6. Sincere
Two days later, Lorenzo smiled at me as I entered his home office with lunch in my hands.
“Thank you, baby,” he said, distracted by the line chart dominating his computer screen. A few minutes passed before he pushed away from the desktop and swiveled his chair to the part of his L-shaped desk where I’d sat the food.
My husband must have felt my eyes on him as he went through the motions of sanitizing his hands and grabbing his fork because he paused and looked at me with a quizzical stare. “What’s up, handsome?”
“Do you think Goldyn would date us?” I asked, getting right to the point.
It’d been forty-eight hours since she left our house. The window was fixed. Romeo had dropped her off at home. And yet, I couldn’t shake her or her infectious presence from my head. I’d spent too much time in the past two days wondering what she was doing and who she was doing it with. Whether she thought about that night or that breakfast we shared at all. Maybe it had been a normal day for her, but for me…
Enzo speared a piece of cubed steak with his fork and brought it to his smiling lips. “Why did I know you were gonna ask me that?”
“I don’t know.” I sat forward in the chair facing his desk and rested my forearms against the edge. “Maybe because you wanted to know too.”
His expression turned thoughtful, but he said nothing as he added potatoes to his bite.
“I know it’s crazy after meeting somebody once, but I can’t stop thinking about her.”
“I met you once and knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you, Sin. So, I don’t think it’s crazy. When you know, you know. But I’m not gone lie to you and say I don’t think it’s risky.”
He finally slid the fork between his lips and my eyes watched the rhythmic tick of his jaw as he chewed.
“Risky why?”
“Because we’re married and a lot of women don’t understand what that means when we say we want to date them.”
Unease took up residence in the pit of my stomach. He wasn’t wrong. And maybe it was delusion because something stronger than optimism told me Goldyn would get it.
“Goldy is beautiful and seems very nice, but we have to be honest with ourselves and remember that some women aren’t cut out for our lifestyle. Dating two men at once, especially two who are already married, can be a lot.”
“We can’t approach it with all the negatives in mind.”
“I’m being realistic, not negative, baby,” he pointed out, his voice gentling as he dropped his fork to look at me. “I don’t want you to get your hopes up.”
“I think she’d be open to it. She was sweet. Didn’t you think she was sweet?”
He nodded and wiped his mouth with the napkin I put on his tray. “She was sweet. But that’s the bare minimum when it comes to what we require from people. We haven’t pursued a woman since we’ve been in Bliss Peak and the last woman we dated in King’s Town got overwhelmed after three months. Even though she was very sweet too.”
Anika had been perfect…until the reality of what we were started getting to her. She said she didn’t feel like a part of our relationship, more like a temporary accessory. The note she left us said she had to leave before her already complicated feelings got more confusing and hard to ignore. And we hadn’t heard from her since. That had been a few months before we packed up everything and moved to Bliss Peak.
So…over two years now.
It wasn’t like I’d been oblivious to other women since we moved here. But none of them had called to me in any way. Until I met the woman who broke into our house.
And while I’d been happy with our family while we got adjusted to a new city, I couldn’t deny my body’s natural reaction to Goldyn. She intrigued me and made me so damn hyperaware when I was in her presence that I ran away by the end of breakfast to clear my head. I’d been so close to saying something then, but I was happy I hadn’t.
I couldn’t even fully articulate my fascination with her, but she was enchanting and I wanted to know everything there was to know about her. But only if Enzo was on board. Our dynamic only worked if we were both on the same page.
“So what if we tell her it’s only for three months? Just for the summer?”
“So you want to begin a relationship with the end in mind? Instead of letting her feel temporary on her own, we establish that out the gate?”
That made me wince. Maybe I hadn’t worded that right. I exhaled, trying to make it sound better in my mind. “I just don’t want to overwhelm her. Maybe thinking of it as a ninety-day commitment will make it easier for her.”
“For her? What about for us? Especially you. You don’t know how to not get attached, Sin. I love that about you. You’re all in. But we can’t ignore our own needs to try and make her comfortable, either. I say let’s see what unfolds naturally.”
“But we’ve been here two years and I’ve never seen her. Not once. How is anything gonna unfold if we don’t naturally cross paths?”
Enzo took another forkful of food and gave me a speculative glance. A wicked twinkle entered his dark eyes. “Maybe she’ll break into our house again.”
“You’re not interested in her,” I surmised. “Is that it?”
Something had to be the reason for his detached approach to this. Or maybe I really was being too much of a lover boy to see this from his pragmatic point of view.
“Sin,” he sighed and the sound sent a dreadful tendril of angst through me. “That’s not it, I always want you to have?—”
His landline rang and clipped that sentence. We both stared at the phone as it rang a second time.
“I can ignore it,” he offered, but he was already spinning in his chair to get closer to it.
“It’s fine,” I excused, rising to my feet. “Take it. I’m gonna go for a drive.”
The phone rang again and Enzo split his gaze between me and the black device. “Are we okay?”
“Of course.” I smiled, bracing my hands on the desk to lean closer to him. “Kiss me before I go.”
Relief seemed to wash over him at my request and he obliged me, letting our lips meet in a quick kiss before I pulled away.
“I love you,” I said over my shoulder.
His response came before I could pull the door closed behind me. “I love you too, Sin. More than you’ll ever know.”