Chapter 25
Twenty-Five
Zoey
Me: I hope you are having a great day.
I press send on the text, smiling to myself. I always send him a text in the morning when I get to my desk, telling him to have the best day, like we didn’t arrive in the car with each other. Then I always surprise him by having lunch delivered to him, knowing he’s got a busy day ahead of him. Which always earns me a text telling me I’m the best in the world.
Then I always send him a midday text when I think of him or look over and catch a glimpse of him.
Nash: It’ll be better when I get to kiss your face, among other places.
Me: See you soon, then.
I open the phone app and go to my favorites, going down the list to my mother, pressing her name, and then putting it to my ear.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t my favorite daughter,” she answers, laughing, making me laugh.
“I’m your only daughter,” I point out. “You should have answered ‘if it isn’t my favorite child.’ That would have been better.”
“I’ll know for next time. How are you doing?”
“I’m good.” I look around the office and see Nash is sitting in the conference room on a video call with his brother. “I’m calling because I’ll be in New York next week,” I tell her of the plans I made less than five minutes ago when one of my clients reached out to me. “Are you going to be home?”
“I will be.” I can hear the smile in her voice. “We should do a dinner.”
“I’ll probably be home for a week, so we can do all the dinners.”
“So living in LA is agreeing with you?” she asks, and I take a deep inhale.
“So far, so good,” I answer her honestly.
“What’s that sigh about?” Of course she picked up on that.
“The weather is amazing.” I start with that. “Work is thriving. I’ve even gotten a couple more clients since I started here because of the show I went to in Vegas.”
“Um, Zoey…” She trails off. “How is Nash?”
I look down at my yellow pad in front of me. “He’s,” I start strong, and then my voice dips a bit, “amazing. He’s funny and smart and”—I smile—“thoughtful.”
“Why does it sound like you’re going to say but?” She laughs, and I lean back in my chair, my stomach flipping over back and forth, and my hands starting to get clammy.
“There is no but, that’s the thing.” I look over at Nash, seeing him laugh at something his brother says. “Like, I can’t pinpoint one thing that he has wrong with him.”
My mother bursts out laughing. “That’s a good thing,” she tries to tell me. “It’s more than good. It’s a great thing.”
“It’s weird, Mom,” I finally huff. “Like nothing, and I mean nothing, bothers me about him. Even if I want it to. He doesn’t leave his stuff lying around. He makes me matcha every single morning even though he fucking hates it. He’s considerate of me and always asks me what I want to do before telling me what he wants to do.” I hear how silly I sound.
“What is really bothering you?” she asks me the million-dollar question.
“He asked me to give him ninety days to fall in love with him.” My mother gasps at my confession. “I know, I know, but we had just gotten married.” I close my eyes and even I groan for how it sounds.
“And you’ve fallen in love with him in less than a month,” she points out.
“Well, no,” I counter, “but the fact is, when the ninety days is over, then what?” My stomach gets tight. “He hasn’t even brought it up. Like, what if I fall in love with him, and then he decides he’s not in love with me after the ninety days? Then what?”
“Zoey,” she says softly, “think about what you just said. Do you really think he would be doing all of this if he wasn’t in love with you already?”
“I don’t know,” I answer her honestly. “I know he must like me, and the sex is?—”
“Too much,” she quickly says. “I don’t need to know that part.” I laugh because I’m in my thirties, so she knows I have sex. Now that I’m married, I’m more than allowed to have all the sex, and trust me, I do.
“Mom, what happens after ninety days?” I ask her what I’ve been wanting to ask Nash for the past week. Ever since it dawned on me that I’ve fallen in love with him. Which makes no sense. Who falls in love with someone after a month?
“Why are you even putting a time limit on it if he’s not brought it up again?” she asks. “If in ninety days he doesn’t say anything, you don’t either.”
“So it’ll be the big elephant in the room no one talks about,” I say, shocked. “Immediately fucking no, Mom.”
“Then ask him where he is?” I gasp even more.
“And be the one who is like, so do you like me?” I shake my head. “That’s not an option either.”
“Heaven forbid your generation learns how to communicate without blowing everything out of proportion.”
I laugh loudly. “Oh, like my mother who tweeted my father to crash her ex’s wedding?”
“That wasn’t blowing anything out of proportion,” she fights back. “Anyway, I married him, so what does it matter how it started?”
I’m about to say something to her when a hand moves my hair over and then slides around the back of my neck. “We leave in ten.” Nash looks down at me with his bright blue eyes, mouthing it to me because I’m on the phone.
“It’s my mother,” I tell him, and he bends forward to talk into the phone.
“Hi, Zara,” he says into the phone.
“Tell him I say hello and ask him how he feels about you.” My mother laughs at herself.
“She says hello.” I leave out the rest of it. “Okay, Mom, got to go. I’ll see you next week. Give Dad a kiss for me.”
“Love you,” she says before hanging up, and I put my phone down.
“Is she coming here next week?” Nash asks, leaning back on the desk, and I shake my head.
“I’m going to New York.” I can see the surprise on his face. “Got a couple of meetings I have to have with clients, so I called and let her know.”
“Okay.” He stands up. “I’ll call my parents, and we can have a family dinner.”
“Wait, what?” I look up at him. “You’re going to come with me?”
“I’m not letting you go by yourself,” he replies, putting his hands in his pockets. “I have to go close my stuff. We have that dinner tonight.” I nod at him as he bends, and I raise my eyebrows.
“No kissing at the office.” I hold up my hand.
“You know they see me sucking your face the minute we leave this office.” He shakes his head and chuckles. “Be back.” I watch him walk away from me and go into his office before I turn and start to put away my own things. Ten minutes later, we walk out of the office, and sure enough, the minute we are outside, he pushes me against his car and proceeds to suck my face, and I love every single second of it.
I’m tucking my hair behind my ear when I watch him walk into the closet. “Damn,” he swears, looking at my reflection, “you look hot.” I take him in wearing one of his many black suits.
“You don’t look so bad yourself.” I smile at him in the mirror as his eyes move from mine and then down to my ass. “You done ogling me?” I turn to face him. “Is this okay?” I ask him, looking down at the sleeveless black dress with a low dip in the front, which has a lace underlay that matches the lace on the bottom part of the skirt with a deep slit. His eyes roam all the way up to the top, then all the way to the black slingbacks I paired with it.
“More than okay.” He doesn’t move from the door. “I would come over there, but if I do, I’m going to end up fucking you, and we aren’t going to this dinner.” I grin.
I look down, chuckling. “Then let’s go.” I slide my hand in his as we make our way over to the dinner.
Pulling up to the restaurant, the valet opens my door, and I step out, waiting for Nash to round the car. He stops beside me, kissing me chastely before sliding his hand in mine and walking into the event. “Try not to make everyone fall in love with you here,” he says over his shoulder. I want to say there is only one person I want to be in love with me, but I don’t because the minute he steps in, someone comes over to say hello to him. He introduces me as his wife to everyone, and even though he sees people he knows across the room, he never, ever leaves my side.
We’re walking across when a blond woman turns around from talking to a man. Her blond hair is perfectly curled to the side, and her red dress molds her body. Her eyes go big when she sees Nash beside me. Her face quickly goes from shock to a smirk. “Nash,” she purrs his name and I look over to see he smiles tightly. “I was hoping to see you here.” She comes over to him and leans in to kiss his cheek, but it’s too close to his mouth to be an accident. Staying glued to his side, she looks at him.
“Emmy,” he says her name and nothing else as he tries to step away from her. Her hand falls from his shoulder, but she makes sure to rub his arm all the way down to his hand that he quickly puts in his pocket.
“And who must this be?” she asks, looking over at me and smirking, taking me in from head to toe.
“This is my wife,” he states, pulling me closer to him, his hand slipping out of mine so he can wrap it around my waist. “Zoey.” I look over at him and smile, while Emmy’s eyes go straight to my hand to see my ring. “This is Emmy. We used to work together.”
I extend my hand to her. “Emmy, it’s a pleasure,” I say, and she shakes my hand.
“Nice to meet you,” she says, then ignores me. “Nash, call me. We obviously need to catch up.” It’s at that moment I realize what real jealousy really fucking feels like.
Nash doesn’t answer her. Instead, he nods and turns us away. “Should I guess that you guys dated?”
I stop and turn to him. “We went out a couple of times.” I nod at him. “Would you like something to drink?” he asks, not giving me more, and it’s not like I want to ask all the questions.
“I’m good, thank you.” I hold my purse in both hands as he leads me to our table. He pulls out the chair for me, and I sit. The meal is uneventful. Nash includes me in all the discussions, as always. His arm is around my chair as he rubs my arm with his thumb. “I’m going to go to the bar to get myself something to drink.”
“I’ll go for you.” He gets up halfway, and I put my hand on his cheek.
“No, this is your thing. Be the superstar you are.” I kiss his lips and turn to walk to the bar.
I zigzag through people until I’m standing in line, waiting for a drink. “So you’re the one,” someone says beside me and I look over to see Emmy standing there, a wineglass in her hand.
“Excuse me?” I pretend I didn’t hear her comment.
“The one who think she’s going to change him.” She shakes her head from side to side and then takes a drink of the wine. “You won’t be the first to try.”
Her words get to me, even though I pretend they don’t when I laugh at her remarks. “Maybe that’s where everyone else failed.” I raise my eyebrows. “I don’t want to change him.”
She stares at me, and if her eyes had daggers, I would be lying on the ground dead. “He’s going to get bored soon enough.” She tilts her head to the side, goading me.
“Is he?” I ask. She’s going to say something else, but she stops when she sees Nash put his arm around my waist.
“Hey, baby,” he says softly before he gives me a soft kiss, “can I have this dance?” His eyes never leave mine. He ignores Emmy, who is standing right there and acts like it’s just the two of us.
“Yes.” I put my hand in his as he leads me to the dance floor. He wraps his arm around my waist, pulling me closer, and my hand goes on his lapel.
“This is fun, isn’t it?” He just looks at me. “Your ex, my ex.”
He laughs. “Fun, fun, fun.” He turns me in a circle on the floor. “But none of them matter when I have you right where I want you.”
“Yeah, and where is that?” I ask him softly.
“Here.” He bends his head a bit. “Right here in my arms,” he declares right before he kisses me, and it’s not just a little soft kiss. No, it’s a wet, hard kiss, making no one mistake that I’m his, and more importantly, he’s mine. At least for one more night.