Chapter Thirty-One Alex
A soft pillow under my head. A masculine scent lingering on the sheets. Warm, strong hands kneading the muscles of my lower back. A perfect way to wake up. Best of all, my alarm hasn’t gone off yet, which means I get to linger in this moment a little longer.
As much as I’m enjoying the massage, I’d prefer to snuggle with Euan for a few more minutes before I’m forced to start my day. But when I try to reach for him, my arm stops short, tension holding it in place.
Peeling one eye open, I raise my head enough to see the problem. “Euan?”
He hums in acknowledgement, his skilled hands not even pausing in their work.
“Why am I handcuffed to the bed at six in the morning.”
I don’t think I’m up for morning sex. At least, not the same level of intensity as last night. I’ll never get any work done today if I’m too focused on my well-used ass.
“Self-preservation,” he replies.
I frown and look over my shoulder at him.
Euan’s lips quirk as he explains, “You startle too easily.” Then he taps his jaw on the spot where I accidentally headbutted him the last time we woke up together.
Groaning, I drop my head back onto the pillow. “Since I’m awake now, you can uncuff me.”
“A shame, you really do look so pretty when you’re tied up.” He leans forward and quickly snaps the cuffs open, setting them on my nightstand.
As soon as my arms are free, I wrap them around him and tug him back down on the bed, burying my head against his shoulder. That’s better.
Euan hugs me back and rests his chin on my head. Snuggled close, I slowly start to drift back to sleep—
Beep! Beep! Beep!
I tense, my grip on Euan tightening. “Not flailing,” I grumble.
He chuckles but otherwise doesn’t acknowledge my statement. “You need to go to work.”
“Don’t wanna work. Wanna stay in bed all day.”
“We also have to meet with the lawyers today.”
Right. The lawyers. Because we’re getting an annulment.
Sighing, I untangle myself from Euan’s arms and finally turn off the screeching alarm. This is a good thing, I remind myself as I get ready for work. We both want the annulment.
This week with Euan has been fun, but the sooner we untangle this weird knot of lust and legal issues, the better.
So why does it feel like the beginning of the end?
Yesterday, every minute of work dragged. It was like someone coated time in molasses and stuck it in the freezer.
Today, everything has thawed, and time is pouring through my fingers, slipping away from me. One minute I’m running the Friday morning staff meeting, the next I’m gathering up my things and checking on my subordinates one last time before I leave for the afternoon.
“Good luck!” Felix calls.
My brow furrows in confusion. Good luck … getting an annulment?
Jasmine gives me two thumbs up and a wide grin. “I’m sure she’ll say yes!”
Shit. I forgot about them inventing an explanation for my absence.
They both think I’m taking the afternoon off to prepare to propose marriage when I’m really trying to undo one.
I don’t really have the time or desire to explain why I’m taking the afternoon off, so I pretend not to hear them and close the door firmly behind me.
Euan is waiting for me at the front of my apartment complex. It might be weird for us to drive to our annulment together, but I don’t see the point in taking two cars.
“How’s your day going?” I ask as he settles into the passenger seat.
On the drive over, he tells me about one of his current projects and the trouble he ran into. Even though he’s complaining, the atmosphere in the car is light, comfortable. All the pressure slowly closing in on me today has shifted away now that we’re together again.
We keep chatting all the way into the office. As we walk, I gravitate closer to Euan until our shoulders brush against each other. It feels so natural to be with him like this that I almost forget the reason we’re here.
The receptionist is all too happy to remind us. “Both of your attorneys have already arrived,” she says. “They’re waiting for you in the conference room down the hall.” Then she points toward the same hallway we hid in last time we were here.
We thank her and head that way. A few feet away from the desk, Euan leans down and whispers in my ear, “At least they won’t catch us in another compromising position.”
A blush heats my cheeks and I scowl at him. “We weren’t actually doing anything wrong.”
He gives a noncommittal hum.
“It just looked like we were,” I insist as I grab the handle and tug the conference room door open. “It’s not like we were—”
The sounds hit me first—a cut off moan; the wetness of mouths colliding; the clattering of a chair falling to the floor; clothes sliding against a smooth surface. It takes another second for my brain to register the rest of the scene.
One of Theresa’s hands is threaded through Richard’s hair, tufts of it poking through her fingers.
The other is wrapped up in his tie, dragging him closer.
Not that he needs any encouragement. His right hand is splayed across her thigh, fingertips pushing up the edges of her skirt.
His other hand is out of view, but I hope to god he’s keeping things PG-13.
The passion in the kiss is almost as shocking as the scene itself. Although I’d never call Theresa a ‘cold fish’, we never kissed like that. Our kisses were usually sweet and careful. Restrained. Like we were both afraid of letting go.
Or maybe we just didn’t want to.
Theresa and Richard kiss with aggression, holding nothing back. This is an argument they’re both desperate to win, even if it consumes them.
Euan clears his throat.
Theresa rips her mouth away from Richard’s with a harsh gasp. Her lips are puffy and shiny with saliva, lipstick smeared toward her cheek. Her eyes are wide and dark, a mix of confusion and desire.
I’ve never seen her so small and vulnerable. Like her whole world has just been ripped away.
It takes a few seconds for her to focus on me, but once she does, a sharp knife of calculation cuts through the fog. “Alexander.” Any traces of vulnerability have been neatly sliced away.
“Are we interrupting something?” Euan asks. His tone is cold, but the hand he places on my lower back is warm and comforting. I want to lean into it—lean into him, let him hold me up.
Theresa catches the gesture, her whole face twitching with displeasure. “Richard, I need to speak with my client privately.”
“Theresa,” he begins, but she glares at him sharply. The effect is slightly diminished with her lips still swollen from his kiss.
A long moment passes where they just glare at each, their earlier passion taking on a harder edge as their wills collide.
Finally, her shoulders slump and she says, “Please.”
He sighs and untangles himself from her. When he yanks his tie out of her hand, she looks at her own closed fist, startled, as if she didn’t realize how tightly she was holding on to him.
“Mr. Blair,” Richard says, fixing his tie as he steps forward. “Why don’t we move to my office?”
Euan’s fingers flex on my back, and I look up in time to see a muscle flick in his jaw. His voice remains steady as he says, “I’m sure you’ll understand, Mr. Beiler, when I say that Alex and I will both be seeking other representation.”
“Which is something we all need to discuss separately and in private,” Richard replies.
Euan looks down at me, and though he doesn’t say anything, I can read the concern in his eyes: do you want me to stay?
Part of me is screaming: stay with me, don’t leave me, I need you, I need you, I need you.
But I know that I need to do this on my own. There can be no excuses, no loopholes, no one else’s influence. No one else can absorb the impact or take the blame. This conversation is just between Theresa and me.
I smile softly at Euan and hope I’m not lying when I say, “I’ll be fine.” Then I step into the room, away from him. My back feels so cold and exposed without his hand pressed against it.
Richard steps past me without really looking at me, closing the door on his way out.
I hear his muffled voice as he says something else to Euan, then their departing footsteps.
As Euan gets further away, Theresa’s presence seems to overtake the room, making me uncomfortably aware of every small movement.
Was being near her always this suffocating? Or am I only noticing it now because I have someone new to compare her to? This whole week, Euan has been a breath of fresh air, filling my lungs after struggling for so long.
The sex has been a great new adventure, but more importantly, I want to linger in the quiet moments with him.
No matter how complicated and strange our relationship is, it’s easy to be with him.
From the moment we met, everything clicked into place.
Even when I think we’re faltering, he provides a steadying hand.
It was never easy with Theresa. I was always on edge, wanting to make everything perfect for her, wanting to maintain the image of her sweet, considerate boyfriend.
I’d thought the anxiety would go away once the newness wore off, but it never really did.
Even the proposal ended up being more about meeting expectations than taking the next step toward a happy future.
“Well?” she demands. “Don’t you have anything to say?”
I stare back at her for a long moment, then take a deep breath and say, “We’re done.” Maybe it really is that simple.
“Done?” she repeats. “That’s it? I don’t even get to explain myself, we’re just done?”
Or maybe not. “Why should I need an explanation? We aren’t together anymore; you can kiss or fuck whoever you want.” The scene was shocking at first, but it didn’t even compare to everything Euan and I have done together.
“Don’t you feel anything?” she asks, her voice breaking on the last word. “We were supposed to get married, and you just left me for some stranger! And now you find me kissing another man, and you don’t even ask why?”
I stare at her, baffled. “Supposed to get married? You didn’t even accept the proposal! But you know who did? Euan. Yeah, we were drunk and joking around, but he accepted my proposal like it meant something. Like I meant something to him!”
Our drunken ramblings come back to me, Euan’s soft, heartbroken: I just want to matter to someone.
And my reply, before I ever knew how true the words would be: You matter to me.
Because Euan does matter to me. He has been so fucking vital to my healing over the past week—to exploring new parts of myself that I’d lost or never knew were there—that I can’t even imagine where I would be right now without him.
“We were together for a year and a half, Alex, and you think you don’t mean something to me? I love you!” The words are more angry than passionate, like she’s trying to pin me in place with them, keep me trapped like some scientific specimen.
“Do you? Or do you just love the things I did for you? Making all the decisions because you were too tired. Adjusting my life to fit your schedule. Rearranging my apartment for your comfort.”
Hurt flashes across her face, mixing with her anger like baking soda and vinegar, only making things more volatile.
“I didn’t know our relationship was such a burden to you.
You chose to do those things; I never asked you to.
If I’d known you were going to compile them in some mental ledger, expecting me to repay you for every small kindness, I wouldn’t have accepted. ”
“It’s not about you repaying me! I’m not keeping silent score, but sometimes …”
Memories from the last few days fill my head. Euan making breakfast in the morning without me asking. Helping with the dishes after dinner. His attentive aftercare, cleaning me up and snuggling me close. Waking up to him massaging my worn-out muscles. “I want to be taken care of, too.”
Theresa's lips tremble slightly as she glares at me. “I’m not going to become my mother, working a full-time job at the office and then coming home to a full-time job of taking care of her husband.”
I know she’s picturing a useless man sitting on his ass while she does all the household chores, and the assumption frustrates me further. “I’m not asking you to! I just want someone who puts in the same effort I do.”
A partnership, Euan’s voice says in my head, perfectly summing up my thoughts.
“I put effort into our relationship,” she says, “but god forbid I want a couple of quiet weekends where no one is demanding one hundred and ten percent from me.”
Theresa could probably argue for hours over semantics and ‘who works harder’, but I don’t want to waste any more energy on her.
“I don’t care what happens with you and Richard.
You can dump him again, or you can ride off into the sunset together.
It has nothing to do with me. You and I are not getting back together. ”
Her lips purse in a thin line. I expect her to argue further, but she just says, “I’ll come pick up my things tonight.”
And give her time to organize her closing arguments? Absolutely not. “Don’t bother. I’ll mail them to you.” I don’t wait for her response as I step into the hall, closing the door firmly between us.
When we first broke up, I felt a weight disappear from my shoulders, finally giving me a chance to breathe. Now, I feel almost too light, like I’ll float away if someone doesn’t catch me.
Where’s Euan? If anyone can ground me, it’s him.
He’s not in the hallway or the lobby. He wouldn’t have completely left without me, so my next guess is Richard’s office, but the door is closed. I can’t tell if he’s inside, or if Richard is already meeting with another client.
My phone buzzes and I sigh in relief, assuming it’s Euan. But when I look at the Caller ID, a different name flashes across the screen. Why is the County Clerk’s office calling me?