18. Ford
FORDCHAPTER 18
T he slam of the door seemed to echo in my ears as I stood in the entryway of my apartment, wondering what the fuck had just happened.
I had no idea why Emzee had just run off like that, clearly pissed off at me and talking about future custody battles.
What was even more frustrating was that I’d thought we were finally on the same page.
After I got back to New York and spent some time alone trying to clear my head, I’d realized that I already knew exactly what I wanted.
It was the same thing I’d been wanting for a while— her .
I wanted to be with my best friend forever, for real.
No fake relationship, no fake wedding, no fake marriage.
I wanted us to build a life and a family together.
I was determined to make it happen, no matter what it took.
That’s what I’d been readying myself to tell her.
And instead I came home to…
that.
What was she so angry about?
I’d told her I’d need some time to myself, and that she should reach out when she returned to Brooklyn.
Had she been waiting for me to make the first move instead?
Was it a miscommunication that had gotten blown out of proportion?
Why was it always one step forward, two steps back with her lately?
It was like I couldn’t get off her shit list no matter how hard I tried.
Regardless, I wasn’t going to let another little tiff come between us.
It was time for me to lay it all out.
Spill my guts. Tell her how I really felt, and commit myself to her and the baby going forward.
After today, we’d only be stronger.
I had to go after her.
Just as I was about to run out the door, the floor creaked behind me.
I turned around, and what I saw stopped me in my tracks.
There it was. There was the problem.
Fucking Claudia. In some ridiculous pink lace getup with a garter belt and strappy things hanging off it.
She may as well have been naked for all it covered.
“Hello, lover,” she purred, crawling from the bedroom toward me on her hands and knees.
I knew she was trying to be seductive, but it had zero effect on me.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I demanded.
Emzee’s response—the cussing and the door slamming—made perfect sense now.
Claudia was on her knees now, her lower lip, which was stained with a deep red lipstick, stuck out in a pout.
“I’m here for you ,” she said.
“Funny, because I sure as hell didn’t invite you here,” I said, getting more irritated by the minute.
“How did you even get in?”
But even as I asked it, I had a pretty good idea.
“Your mother gave me a key,” Claudia said, confirming my suspicions.
“She thought it would be a sweet surprise for me to be waiting for you when you got home.”
Of course.
It all made sense now.
I should have known my mother was up to something when she had been so insistent that I make her a copy of my apartment key while I was in Chicago.
I had thought she was being way over the top, even for her, especially since my parents didn’t have a place in New York and rarely left Chicago, but now it was clear that she’d fully intended to give the key to Claudia all along.
“There’s nothing less sexy than my mom being involved with this,” I said.
Not that I had found anything sexy about my ex for a long time.
“Did she choose your outfit, too?”
“Oh, come on,” Claudia stood and walked down the hall toward me, grabbing my shirt and trying to pull me close to her.
I peeled her hands off me and put some distance between us.
Claudia pouted. “Tell me what you want, then. We used to communicate well, Ford.”
“Did we?”
She wasn’t entirely wrong.
We used to communicate well.
And we used to have a “good” relationship, the kind where we both had our wants and needs met.
But that’s because our wants and needs back then were shallow .
The whole relationship was shallow.
There’d never been much to communicate about beyond which parties we’d go to, where to take our next vacation, who to invite out to dinner at some place we’d all brag later about being able to secure a VIP reservation for.
I tried to remember what it had felt like to be with Claudia, if we’d ever talked about anything of substance, or discussed a future that involved something more important than which bougie neighborhood in Chicago we saw ourselves living in or how many figures we thought our salaries would be in ten years.
The only memory that stood out to me was how upsetting it was when things didn’t work out in the end, but now that I really thought about it, I couldn’t recapture that feeling.
Compared to how I felt about Emzee and our unborn child, everything I’d ever had with Claudia seemed dim and small.
I think some part of me had always felt that way—that Emzee was the center of my universe.
It just took me way too long to figure it out.
And now I’d have to make it clear to her as soon as fucking possible.
“You need to go,” I told Claudia.
“I have somewhere to be.”
She frowned.
“We don’t have to have sex,” she said.
“That was a bonus. You want this to be an appearance-only marriage? Fine with me.”
“Claudia—”
“Though that would be a shame,” she interrupted, lowering herself back to her knees in front of me.
“We did have some good times, didn’t we, Ford? All those sexy little encounters we had on our trips around the world? The times we’d sneak a quickie in the hotel hot tub or hurry back to our room to ravage each other after a night of drinking nothing but champagne?”
I almost laughed at the way she was talking about our sex life.
Because those anecdotes all seemed ridiculously boring now that she was going on about them.
And they paled in comparison to everything I’d done with Emzee.
If my wife was all soft curves and sweet gasps and hot dirty talk, then being with Claudia was like fucking a silicone sex doll.
All painted up and flashy, but with no life or emotion underneath.
Sex with Emzee? Mind-blowing.
Every time.
Screwing her on the roof of that art gallery for one, when anyone could have caught us.
Or the time we’d hate-fucked on the desk I’d bought with Claudia in Paris.
Or the night Em had seduced me to try to get me to sign the divorce papers, ramming her from behind up against the sliding glass doors, the city lights of Manhattan glowing at us across the river.
All of it was hotter than anything Claudia and I had ever done.
Hotter than anything I’d ever even imagined.
Unfortunately, Claudia was still talking.
I got the feeling that a satisfying sex life wasn’t high on her list of priorities for a good marriage.
“We have so much in common,” she was saying.
“And we have history. Our lives are already so intermingled—our parents are friends, we have the same social circle—getting married would make everyone happy. And if we combine our personal and professional networks, we’ll be unstoppable. Plus you know how well we work together.”
I didn’t want to listen, but she was making some valid points.
Our relationship hadn’t been full of the same heat and passion I had with Emzee, but it had also been free of the nonstop drama.
Em and I fought constantly, and even though we usually made up in a spectacularly hot fashion, it was exhausting.
When Claudia and I fought, which was rarely, all I had to do was buy her some jewelry that she could wear and show off to her friends, and all would be forgiven.
Claudia was still listing all the pros our marriage would have: “We both know how to be important, we’re ambitious, we have compatible goals, we’ve already agreed on where we’ll live and what we’ll do until we retire. Come on, Ford, how does this not make sense to you?”
It did make sense.
Our families got along great—and admittedly, it would be nice not having to fight with my parents all the time because I was married to someone they didn’t like.
And they loved Claudia.
If I married her, I’d probably earn enough Good Son points to last the rest of my life.
They might even trust me to completely take over Malone Real Estate Holdings.
With Claudia on my arm, I’d be able to go anywhere, do anything I wanted.
Every opportunity I desired would be available to me.
We’d be the envy of Chicago.
“Come on, Ford,” Claudia begged, reaching her hands out to me.
“Say yes.”
I imagined—for a second—what my life would be like if I submitted to the future that my parents and Claudia wanted for me.
How much easier it would be to let Emzee walk out of my life.
I didn’t have to chase after her.
I could let the divorce be finalized and see my baby on weekends and during the summer.
It would certainly make my parents happy.
But that future I imagined was fleeting, because when I thought about a life without Emzee, I ached.
Being with Claudia was easy.
There were no blow-ups.
But that also meant there were no challenges to be had.
No rewards. No sense that we were pushing each other to greater heights, that the sum of us together was greater than what we could be separately.
Those were all things I had with Emzee.
Emzee who was also my best friend.
I didn’t want to marry Claudia and go back to the life I used to have.
I needed the passion I had with Emzee, and if that came with drama, then so be it.
I had to make things right.
Starting with kicking Claudia out of my life for good.
She was still kneeling on the floor, arms reaching toward me.
The expression on her face indicated that she thought she’d won.
That she’d managed to convince me we belonged together.
“We’re done,” I told her.
“You need to leave.”
Her mouth dropped open.
“What?”
Claudia never did know how to take no for an answer.
If I was going to get rid of her, I knew I had to be firm.
There had to be no question that whatever had existed between us was over.
For good.
“Whatever my mother tells you, this isn’t happening,” I said.
“We’re not getting back together and we’re not getting married. It’s over. It’s been over for a long time.”
I considered telling her that Emzee was pregnant—that there was now a baby in the equation.
Because I knew for a fact that Claudia would die before she’d volunteer to be a stepmother.
But I didn’t want to use my child like that.
“I’ve moved on with my life,” I add.
“It’s time for you to move on with yours.”
Claudia finally stood up, her hands on her hips.
“You can’t be serious. You’re not really going to choose her over me. I mean, come on. Look at me.”
I did.
I gave her a long, hard look.
“I’ve already chosen her,” I said.
“And I’ll always choose her. What’s it going to take to get through to you? I don’t want you.”
The predatory gleam seemed to go out of her eyes, her shoulders slumping just a little.
“You’re going to regret this,” she practically spit at me, eyes narrowing.
I was tired of talking about it.
I’d told her in every way I could think of that we were through.
I was done, and I wanted her gone.
I could see into my bedroom behind her, and I spotted her suitcase, open on the floor, her clothes spilling out onto the rug.
I stalked past her, into the room, and started shoving her things back inside.
“What are you doing?” Claudia said, following me.
It finally seemed to occur to her that I was actually serious.
That I wanted her to leave.
“I’m throwing you out,” I said, zipping the suitcase and picking it up.
“And I want my key back before you leave.”
She crossed her arms stubbornly, but I scanned the room and saw a key sitting on my dresser.
Claudia saw me notice it, but I grabbed it before she could and shoved it into my pocket.
“I’m not leaving,” she said, practically stamping her feet.
“Yes, you are,” I told her and grabbed her arm.
I didn’t care that she wasn’t wearing clothes, that her whole damn body was on display for anyone who might pass by.
I dragged her out of my bedroom, one hand on her arm, the other holding her suitcase, and dumped her into the hallway.
Then I dropped her bag and shut the door to my apartment behind me.
As I locked it, I heard a loud squeal of annoyance from the hallway.
I ignored it.
Claudia must have finally understood what I was telling her, because the next time I popped my head out into the hallway, it was empty.
She was gone.
I’d never felt better.