25. Willa
It’d been such a beautiful moment, only for the shrill ring of my phone to cut through and ruin it.
“Sorry,” I said, my heart taking off on a high-speed chase without a pursuer or a destination. “Just ignore it. You’re right. It’s been on my mind all night as well, but I was terrified you didn’t feel it as strongly as I did.”
“I’ve never felt as strongly about anyone else as I?—”
My phone took up its ringing again, and I was about to threaten whoever it was with the same thing Nate had used on the aggressive honker. I reached over, frowned at Eric’s name, and hit the button to silence it.
I was returning it to the nightstand when my ex texted to say that my lawyer had been in touch, and that if I wanted to keep things amicable, I’d call him back, “RIGHT NOW!!!!”
Since there wasn’t a better way to explain than to let Nate read the message for himself, and naturally, Eric called again, I declared timing as big a bitch as my whiny ex.
“Here,” Nate said, extending an open palm. “I’ll answer it.”
The growl in the words caused the spot between my legs to clench, but as I’d already had a couple of orgasms tonight, my brain remained at the wheel. “That’s a bad idea, and we both know it.”
I scooted toward the edge of the bed, tossing out another apology. “I can just go back to my place to deal with it.”
Nate lunged across the bed and caught hold of my wrist. “Don’t go. We need to finish our discussion, and I’d rather you be here where I can hold you if you need it.”
All the strings in my heart tugged, towing toward this amazing man I’d been so lucky to find. While I could be firm, I had no doubt I’d be taking him up on that offer.
As soon as my ex answered, I launched right into it. “We both know this could wait till morning, Eric. If not next weekend, as the entire point of the mediation is so that we have someone there to, you know, mediate.”
He accused me of throwing me a curveball, when so far, I’d just been doing my best to dodge or catch his.
Finally, I said, “You’ve got five minutes to throw your tantrum, and then I’m going to bed, and if I have to, I’ll block your number.” If things hadn’t turned uglier and uglier since he pulled the stunt with my mom’s car, I would’ve been more diplomatic.
The offended noise he made only fueled me, a reminder to the both of us I wasn’t the peacemaking pushover anymore.
He gave me a sob story about how much higher his overhead was without me, and I bit back a comment about how he should’ve just kept paying the temp who’d filled in for me so at least he wouldn’t have to outsource his sex.
“Two more minutes.” It was the first thing I’d said to him in about that long, choosing to let him get it all out.
At the gentle tug on my shoulder, I allowed myself to fall back into Nate’s embrace. In the recesses of my mind, there’d been a vague worry about him witnessing part of the fall-out of my former relationship, and if it’d scare him away and make him redact his earlier statement. I should’ve known Nathan Fox didn’t scare easily.
“Are you hearing me at all, Willa?” Eric asked. “This entire changeover has been really stressful on me.”
“I hear you. It’s just the same thing I heard during most of our marriage. You focus on yourself, without another thought to anyone else. I put my dreams on hold for you for six years, and you took for granted that I’d always be there to dig you out of your messes. Now you’re basically demanding I fix the business like I used to, only so I can then walk away penniless, nothing to show for that time, while you reap all the benefits.”
“What if I offer to pay off your car?”
“You mean the car I lent to my mom so she could get around after hip surgery? And then you called the bank behind my back to try to force the loan onto me or my mom instead?”
“I’ll pay it off if you’ll just leave the dental practice alone. No more payments every month. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
If smoke unfurled from my nostrils, it wouldn’t surprise me, but I worked to keep my temper in check. “It’d be nice not to get nickeled and dimed after being cheated on. I’m not asking for anything unfair. My advice is to get ready to compromise during the mediation so we can both get on with our lives, because I’m not going to be the one constantly backing down anymore.”
He used some colorful language that had Nate reaching for the phone.
As tempting as it’d be to let him unleash his tyranny on Eric, it’d only make things worse when we attempted to settle everything with a mediator present. So, I pivoted away and quickly said, “Goodbye, Eric. I’ll see you next weekend.”
The instant I hung up, I fell back to the bed next to Nate. It was sort of odd to speak to my almost-ex-husband while naked, especially while a much sexier and more generous naked man had remained at my side. I could only imagine how weird it was for Nate, and I hoped again he hadn’t changed his mind about us. Eric had ruined a lot of things, but I swore to God, if he ruined this thing between me and Nate, vengeance would be mine.
Nate propped himself up on his shoulder and looked down at me, casting a soft smile that thawed some of the ice that’d automatically formed around my heart. “So, when would you like me to kill him?”
I huffed a laugh, surprised to find one so easily after a call with Eric. They usually darkened my mood for hours. “Kill might be taking things a pinch too far. How do you feel about maiming?”
“Pretty damn good, after what I heard. Stopping myself from going too far will be the hardest part.”
My palm fit to the side of his face so perfectly, and I savored the tickle of his whiskers. “All I want is for the divorce to be over and done already. To the point I told him he could keep the house—it wasn’t like I wanted to stay in his hometown and live there anyway. But now he’s trying to coerce me into giving up any claim to the business, not an ounce of appreciation for the fact that I helped him build it from the ground up and that my name is still on the lease. I did all the bookkeeping and database entry for the patient charts, to the point it became my career over the last six years. I deserve to be compensated for that.”
“Why don’t you let me take care of it? I’d be happy to step in and offer you legal advice—in an unofficial capacity, anyway. Through my contacts, I’m sure I can find someone licensed in Maine to take over as your legal counsel”
“Thank you, but no. You have plenty going on here, and honestly, I don’t want you caught up in my mess. It’s also something I need to take care of myself.” I sighed, already hating the extremes I was going to have to go to.
Nate’s heavy exhale had me arching an eyebrow. “I hate feeling helpless.”
“Me too. And that’s how I’ll feel if you step in to take care of everything instead of proving to him, and to myself, that I can take care of this. I’ll drive back to Sugar River next weekend for the mediation and show him he can’t push me around. Once he sees that I’m a stronger, different person, he’ll cave—I’m sure of it.
“Shit,” I said, the reality of another situation hitting me. “I don’t have a car anymore. The mechanic informed me that it’d cost more to fix it than the car was worth.” I rubbed my fingers over my forehead. “I told my mom I’d visit her in Vermont on my way there, and I planned to bring back my grandma’s hope chest. It has all my family heirlooms, a quilt she made and one my mom did, and old composition notebooks filled with my original songs. I hated to leave them, but there just wasn’t room.”
The wheels in my brain whirred into motion, a mixture of problem-solving and calculating costs and anxiety bubbled up within me.
“Will it fit in the Porsche?”
I crinkled my forehead, struggling to connect the dots. “Probably. And I know you’re stubborn to a fault, but you did hear me say I need to do this myself, right?”
“I did. You’re insisting on going yourself, and I hear and understand you. But in the name of protecting my personal asset…” He dipped his head and softly kissed my lips. “That’s you, by the way. My personal asset.”
If it weren’t for the amount of elation pumping through me, I might’ve contested his declaration. The truth was that he did currently possess me, though, body and soul.
“When you head to Maine for that meeting, I want you to take my car. Then you can grab the last of your belongings and visit your mom.”
That cleared the fog that’d overtaken my brain, I peered deep into his eyes, sure I’d heard wrong. “Do you have another car I’m not aware of?”
He stretched out beside me, curling me closer and tucking me against his chest. “No, but if I need to go anywhere, I can take the Red Line or the Green Line, or I’ll just call a car. Maybe I’ll even take a card from your deck and rent a bike.”
I trailed my fingertips along his jaw. “It’s just that I remember very clearly, this conversation that we had, where you claimed you’d let your friends fuck your girlfriend before you’d let anyone else drive your car.”
Nate repositioned his hand so it circled my throat. He didn’t squeeze, simply left it there as if to demonstrate the breadth and power in his grip. “Are you my girlfriend?”
I swallowed—well, I tried, anyway. The hand around my neck made it more of a challenge, but I enjoyed it too much to request he release me. “I’m guessing that was what you were getting at before the phone call ruined the mood.”
“It was.” His hold on me shifted from dominating to adhering. “I have no business entertaining the idea of a relationship, not with my track record, and not while I’m in one of the busiest stages of my career. But I’m hoping that if I know you’re all mine, it’ll clear up some space in my brain so that I can occupy it with thoughts besides you.”
My heart expanded, testing the confines of my rib cage. “Of course I’m yours, Nathan. If I’m being honest, I have been since the day you helped me pick up my box of sex toys. And every day since you’ve just claimed that much more of me.”
My nipples tightened at the wicked grin that spread across his face. “Then, hell no, I’d never give my friends or anyone else permission to touch you—that’s my job, and mine alone.” His gaze bore into mine, and his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. “You’re way more important to me than my car, Willa. Evidently, I’ve turned into one of those whipped men who needs their woman by their side.”
“If you ask me, when there’s whipping going on, then everyone wins.”
A laugh spilled out and he crushed his lips to mine. Snuggled up against him, we kissed and laughed and clung on, like we were each other’s lifeboats in a storm.
Next weekend, I’d take a short trip to my past and put that chapter fully behind me. Because this guy, who excelled at devouring me as wholly as he protected me, was definitely my future.