Chapter 25
“You stopped calling me Monroe,” Mallory blurted out when I pulled into my spot at Shadow, making me miss the gear shifter when I reached for it.
She’d been silent throughout the drive to the office.
But this silence hadn’t made my chest tighten with dread the way the past three months had.
This had been the kind of contemplative silence that followed heavy conversations like we’d had outside her condo.
Filled with looks that had alternated between faraway and considering as she’d slowly picked at the bagel I’d grabbed on my way to get her—her iced grassy drink sitting forgotten in the cupholder.
“What?” I asked as I finally put the car in park.
Tipping her head in my direction, she eyed me for a moment before glancing at the building. “You keep calling me Mallory. Why?”
“Does it bother you?” I asked instead and watched as a subtle blush crept into her cheeks.
“No. But it’s new.”
Acknowledgment rumbled in my chest as I reached out to brush a knuckle along the heat in her cheek, a smile breaking free when she smacked my hand away.
“Don’t start,” she warned, but the corner of her mouth was twitching with her own amusement.
“Didn’t say anything, Princess.”
Her mouth fell into a frown before her expression smoothed out into nothing. “Don’t call me that.”
My brows furrowed at the hushed plea.
Mallory had hated every name I’d tossed her way from day one. She’d warned me against every one too. But she’d never responded like that. Like it was more than just irritation for a nickname—like she was defeated by it.
“Okay,” I muttered, the word a soft vow. “I won’t.”
Blue eyes darted my way before snapping back to the building in front of us. “My brothers always called me that, using it to mock me whenever anything happened that proved I wasn’t as strong as them—which was always. Eventually, my dad started doing it too.”
Right.
I reached for her again, curling my fingers around her chin and turning her face toward me until she was staring at me with all those shields I’d come to know so well over the years.
“For the record, Princess Peach might need to be rescued every now and then, but she’s a fighter and can hold her own.
” Leaning closer to her, I searched her stare and lowered my voice.
“So, let them mock you. Let them doubt you because you’re a woman.
Let them underestimate you because of your size.
You’re still the first and only female SEAL.
You’re still the strongest, fiercest woman I know.
” I jerked my head toward the building and amended, “That any of us knows. You’ve taken down Rush. I can’t even claim that.”
“I can’t take you down,” she reminded me.
“But you try,” I said, my mouth lifting in a grin as I informed her, “I watched you train with Rush and Briggs for a solid week before training with you. I had an advantage.”
Betrayal flashed in her eyes before one of her hands shot out, but I caught her palm with my free hand before it could slam into my chest and leaned in to kiss her bottom lip, where it had fallen into a stunned O.
“As always, Peach, I’m happy to tell you, your dad is the worst,” I said as I released her. “So are your brothers.” Clicking her seatbelt to unlock it, I leaned back and did the same for mine, but had only gripped the handle of the door before adding, “Mrs. Gray,” like an answer.
When her stare shifted to me that time, it was wide with intrigue and question, all those shields having fallen away.
“That night was—and still mostly is—a black hole. But those words kept tearing through my thoughts like a memory, and I knew I’d had to have said them at some point.
” One of my shoulders lifted. “You don’t have to take my last name, but it felt wrong every time I called you Monroe over those three months when I could hear myself claiming you as mine. ”
“You called me Monroe in the meeting yesterday.”
And it felt wrong.
With a firm nod, I reminded her, “We go by last names at work.”
She studied me for long seconds before a soft hum rolled up her throat that didn’t give any indication to what she was thinking.
Grabbing her drink and the trash, she said, “We’re late,” before slipping out of the truck, leaving me sitting there, staring at the place she’d been and wondering if I’d ever get used to this new Mallory.
The one who showed every emotion as she readily gave more information than ever before, only to hold back the next minute.
But I’d take it.
I’d take her shields. I’d take her tears. I’d take the reflective silences. I’d take every piece of her she was willing to give me, and offer the same up to her.
Once I’d grabbed my coffee, I hurried out of my truck and after her, my gaze eagerly dipping over her the way it always did. Only now, she was my wife.
If only she knew how many times I’d gotten caught up in watching her just walk. Tall and fierce and daring anyone to so much as look at her the wrong way. Strength and warning coating her deceptively slim build, all while that unmatched beauty she didn’t seem to know she possessed drew everyone in.
The corner of my mouth twitched when she spared a glance at me as she swung open the front door of Shadow and sauntered in, her blue eyes narrowed with a challenge that I wanted to meet.
Jogging the last few steps, I grabbed the door before it could shut and nearly barreled her over when I slammed into her back.
A curse slipped free as I wrapped my arm around her waist and steadied us. “You okay?”
“I was just asking that,” Chloe said, snapping my attention to where the nerd was standing halfway around her desk, arms folded across her chest and glaring at me accusingly.
I wondered if Thatch knew his wife wasn’t always all sunshine and rainbows.
Just as a bemused huff started leaving me, Chloe bit out, “She’s clearly been crying. Why has she been crying, Hudson?”
A smile tugged at my mouth, fueled by irritation and surprise at this defensive Chloe. “Take a breath, Nerd,” I began just as Mallory said, “Not—no.”
“Stop looking at me like you’re about to throw one of your books at me,” I continued. “It isn’t what you’re thinking.”
“Right, no. I apparently just cry now,” Mallory muttered, sounding wholly embarrassed and irritated by the fact.
If I hadn’t been waiting for Chloe’s response, I wouldn’t have noticed the way her eyebrows shot up, her gaze quickly bouncing between Mallory’s stomach and my stare before falling to the floor.
But I had, and it had those suspicions and longings and denials storming through my veins as my hand instinctively curled tighter against Mallory.
She isn’t . . .
“But, uh . . . thanks for”—Mallory waved her drink-filled hand through the air as she slipped out of my hold and started toward the main part of the office—“you know . . . thanks.”
I stood there long after she’d disappeared around the wall separating the spaces, my mind racing as I thought about the changes in Mallory lately.
From the way she’d acted so out of character the past few months to how she’d broken down in front of me multiple times in the last twenty-four hours alone, when she’d never let me see her cry before.
“Hudson,” Chloe began, but I held up a slightly unsteady hand to stop her.
Swallowing thickly, I forced myself to look at my best friend’s wife and admitted, “I don’t know,” to her unspoken question.
She glanced in the direction of the main office, her head bobbing as she did.
“Right, well . . .”—she flashed one of those effortlessly bright smiles my way—“I was congratulating her because I now know about the two of you, but then I saw her eyes and, well . . .” Her nose scrunched up apologetically.
“Sorry. Seriously, I shouldn’t have assumed. ”
“It’s fine.”
“She just wasn’t answering Lainey’s or my texts,” Chloe rambled on as if she hadn’t heard me, “and when I noticed her eyes right before you came in, it made me think of what happened this weekend, and I assumed.” She gave a little shake of her head.
“Again, I shouldn’t have assumed, and I’m sorry.
But congratulations!” Her smile broadened as she bounced on her insanely high stilettos. “I really am so excited for y’all.”
The corner of my mouth lifted, but the action was weighted and distracted as my thoughts continuously pulled toward Mallory. “Thanks, Nerd,” I muttered.
But as soon as I stepped toward the office, Chloe grasped my forearm, her stare filled with concern and voice low. “I think Mallory might be—”
“I know, Chloe.”
Her concern deepened and she spared a quick glance to the side. “From what she said the other day, I don’t think she wants to be.”
My lips parted to ask what she’d been saying, only to shut because this was Mallory. I knew she wouldn’t want to be pregnant because I knew she didn’t want kids. We’d just had this conversation.
Fear and denial built into a lethal storm as I moved with purpose into the office and up to where my wife sat. Setting my things on her desk, I gripped her hand and pulled her out of her chair.
“Excuse you,” she snapped, trying to break out of my hold.
I pulled her closer and dropped my voice to a low murmur as I begged, “Five minutes.”
Her eyes widened meaningfully as she hissed, “We’re at work.”
A hushed laugh tumbled from me, the sound rough and ragged from the emotions coursing through me and just the thought of stealing away with her in the middle of the day. “And we’ll have boundaries here, but this can’t wait. Five minutes.”
She straightened her spine and lifted her chin defiantly. “Two.”
One of my brows tipped up in response. “You know I love fighting with you, Peach,” I began as I intertwined my fingers with hers and wrapped our joined hands around her back. “Keep this up, I’m going to forget about that whole boundaries at work thing I just mentioned.”
Her eyes flared and heat rushed to her cheeks before she managed to get both in check. “You’re wasting your five.”