Chapter 21
Hayes
I jolted awake to a door slamming. Apparently, the sound of Lewis waking up gave me a horror movie jump scare. Adrenaline rushed through my veins as eight hours of blissfully deep sleep went right down the drain.
A heavy weight had settled on my arm, cutting off the blood flow. I peered through sleep-laden lids to find Catherine facing away from me on her side, using my bicep as a pillow.
She was still sound asleep.
I wondered if she always slept like that—deep and dead to the world—or if she was just exceptionally tired after yesterday.
The warmth radiating from her back tried its best to lull me back to sleep, but the startling panic hadn’t subsided.
It grew like a flash flood, beginning as a trickle, but quickly rushing through me in a destructive torrent.
I needed to get up. To get out.
Slowly, I eased my arm out from under her head and paused to make sure she didn’t stir.
Catherine’s soft snores were the signal that the coast was clear.
My fingers tingled as blood rushed back into my hand.
The mattress was big enough that she wasn’t jostled as I eased out of bed.
After a minute of waiting by the door with my heart in my throat as I made sure the hallway was quiet and empty, I slipped out, silently closed the door, and darted into my room.
It felt like I could finally breathe when my door closed behind me. The steel knots of tension began to loosen once I was back in my own space. It wasn’t Catherine that had me coiled tighter than a spring, though the consummation of our marriage had complicated things.
It was me.
It was deviating from the plan.
Last night wasn’t supposed to happen. Catherine and I were supposed to say goodnight after the wedding and go to our separate rooms. I would have had time to decompress, alone, after keeping my mask on for the hundred people who had flocked to the estate for the wedding.
All throughout our wedding day, I had played the part the way I did every day. My routine wasn’t supposed to be messed up.
Last night had been my breaking point. I had been lusting after Catherine in the weeks leading up to the wedding, and I had ignored it.
I hadn’t even jerked off to the thought of her. Frankly, I hadn’t jerked off at all. All the changes around the estate after Granddad died had put my carnal urges in a sealed vault that was tucked in a distant corner of my mind.
But something about saying “I do,” slipping a ring on Catherine’s finger, and kissing her had unlocked that vault and spread its contents across my mind for review.
I had been on edge after the wedding, stressed and exhausted after playing the part of “Hayes Wilder.” But while I was watching her jump on the bed, hearing her say my name like I was fucking her, I couldn’t keep denying how much I wanted her.
I certainly couldn’t deny how fucking good it felt to finally let off some steam.
Usually, sleeping beside a woman, or even in the same room, meant I lay awake all night. Even with my ex, who I had been with for years, sleep was hard to come by.
Feeling the weight of Catherine against my chest as she drifted off to sleep had dragged me into a slumber with her. That kind of comfortable familiarity with another person terrified me.
But today was a new day full of new anxieties and more things to overthink.
Lucky me.
Most of those anxieties centered around the fact that I had sex with my wife. That definitely wasn’t part of the plan.
I closed the en suite door behind me, then ran through the morning routine of shit, shower, and shave. But instead of shaving clean, I left a neat shadow.
The office thought I was taking a long weekend because of my wedding. Truthfully, I just needed a mental health day today to decompress. I’d shave clean before I had to be seen by clients.
I wrapped a towel around my hips, made sure the sink was clean of any stray hairs before opening the bathroom door, then froze.
Catherine was sitting on my bed.
My gaze immediately went to the orange prescription bottles on the nightstand, even though her eyes were on me.
“What are you doing?” I snapped.
Catherine clutched the edges of her robe, holding it closed like she was trying to hide from me. Her hair was mussed from the night before, but she still looked just as beautiful as when she had been all done up.
“You left,” she said softly.
I glanced at the bedside clock and mentally willed those fucking pill bottles to disappear. “I needed to get started with the day.”
Her eyes fell away from me and dropped to the floor. “Right.”
Dammit. I’m screwing this up already. “Cath—”
“I should get dressed and see if Hallie needs help with brunch,” Catherine said as she stood and headed for the door.
“Catherine.”
But she had already closed it behind her. Footsteps faded and I heard the faint closing of her door.
Great.
I mentally flogged myself as I headed for those damn pills.
I dumped one from each bottle into my hand and dry swallowed them down.
It wasn’t that I was ashamed that I needed them, I just didn’t want Catherine to know how much I depended on them to feel like myself or how it felt like I became a different person entirely when refills were delayed.
Fine, maybe I was a little ashamed.
I liked my private business to be just that. Private. It had been a long time since I’d had to explain that part of my life to someone. I certainly hadn’t planned on today being that day.
This was why I didn’t like sharing my space.
I didn’t like sleepovers. My one relationship that had turned into the two of us living together and her wearing a very pricey diamond ring began and ended with me always waking up an hour early to take my medications, and then hiding the prescription bottles before she was ever awake.
I threw on a shirt and a pair of jeans and had just made it down the stairs when a strong hand grabbed my arm and dragged me into the pantry.
“What did you do?!” Hallie hissed as the pantry door shut behind us.
“What do you mean?” I asked as I pawed around the canisters of oatmeal, grits, and dry cereal.
Hallie jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “You and Cath. What the hell happened last night?”
There was no way she could have heard us, right? There was a whole mansion between her wing and mine.
“Nothing happened,” I lied as I grabbed the Frosted Flakes.
“Oh no. Not you too,” Hallie snapped as she snatched the cereal canister from my hand.
“What are you talking about?”
Hallie huffed. “It’s Zach’s first day of summer break, you two just got married, and I was going to make a nice big brunch for everyone.
But my kid won’t come out of his room and he’s too old for me to carry him out like when he was a toddler, and Catherine nearly knocked me over with how fast she ran out of the house this morning.
At this rate I’m calling Warren Grey to join me.
He seems like he’d be more pleasant company than you lot.
I’ve made breakfast, and dammit, someone’s gonna eat it. ”
Great. Now she was mad at me too.
I braced my hands on the edge of the countertop. “Is moonshine a breakfast food?”
“According to Walt? Yes. According to the food pyramid or plate or whatever they’re doing these days, no.” Hallie sighed. “Wanna tell me what happened?”
“Not particularly,” I said as I grabbed a picnic basket from a cupboard. Considering I saw both of Catherine’s cars out the window when I came down the stairs, I had an inkling of where she had disappeared to.
“Does it have to do with Catherine?” Hallie asked as she snatched the picnic basket from me and waltzed into the kitchen with it.
“Yes.”
Hallie began to stuff the basket full of diced fruit, quiche, and cherry coffee cake. “Am I going to kill you for it?”
“Possibly.”
She handed over the basket. “Then go apologize so I don’t have to dig a Hayes-sized hole. You know how hard red clay is to shovel up, and I’m still wiped from dancing last night.”
I glanced over my shoulder before heading out the door. “Thanks, Hal.”
—
My boots echoed with each step as I walked through the stables to the stairs that led up to the loft. Maisey ker-thunked against her stall in a tornado of excitement at the prospect of attention and food.
She flopped her head over the stall door, nibbled the air in the direction of the picnic basket, then huffed when I passed her by.
The barn cat hopped off Elvis’s head and followed me up the stairs.
He stopped midway, looked at Maisey, and shot a taunting smile at her.
My hunch was confirmed the moment I set foot inside the loft.
The barn cat weaved around my ankles as I kept a slow pace toward Catherine, just in case she got spooked.
She was curled up on a throne of hay bales, hugging her knees to her chest.
“I brought breakfast,” I said pathetically as I lifted the basket.
Finally, she lifted her eyes and looked at me when I loomed over her.
“Can I sit?”
Catherine motioned to the empty bale beside her. I set the basket on the ground and sat before she changed her mind.
“I’m sorry,” I said as I rested my elbows on my knees and stared at the dusty wood floor.
“I should be the one to apologize. I shouldn’t have let myself into your space like that.”
“Cath…” I looked over and saw that she was just as stone-faced.
“I wasn’t trying to be clingy,” she said defensively. “I just woke up and you weren’t there. I was worried that maybe you weren’t okay. I’m sorry. I should have waited for you to go downstairs or something.”
Tension pulled tight as my brows drew together. “Why would you think I wasn’t okay?”
“Because I’m not okay!” A caustic laugh slipped from her cherry lips. “I woke up with a fucking wedding ring on. We got married, Hayes. I don’t know what the hell we were thinking—throwing sex into the mix. And then you weren’t there. I just…I thought maybe you were freaking out like I was.”