arms wide. “Also, you should probably make a noise, Brant. I can’t see you, so when you don’t speak I can only assume you’ve either left to dig through all of my things or you’re staring, and both are creepy.”
Brant was still quiet.
She reached out then jerked back. He was a muscled blur standing right in front of her; the darkness of his suit blended with the darkened room.
“Brant?”
“This,” he said, his voice hoarse, angry-sounding, “is where you live?”
Shame hit her so violently that she stumbled backward a bit as tears stung her eyes. Stupid! She hadn’t even thought to clean up. She knew there were at least four dishes piled up inside the sink from earlier that week, and she knew firsthand from Cole that nothing in her apartment matched.
It was tidy. Probably smaller than Brant’s closet, and most likely reminded him of a first-grader’s classroom more than a grown woman’s apartment. The red blur of throw pillows caught her attention right next to the bright purple throw blanket that she knew was placed between the two of them.
What was she supposed to say? Or do?
“Don’t give me that look,” he whispered. “Just answer the question. This—this place is where you’ve been living for four fucking years?”
She swallowed the giant watermelon lump in her throat and gave him a jerky nod. Why was he so angry? She suddenly felt sick to her stomach. Things had been going so well! What happened? Where did they go wrong?
This was her life now.
She lifted her head, refusing to be ashamed of what she had to do to survive.
He didn’t really know the new Nikki, the one who was so poor when they separated that the only job she could find was working as a greeter at a car dealership before the massage therapist job finally opened at the resort.
“It’s my home,” she said proudly, crossing her arms. “Besides, where else was I supposed to live? On the street?”
“Your walls are pink and red,” he said in a harsh voice. “Your couch is yellow. It has holes in it.”
Each word hit like a physical slap, and she flinched.
“Your kitchen counter is orange with white flowers. You have exactly two mismatched green chairs and a table I’ve only ever seen on Brady Bunch reruns.” He breezed past her, and the smucking sound of the refrigerator being opened preceded a bright light spilling into the room. “You have no eggs, no cheese, nothing but milk.” She heard a cupboard open. “Oatmeal and cereal.”
Tears slid down her face. So this was how her fairy tale would end? This was how they would gain closure? With her rich and beautiful ex-husband taking stock of all the things she didn’t have? Was he really that hateful? That the deal breaker would be a list of things about her apartment that bothered him?
“I like oatmeal and cereal, and I like my home,” she said in a shaky voice. “Now, please leave.”
“No.”
“No?” she repeated, wishing like hell she could see him so she could slap his arrogant face off. “Fine, then I’m calling the cops!”
“I’ll just hide the phone.”
“Leave!” she screamed.
“No.” His hands braced her body. “I’m not leaving you. Not now. Not ever fucking again.”
“I did fine without you!” she screamed in what she hoped was his face. “I survived! I’m happy!”
“Well, I’m not!” he roared back at her, stunning her into silence. “You were supposed to get money, Nik!”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“From me. You were supposed to get money so you didn’t have to work. So you could do whatever the hell you wanted.”
“I seriously have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“My lawyers—”
“Lawyers?” She suddenly couldn’t breathe. Yes, she’d talked to one of his lawyers years ago when they’d divorced, but the lawyer had never mentioned anything about money. “You mean the guy who called me and said I needed to sign papers?”
“Nik—you were supposed to sign papers so you could get money and so our divorce would be—” He suddenly stopped talking. “Tell me I’m not losing my mind here. Tell me you know what I’m talking about.”
She shook her head over and over again. “Don’t you think I would be living in at least a bigger place if I did? But does it matter anyway? I wanted to start over. And I have.”
“Sweetheart…” Brant cupped her face. “That’s not the point.”
She sniffed. “Then what is?”
“That you were never supposed to have to struggle. You never had to. Do you really think after all these years that I would walk away without making sure you were okay? Do you really think that’s the kind of man you married?”
“But—” She blinked at the blur of a face in front of her. “You just, you left, you said we were too broken, you said good-bye, you didn’t even—” Don’t do it—shove the memory back. “You didn’t even kiss me good-bye.”
“Because I never would have fucking left if I did.” Brant crushed his mouth to hers, his lips punishing as he spread his hands around her back and lifted her onto the kitchen table. His fingers slid up her thighs and squeezed. “I wouldn’t have been strong enough to walk away.”
“So it took strength to walk away?”
“That and a heavy dose of anger, shame, and hostility, and a hell of a lot of guilt.”
“And now?”
“Now, you’ll have to murder me to get rid of me. Just make sure we’re still married before you do it, though, or you won’t get the twenty million.”
She broke the kiss. “‘Still married’?”
“I say twenty million and you fixate on the marriage part?” He nuzzled her neck as he continued attacking her with his mouth.
“But”—ah, it was hard to think straight when he kissed her like that—“why would we still be married?”
His lips found hers again before he pulled back. “Because you only got the money once you signed the divorce papers. If you didn’t get the money, then my only assumption is something happened with the paperwork.” Her heart thudded so wildly in her chest she thought she was going to have a heart attack. “Meaning you’re still my wife.”
He silenced her protests with another kiss. And another.
“And if that’s the case”—his grip tightened on her ass as he slowly moved one hand up to unzip her dress—“then it seems like I’m finally home.”
Home. He was home. She was his home.
She arched beneath him as he tugged the dress down to her waist and then lifted her up only long enough to take off the rest of her clothes and lay her across the table.
“Home,” she repeated, reaching blindly for him as she heard the sound of another zipper, more clothes flying everywhere, and then warmth, so much warmth.
Heat.
His chest against hers.
His breath fanning her neck as his tongue slid across her lips, teasing her tongue. Brant’s teeth nibbled her ears as he poised at her entrance. She felt his throbbing heat.
And she wanted every inch of him.
With an all-consuming kiss that left her gasping for air, he rose over her and slid into her—stripping away any restraint she thought she had, and making her insane for him.
Only him.
It had only ever been Brant.