Chapter 21
JANE
At six a.m. on Thursday morning, several days after my showdown with Alex and the quiet, casual lunch that had followed, I watched a towing company pull into my driveway. I frowned at the window, holding a mug of coffee in both hands, and assumed the truck had taken a wrong turn.
It was snowing again, the city cast in silver and gray, the kind of morning when the world felt paused. I was still in my pajamas and a fluffy robe, but it seemed the towing company people were wide awake and going swiftly about their day already.
When a shadow moved behind the tow truck, indicating that someone had climbed out, my stomach dropped.
A man stepped carefully over the slush, tablet tucked neatly under one arm as he walked up to our front door.
My frown deepened, but it was darn cold outside, and clearly, he had the wrong address.
Without waiting for him to knock, I hurried to the door and pulled it open, tightening the robe around myself when the icy air hit me like a blast straight to my bones. “Excuse me, sir. Who are you?”
“Dr. Jane Thayer-Westwood?” he asked, blinking up at me before extracting the tablet from under his arm. “That you?”
I nodded automatically, resisting the urge to tell him I’d sold the family vehicles years ago and that there was nothing here to repossess anymore.
I cleared my throat instead and offered him a polite smile, hoping like hell another creditor hadn’t somehow climbed out of the woodwork.
“Uh, yes. That’s me. How can I help you? ”
“Sign here, please.” He gingerly made his way up the steps, carefully gripping the railing, and then thrust the tablet toward me when he reached the stoop.
Before I asked what I was signing for, I took another glance at the truck, trying to piece it together, but that was when I saw it. A brand new Bentley being offloaded by the man’s coworker.
It was jet black and impossibly sleek, now sitting in my driveway like it had found a new home. My heart started pounding and my stomach flip-flopped so hard, I had to set my coffee down on the windowsill next to the door or it would slosh out all over my hands.
The man tried handing me the tablet again. “We just need your signature, Dr Thayer-Westwood.”
I didn’t ask why the car was here or who had sent it. I just signed on the dotted line without even being able to feel my own hand. I gawked at the car, the polished curves the kind of luxury that surely didn’t belong anywhere near me.
“Thanks, Doctor,” the man said when I handed back his tablet. “Congratulations on a fine purchase.”
I nodded lamely, trying to remember how to breathe as he tipped his head at me and took off. Snow settled softly on the hood of my new car. I stood in the doorway far longer than necessary, wondering if I was going to wake up from this dream.
From all of it but most especially Alex. There was no way he’d meant to have this car delivered here. Right?
The other day, he’d mentioned wanting to buy me a car, but this was more than just a car.
It was a masterpiece of engineering and I was relatively sure the towing company had gotten the delivery addresses mixed up.
Perhaps this was Alex’s new car and they’d meant to bring me his old one. Or something like that.
I couldn’t even bring myself to look inside at the luxury interior, just spinning around and heading back into the house.
Feeling faintly like my knees had turned into goo, I closed the door, leaned my forehead against the wood for a moment, and exhaled, but my phone rang before I could spiral too far.
His name lit up the screen, an excited smile in his voice when I answered. “Killer! I knew you’d be awake.”
“It’s hard to sleep with a tow truck grinding in my driveway at dawn.”
He hummed an unapologetic sound. “Do you like it?”
My heart thudded against my ribs. “You sent a Bentley to my house.”
“Yes.”
I groaned. “Alex.”
“Jane.”
Realization started dawning then and my head shook. “No way.”
He chuckled, sounding way too pleased with himself. “Yes way.”
I walked back to the window and stared at the car again, watching as snow collected in delicate lines along the windshield. “You can’t just do things like this.”
“Oh, but I can, and I will. More importantly, I have.”
“Alex—”
“I’m not deciding your life,” he cut in gently. “I’m solving a problem. Your transport situation was unacceptable.”
I laughed once, wondering if the car would still be there if I pinched myself. “Between Uber, taxis, and the train, I manage.”
“You run a major company.”
“Yes, and other people drive me around. So what if some of them are train conductors?”
“Not anymore.”
There it was again, that calm, infuriating certainty. The same tone he’d used in my office when he’d wrapped his arms around me like I might break if he didn’t.
“If I accept this, and that’s a big if,” I said quietly. “This has to be the last time. You can’t keep buying me things like a Bentley.”
There was a pause on the line. “But I can, and I will, but that’s not why I’m calling.”
“Then why are you calling?” I looked back out at the tangible proof sitting right there in my driveway that Alex Westwood did exactly what he said he would.
“To find out if you like it.” He asked the question as casually as I might ask someone if they liked the color blue, like he hadn’t just dropped a six-figure bomb in my driveway before sunrise.
“If not, I can have the color changed. The interior too. We can do cognac leather instead of black. Or white. White looks dramatic in winter.”
I stared at the car some more, fighting to force nonchalance into my voice. “It’s fine. Black is great. Very subtle.”
He laughed, the sound low, but happy. “Are you sure?”
“What?” I shrugged even though he couldn’t see it. “It’s a car.”
“A car? It’s a Bentley Continental GT Mulliner,” he corrected. “Jet black.”
“Yes. A modest little grocery-getting runaround if I’ve ever seen one.”
His amusement only deepened. I’d noticed this about him, how my irritation didn’t bother him. It seemed to make him happy instead. He always smiled when I was mean to him, like being under the umbrella of my wrath and annoyance was exactly where he wanted to be.
“You’re terrible at pretending you don’t care,” he said.
“I care about very few things.”
“Mm. One of them is currently parked outside your house.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re enjoying this far too much.”
“I enjoy you,” he replied easily, and my grip tightened on the mug I’d only just picked up again.
Thankfully, he cleared his throat, changing gears before I could say something as dangerous as he just had. “Are you going into the office today?”
“Of course,” I said. “What else would I be doing?”
“Just checking,” he said lightly. “Some people do take time off after their lives implode and before they rebuild themselves, you know.”
“Some people don’t have that luxury.”
“You do now,” he said. “I’m working on it.”
I exhaled slowly, watching my breath fog the glass. “You’re relentless.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t like feeling like this,” I admitted after pausing for another beat.
“Like what?”
I sighed. “Like I don’t know whether to scream at you or thank you.”
He laughed. “You can do both.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I,” he said. “I’m not doing this to control you, Killer. You needed a car and I got you one. That’s all it is.”
“That’s debatable.”
“It’s still yours. Registered in your name. No strings attached. Sell it and buy a Prius or anything you want, but you needed a car.”
I swallowed hard. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
There was a beat of silence. Then something tugged at the back of my mind, and for a second, I was almost too shy to invite him. Whatever was happening between Alex and me was becoming a lot more confusing than I’d originally thought it would, and I didn’t do well with confusion.
At the same time, however, I already knew I wanted him there with me, and if I didn’t tell him about it, there was no way that could happen. “Actually, um, there’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”
“Oh, yeah. What’s that?”
“I was invited to a party and I was hoping you might join me. It’s not a Mandatory Marriage Event, though. It’s entirely up to you if you’d like go.”
“Oh?” His interest sharpened immediately. “What party?”
“It’s in Lake Forrest this weekend. Zara invited me. I met her at the spa the other day.”
“Zara?” he repeated. “I like her.”
I smiled, oddly wishing I had a phone cord to wrap around my finger right about now. “It’ll probably just be some art people. Designers. Social elite nonsense.”
“Sounds unbearable,” he said. “What time should I pick you up?”
I frowned. “You want to come?”
“You’re my wife, Jane,” he said patiently. “If you want to go to a party, we go to the party.”
“Yeah, sure, but—”
“You said it was this weekend?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll pick you up tomorrow,” he said without hesitation. “At your office after work. We’ll head out from there and make it a weekend thing.”
My heart started thudding against my ribs again, so loud I barely heard my own voice when I spoke again. “A weekend thing?”
“Yes.”
“We have work.”
“Both companies will survive without us for one weekend. I don’t know if you’ve heard this, but there’s a rumor going around that those are supposed to be for resting.”
I bit my lip, glancing back at the Bentley as I chewed it over. “I don’t know, Alex.”
“I do. We haven’t had a honeymoon and that’s unacceptable considering that it’s almost our fourteenth anniversary.”
I snorted down a laugh. “Fourteenth?”
“Fourteen days,” he clarified. “That’s basically a lifetime.”
I shook my head, smiling despite my best efforts not to. “I thought we’d been married for fifty years.”
“Who can keep count?” he said dismissively.
I laughed, warmth blooming in my chest. “You’re really hard to say no to.”
“And you love it.”
My heart skipped. “That remains to be seen.”
“Hmm. Make a board member cry at work today,” he said cheerfully. “For me.”
“I don’t do that intentionally.”
“You absolutely should.”
“Goodbye, Alex.”
“Drive safe,” he said. “Or don’t drive at all if it’s snowing too much, okay? I’ll have a driver on standby if you need him.”
He hung up before I could argue, and I stood there for a long moment after the call ended, the phone still pressed to my ear and my heart fluttering like I was a teenage girl with a crush.
Less than two months ago, he’d been a man who’d stolen my taxi and thrown his briefcase at me. Now he was my husband, my ally, and for the first time in years, I didn’t constantly feel like I was bracing for impact.
As I drove toward the office in the brand new car I couldn’t believe I was actually driving, I realized I wasn’t just tolerating Alex Westwood’s presence in my life anymore. I was starting to look forward to it and I had absolutely no idea how to stop.