CHAPTER SIX
(Two Months Later)
I am calm and centered.
I am calm and centered.…
I stood at the front of the elementary school waiting for the morning drop-offs and greetings with the parents.
I should be in a wonderful mood. This was the first day back from winter break, and I was excited to see my students. But deep down, I was seething.
Seth was kind enough to inform me this morning, right before I walked out the door for work, that my office—the office he’d promised me and that we’d been renovating for months—will no longer be my office. Because his mistress needed a place to stay while her apartment was undergoing remodeling.
I wanted to scream, to lash out, and for the first time in my life, I wanted to slap my husband.
I wasn’t a violent person. I’d never laid a hand on another human being in my entire life. But in that moment, I saw red, and I envisioned myself slapping the ever-loving shit out of him.
Plus, we had rules in place for this open marriage thing, so no one—i.e., me—would get their feelings hurt. And one of those rules was that we never brought anyone we were dating into our marital home. Yet, here he was, changing the rules to suit his own selfish needs. Again!
I hadn’t even pulled out of the driveway this morning when Lacey’s car pulled up, and Seth rushed outside to help her with her suitcases.
The suddenness of her appearance made it very clear that he had already given the go-ahead for her to move in, without discussing it with me first. And once again, my plans had to be put on pause, and Seth got to have his cake and eat it, too.
A part of me hoped he’d choke.
I’d figured out pretty early that his reason for asking for an open marriage was so that he could bang his assistant on the regular without judgment or repercussions.
Heck, maybe they’d been fucking long before he’d even asked for the open marriage.
It was entirely possible. They worked together and were together for long periods.
Sure, he dated other women as well—he made a production out of it whenever he was going on a date with someone new—but he always seemed to circle back to her.
The irony wasn’t lost on me, and I found myself questioning his reasons for this open marriage. Well, questioning it more than I did before.
What was my purpose in this marriage? If him fucking around, then going back to Lacey each time as a steady partner, what was my purpose? Why not just divorce me and marry Lacey? Why bring up an open marriage in the first place? Did he just want to see me suffer? Because I was.
I shook my head.
What was I saying?
Happy thoughts, Melodie. Think happy thoughts.
My little ones were on their way, and they needed a happy Miss Melodie. Not this sulking, brooding version of her who wished she could breathe fire.
Oh, but if only I could.
The children and the parents started trickling in then, and I greeted each kindergartener with a high five and a hug before ushering them through the door to my classroom, where my teaching assistant, Emma, was waiting to get them settled, while I spent a few moments responding to the parents’ wishes and concerns.
“Miss Melodie! Miss Melodie!” called a cheerful little voice, followed by a swiftly moving toddler.
Orla launched herself at me mid-sprint, and I caught her in a hug, twirling her around in circles as she giggled.
Orla was relatively new to my class. She’d started at the school only two months before the last semester went on break, and was still adjusting to her classmates and her new surroundings.
Despite that, she was a joy to have in my class.
She reminded me of the Disney princess Merida, right down to the tangled mess of red curls and the adorable freckles to match.
“Orla,” came an exasperated voice from behind me. “I told you not to run off like that.”
I froze.
I knew that voice. I spent nearly five hours in a bar two months ago talking to that voice. That voice visited me in my dreams, calling me a good girl and begging me to come on his fingers.
“I’m sorry, Miss. She knows better,” said that sweet lilt of an Irish accent, and a shiver ran down my spine.
Slowly, ever so slowly, I turned to meet the eyes of the man who’d been starring in my lust-filled dreams for weeks now.
Sparkling green eyes met mine, then widened with recognition. “It’s you,” he mumbled softly, as though he wasn’t quite sure he was seeing things correctly.
“Declan… I mean, Mr. McKenna,” I said slowly, trying hard not to trip over my words.
He frowned, looking confused. “Mr. McKenna?”
I cleared my throat and canted my head in the direction of his is daughter. Who, by the way, still clung to me like a red-headed koala.
I was trying to be respectful by addressing him appropriately, but he didn’t seem to be catching on.
God, his daughter.
Now that my mind supplied it, I could see it clearly.
They had the same red hair, adorable freckles, and bright green eyes. They even had the same button nose and deeply carved cupid’s bow.
They were carbon copies of each other, and it was kind of adorable.
I cleared my throat, trying to suppress the overwhelming emotions coursing through me.
“Yes,” I said stiffly. “Good morning. It’s lovely to see you again. Do you have any wishes or concerns about Orla’s development that you’d like to mention at this time?”
He frowned some more. “Melodie… why are you acting weird? And why haven’t you called me?”
Orla, seemingly done with being a koala, slid down my body until her feet were on the ground, then she proceeded to clutch at my hand, swinging it gently back and forth.
Declan took one step forward, then stopped when I cleared my throat for the third time, and canted my head in Orla’s direction again.
“Seriously, Mel,” he said in a hushed tone. “Why didn’t you call me? I was really looking forward to hearing from you. I was hoping there was a chance we could get to know each other better.”
Mel?
My cheeks warmed at the ease with which he’d shortened my name, like he’d done so a thousand times before.
Then his words finally clicked, and I stiffened. Get to know each other better? He lied to me. He told me he didn’t have kids. Yet here was the evidence of his dishonesty, clinging to my arm.
I must have made some kind of noise, because Orla giggled.
“Uncle Declan, Miss Melodie’s face is turning red. You should make her soup like you do for me when I get sick, and my face turns red.”
“Oh, no, honey. I’m not sick, I’m just…” Uncle?
Did she just call him uncle? Now that I thought about it, Orla’s last name was Smith.
Though that didn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things.
Times have changed. She could have been given her mother’s surname.
Still, Uncle? He was her uncle, not her father?
“... I’m just so happy to see my little ones today.
” I ruffled her hair, and she giggled again.
Then I crouched down to her eye level. “Hey, honey, why don’t you go inside so Miss Emma can get you settled, huh?
I’ll be right in. I just need to say goodbye to your… uncle.”
She perked up. “Okay. Bye, Uncle!” she said cheerfully, and sprinted for the classroom.
As soon as the door closed behind her, I slowly rose to my feet and took in the man in front of me.
He had a pink lunch bag with an anxious-looking unicorn on the front, clutched securely in one hand. And despite the odd accessory, he looked very much like the Declan I’d met in the bar all those weeks ago; tall and broad and as confident as ever.
He wore tan-colored pants and a maroon long-sleeved shirt that hid his forearms and those mouthwatering tattoos.
And a part of me wanted to demand he roll his sleeves up so I could get an eyeful, or at the very least, check if they were still there.
I was drunk when I first laid eyes on him, after all.
For all I knew, I could have made up the tattoos in my mind.
His scent, though, a combination of spice and cedar, had me wanting to roll over like a cat and show him my belly… Or other parts of me.
Ugh!
What was I doing? I was about to walk into a room of five-year-olds, and here I was getting all hot and bothered.
Giving myself a silent scolding, I lifted my chin and gestured at the lunch bag that was undoubtedly Orla’s.
“Nice drip,” I said in as nonchalant a tone as I could muster.
Following the direction of my gaze, he looked down, seeming to have forgotten about the bag he was holding.
He smiled then, and carefully handed it to me, our fingers brushing with the exchange.
A jolt of desire zipped up my arm and down my spine, at the remembered feel of those long, skillful fingers on me—in me. And I squeezed my legs together at the sudden ache in my center.
Whoa, calm down, girl.
“So, you’re Orla’s teacher,” he said carefully.
“And you’re her uncle.”
Something in my tone must have given away more than I’d intended, because he frowned, then said cautiously. “Yes, she is. She’s my twin sister, Cassidy’s daughter.”
Cassidy? As in, the woman who’d called him while we were at the bar?
Wait… his twin sister?
I heard the words but had a hard time processing them. Declan and I had talked for hours in that bar, and not once had he mentioned having a sister, let alone a twin.
I frowned, gazing up at him with fire in my eyes. If he was lying to me, I swear to God, I would find a way to breathe that fire I was thinking about earlier.
“You never mentioned a sister,” I said pointedly. “And you especially did not mention having a twin.”
Grimacing, he rubbed the back of his neck, then said sheepishly, “Yeah, that… that was on purpose.”
I lifted a questioning brow.
He sighed and dropped his hand. “Look, I never told you I had a twin because… well, once people find out, I’m no longer just Declan.
Suddenly, I’m one half of a unit, and it gets really annoying after a while.
Cassidy feels the same way, too. We love each other, and she’s my best friend.
But she hardly ever mentions me in casual conversation, if at all.
It’s only after people see us together that they realize we’re identical twins.
And I do mean identical. She’s almost as tall as I am.
I would have told you about her eventually.
Hence, the reason I left you my number. I wanted us to stay in touch. ”
He was rambling now, and it was kind of cute.
I cleared my throat, feeling a little less peeved. “So, that night at the bar, when you ran out on me, what was that about?”
He sighed, his shoulders visibly relaxing. “It’s a long story, and I’d really love to tell you about it.” He perked up then, his green eyes growing brighter. “How about dinner tonight? We can pick up where we left off, and I can explain why I had to run out on you.”
I squinted up at him, unsure if I’d heard him right.
Had he just asked me out? On a date? And did I want to go?
I mean, of course I did. I liked Declan.
He was kind and surprisingly easy to talk to.
But could I really do this? Could I really go out on a date with someone who wasn’t my husband?
Could I actively partake in this open marriage?
Why the hell not? It was just dinner. It wasn’t like Declan, and I would be fucking like bunnies all night. Although… No, Melodie. This was just dinner. Nothing more, nothing less. We would eat and talk.
I took way too long to answer, and Declan’s face fell. “I’m sorry. That was… too forward of me. Forgive me. I just thought—”
“I’d love to,” I said, cutting him off.
He froze. “Really?”
Smiling, I nodded. “Yeah, why not?”
And it was as if someone had turned up the sun. Declan beamed, his bright smile growing impossibly wide.
“Thank you,” he said softly. And the sincerity in his tone, as though my simply agreeing to have dinner with him was the most precious gift I could have ever given him, had me returning his smile with equal enthusiasm.
The thought of actually being in his presence again made my insides warm.
We exchanged numbers, and I fumbled through an apology for throwing his note away—which I’d promised to explain at dinner—then said our goodbyes.
As I approached my classroom, mentally preparing to slip into my educator persona, my phone chimed with a text.
Declan: I’m really looking forward to seeing you this evening, darling.