Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
ELLA
Cole looks up at me from where he's lying in bed as I pull my dress back on. “Can't you just stay here the rest of the day?”
“I wish,” I smile at him, shaking my head, glancing at the clock on his nightstand.
I ended up spending the night here last night and Cole somehow convinced me to spend most of the day in bed with him while we ordered food delivery and spent our time wrapped up in one another.
“Wyatt has Chloe at Iris’ with him and he’s bringing her home around dinner time, so I want to go get a shower and change my clothes. ”
“Shower here,” he says with a playful grin as he rises from the bed and pulls his own pants on. “Shower with me.”
I laugh softly as he walks up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist as he pulls my back flush against him.
He buries his face in my neck, his lips trailing along the side of my throat.
I spin around in his arms, throwing my own around the back of his neck.
“Do you want to come over for dinner tonight?”
“I would love to,” he tells me with the softest smile before pressing his lips to mine. “Does that mean I get dessert afterwards?”
I kiss him back before pulling away. “If you play your cards right, cowboy,” I smirk with a wink.
“What if I come over now instead, and we can shower together at your house?”
I tilt my head to the side, mulling over the idea before I step away from him. “I like that idea better.”
“Perfect,” he grins and I want to store the picture of him looking at me like this for an eternity. “I should swing by the barn to make sure everything is okay and then I will be right behind you.”
“Even better.”
“Such a dirty girl,” he laughs, pulling me back to him as his mouth claims mine once more. “I like you greedy like this.”
“Well, a certain someone has opened my eyes to a lot of things. This is all still new territory for me, but I don't want to have my guard up with you. I want to be able to act freely without overthinking everything.”
Cole's eyes probe mine. “Well, you got an A+ for last night.”
Blush creeps across my face at the memory of how I acted with him.
Taking charge isn't something I've ever done before, but he gives me a sense of security, like I can do those things with him and not be afraid of it.
“Get out of here,” I giggle, swatting at him before pushing him away again. “I'll see you in a little bit.”
I blow Cole a kiss before leaving him in his bedroom to deal with the mess of clothes and sheets everywhere.
A stupid smile is stuck on my face as I head out to my car and start my drive home.
I head off the ranch and across town, stopping at the two different red lights I hit before pulling into my driveway.
I turn off the engine and stare at the house for a moment, my heart soaring outside of my chest from the past twenty-four hours with Cole.
My footsteps are light as I walk up onto the porch and make my way to the front door.
I reach for the doorknob, accidentally turning it before sliding my key into the hole when it opens anyways.
My eyebrows pull together, conflicted for a moment.
Yesterday was such a whirlwind between getting ready for the art show and actually going there.
I know I usually lock my door when I leave the house, but perhaps it slipped my mind yesterday in the frenzy of trying to leave early enough.
I push open the door, my eyes scanning the foyer and living room, finding nothing out of the ordinary.
The panic in my stomach begins to dissipate and I let out a sigh of relief, shaking my head to myself as I push the door shut.
I need to stop being so paranoid all the time.
It's gotten better over the past few months, but that feeling of an impending threat still looms above.
Setting my purse on the table in the foyer, I kick my shoes off and slide my feet into a pair of pink fluffy slippers.
The house is quiet and I walk through the living room, opening all the curtains to let the sunlight spill in.
It's late in the afternoon, but the sun is still hanging high in the sky outside.
My footsteps are soft and I start to hum a song from the radio as I walk into the kitchen.
I walk to the sink, pulling the curtains open farther.
Cole will be here in a little bit, so I want to clean some things up before he's here and before Chloe gets home later.
As I turn away from the counter to walk to the fridge, the air leaves my lungs in a rush and I'm frozen in place.
My spine straightens as a shiver of fear cascades down my vertebrae.
There he is, sitting at my dining room table.
He looks as I remember, his jaw set in a straight line.
He's aged a bit, more gray hairs speckle his naturally dark locks.
“Hello Ella.”
Fear lodges in my throat and I don't know what the hell to do. I don't know how he got inside my home or what the hell he’s doing here.
The facade of safety I've been living in comes crumbling to the floor around me.
“This is a lovely home you have,” he muses with a bite lingering in his tone. “It seems like you've built your own life here for you and your child.” He pauses, his eyes slicing to mine. “I’m not here for her.”
“You broke into my house, Jacob. I could call the cops right now and have you arrested.”
“The door was unlocked, so I let myself in. That’s not breaking and entering, Ella.” He levels his gaze on me. “I’ve tried calling you and stopped here twice now. It seems like you were too busy with that cowboy boyfriend of yours to be here when I needed to talk to you.”
“What could you possibly need to talk to me about?” I scoff, half spitting the words. Inside, I'm shaking, but I refuse to let him see it.
“Our divorce was never finalized.”
My eyes widen and I watch in horror as he rises from his seat at the table. “What?”
He walks over to where I’m standing, reaching in his back pocket to pull out a folded paper. He unfolds it and lays it down on the counter. “You missed a signature.” He pauses, letting out a sigh. “It went unnoticed, until recently.”
I stare at the paper, my eyes wide and heart sinking into my stomach. “We’re still married?”
“Yep,” he says, popping the P sound at the end. “I wonder what your boyfriend would think if he knew he was sleeping with a married woman?”
My eyes flash to his. “You have no room to say anything remotely close to that, Jacob. We both know the things you did during our relationship. And as far as anyone is concerned, we aren’t married.”
“Well, according to the courts, we are.” He narrows his eyes on mine. “I need you to sign the papers. I’m sure you can imagine the shock both my fiancee and I experienced when we found this out.”
My breath catches. “You’re engaged?”
“Mhm,” he murmurs, pulling a pen from his pocket and clicking the top of it. “We have a two and a half year old and another on the way, so we’d really like to get this over with.”
My stomach falls onto the floor. “You–” I pause, my face contorting. “You have a child?”
I don’t bother doing the math because at this point, it doesn’t even matter. That means she was pregnant when I was. We got pregnant around the same time… to the same man.
Except I was married to him and she was not.
“It’s her, isn’t it?”
The woman my brother saw him with. The last woman he cheated on me with.
“Does it really matter, Ella?” He half snaps at me. “I just need you to sign the damn papers so I can move on with my life.”
I can feel myself curling inward. My efforts to remain strong are being tested past what I thought I could handle. But I know I can't break. I can't fold.
If not for me, I have to stay strong for Chloe.
“You need to leave before I call the police.”
“Ella? What's going on?”
My shoulders sag the instant I hear his voice. I glance over my shoulder, seeing Cole as he walks into the kitchen. His eyes are glued to Jacob, who has now directed his undivided attention to Cole. “Everything's okay. Jacob was just leaving.”
“Ah, you’re the boyfriend,” Jacob laughs, tilting his head to the side. “This is fun. You get to find out the news too.”
Cole’s expression doesn’t change. “What news?”
“Turns out, Ella and I are still married.” He smiles. “You’ve been sleeping with a married woman.”
Cole narrows his eyes. “She's not your wife. Legally, maybe. In every other capacity? Absolutely not.” Cole looks at me from the corner of his eye. “Did he break in?”
I nod slowly, looking past Cole to Jacob and then back to Cole. “He did. I told him I was going to call the police.”
“The door was unlocked,” Jacob chimes in.
“Call them, El.”
“There’s no need,” Jacob says, raising his hands in innocence. “I need Ella to sign the papers and I will see myself out.”
“I need to look them over with my lawyer before I’ll sign a damned thing.” I narrow my eyes on him, my heart racing inside of my chest. “I don’t know what those papers are and I need to make sure they are legitimate and I’m not signing some random papers from you.”
“Do you think I would do that?”
“I don’t know, Jacob,” I say, lowering my voice, shaking my head at him. “There are a lot of things I didn’t think you’d do, but I was wrong.”
Cole levels his gaze on Jacob. “You need to leave. Now.”
“This is Ella’s home, not yours.”
“And she already asked you to leave.” Cole takes a step forward. “You’ve broken into her home and now this is bordering on the line of harassment.” He stops as he reaches Jacob. “You have three options. You leave yourself, Ella calls the cops, or I remove you myself.”
Jacob’s lips part, like he’s going to say something to get himself in trouble, but he pauses and looks at me. “I’ll have my lawyer send all the papers to yours.”
He moves forward, brushing past Cole as he walks through the house, acting like he owns the place.
He walks through the living room, Cole following behind him, with his shoulders pressed back and chin high, like he hasn’t just cracked open the worst parts of me in front of someone who’s actually worth something.
I climb to my feet, following after the two of them. As Jacob reaches the threshold, Cole stops in the center of the room. His voice drops, low and sharp. “You come back here uninvited, it won’t be words next time.”
Jacob glances over his shoulder to look at him, a smirk lifting his lips.
He snorts, shaking his head and pulls open the front door.
Without a second glance in our direction, he walks out, letting the screen door slam hard behind him.
A picture falls onto the floor, the glass shattering across the surface.
Silence settles in the air around us. For a long, awful moment, all I can hear is the pounding in my chest. My gaze drops to the floor and I stare at the lines in the wood, bracing myself for the sound of Cole’s voice.
For the judgment. The disappointment.
For that step in the wrong direction.
Instead, I hear the sound of his boots on the wood floor as he closes the distance between us. The toes of his boots stop by mine and I lift my eyes, finding him standing there, his hands gently curling around mine.
“You okay, El?” he asks, his voice low and calm, like I haven’t just had my world flipped upside down again.
I nod, but it’s shaky. “I didn’t know. I thought it was done—I thought we were done.”
“I believe you,” he says without hesitation, shaking his head.
Tears sting at the corners of my eyes, but I blink them away. “You’re not... upset?”
He shrugs, eyes steady on mine. “I’m not thrilled he showed up like that, but this doesn’t change how I feel about you. He’s your past, Ella. I’m here for your future.”
The air leaves my lungs in a rush. I swallow roughly over the emotion lodged in my throat. Cole reaches for me, pulling me flush against his chest without another word.
He wraps his arms around me, like he’s anchoring me back to solid ground. Back to the present moment.
Back to him.
And for the first time in a long while, I let myself lean into someone—really lean.
Because for once, I’m not standing alone.