Chapter 34
ALEX
I’d started hoping Jane would show up. Technically, she still lived somewhere else and had a life at home that didn’t involve me at all, but some part of me had begun to mark the evenings with the possibility of her.
Tonight, she didn’t disappoint. I was on a late-evening call with my laptop balanced on my knees, my tie loose and my sleeves rolled up when the door opened and Jane walked in. Her arms were laden with grocery bags. Her gaze flicked to mine after she’d turned and locked the door behind her.
With her own key. Because again, I’d started expecting her to show up and I wanted her around, even when I wasn’t here to let her in.
I smiled when our eyes met, but she pointed at my laptop and mouthed something that might’ve been, “Carry on. Don’t worry about me.”
As she started toward the kitchen, I raised a finger to my headset. “Hold on one second.”
Jane glanced at me over her shoulder, gray eyes widening in exasperation as she pointed at the laptop again like I was a misbehaving child. I chuckled and turned back to the screen. “No, keep going. I’m listening.”
She rolled her eyes and headed straight to the kitchen, pulling things out of her grocery bags with purpose once she’d put them down. Vegetables appeared. Meat. Something green and leafy that looked expensive and judgmental.
I tried to focus on the call, but the guy was carrying on about margins while my wife tied her hair back.
Watching as she slid her fingers through those silky, white-gold locks, snapping a purple tie off her wrist and piling it all up, I realized I wasn’t listening to anything that was being said anymore.
Yeah, that’s it. This was the moment my productivity flatlined.
“Alex?”
“Mm?” I said, my eyes very much not on the spreadsheet anymore.
“What are your thoughts about that?” the guy on the other end of the call asked, sounding genuinely interested in my response.
In the meantime, I didn’t have a single fucking clue what he was talking about. “I’ll take it under advisement and have Nate get in touch with you before the end of the week.”
Less than two minutes later, I’d successfully managed to end the call and I snapped my laptop shut, standing up with my hands itching to get on her.
The scent of gently frying garlic was already wafting through the air when I walked into the kitchen, my wife expertly dicing some onions to add to the skillet.
“I thought you were having dinner with Zara,” I said, moving toward her. “This is looking great, though. Can I help?”
“I had an appetizer. I wasn’t really that hungry.” She almost didn’t even look up at me, slicing the sharp blade of the knife through the onion with such precision that I felt sorry for it. “And no. Thank you, but I’m fine.”
“That wasn’t a question,” I said mildly as I stepped up behind her, snaking my arms around her waist and pressing a kiss to the side of her neck. “I haven’t seen you all day, and if you’re cooking, I’m cooking.”
She sighed and finally turned her head to glance up at me, a slow smile quirking on her lips. “Fine. You can help, but you have to listen.”
“I’m an excellent listener.” I breathed in the scent of her for a beat, then realized what I was doing and lifted my head away from her neck, letting go and taking a big step back instead. “What can I do?”
She slid a knife out of the wooden block on the counter and handed it over, then pointed at a pile of leaves in a bag. “Chop that.”
“What is it?”
She stared at me, amusement sparking to life in her tired eyes. “Are you serious?”
I scoffed. “Of course, I know what it is. It’s… green stuff?”
“Basil,” she said slowly. “Just don’t murder it.”
I pulled the clear plastic bag closer and inspected the leaves like they were poison ivy. “Are you sure this is necessary for your recipe? It’s an exceptionally bright color. Is that supposed to go into a human body?”
She laughed and swatted my arm. “It’s bright because it’s fresh, Alex. You’ve had basil before. I’m sure of it.”
I frowned. “I can neither confirm nor deny that.”
Chuckling, she shook her head at me and went back to massacring the onion. “You’ve definitely had basil before. Clearly, you’ve just never cooked with it, but the taste will be familiar, and awesome.”
“I love basil. I’m just honestly not sure I’ve ever seen it fresh from the… basil tree? Basil shrub?”
She glanced up at me, blinking a few times before she cocked her head. “Have you ever actually cooked a meal for yourself before?”
“I’ve literally cooked you breakfast before,” I said, eyes narrowing at her. “Glad to know you like it.”
She laughed again and I grinned, upending the bag to let the fragrant leaves fall onto a chopping board on the counter. I started slicing through the pile of leaves, but it didn’t even take a minute before I realized I was doing a poor job of it.
“It’s the knife.” She watched me for a second, her lips twitching as she tried to fight a smile. “You’re holding it wrong.”
“Well, I can’t hold it from the other end.”
“No, you’re holding it like it owes you money.” She stepped closer, reached around me, adjusting my grip. Her fingers brushed mine and my brain promptly forgot how knives worked. “Try doing it like this. Controlled slices. Calm.”
I glanced at her. “When you’re this close, the last thing I feel is calm.”
She snorted and moved back to her pan on the stove, dumping the recently mangled onion into it, but I detected a flush to her cheeks. “Don’t get cocky. You’re still on probation.”
“At least I haven’t murdered an onion. You chopped that thing up like it murdered your dog.”
She let out a surprised laugh but ran her fingers through her hair and shrugged. “I might’ve taken out my frustrations on it a bit.”
The humor slowly drained out of me as I looked at her, noticing for the first time that she was a little pale, her eyes a little more tired than usual. “How was your day, Killer? Is that onion the only thing making you cry?”
She lifted one shoulder on another shrug. “It’s nothing that I would particularly like to talk about right now.”
I felt my eyes narrowing, my brow puckering on a frown I hadn’t meant to let free, but as she averted her gaze and poked at the contents of the pan, I sighed and let it go.
She would tell me about whatever had happened when she was ready, but between not eating when she’d gone out to dinner and this, I was worried about my wife.
We fell into an easy rhythm after that. She put on music and cooked.
I followed instructions. She corrected me.
I pretended not to enjoy being bossed around, which was a lie.
I liked it when she was the one doing the bossing.
The longer she cooked, however, the more she relaxed, easing into being at home, no longer going around in circles in her head.
“Why is this pan smoking?” I asked when I glanced up to see faint tendrils rising to the ceiling.
She spun around, practically tackling the controls before finally looking back at me. “Because you turned the heat up to hell.”
Oh. Oops. “What can I say, I like efficiency.”
“You’re sautéing, not forging steel.”
I laughed and she shook her head at me, struggling to hide a smile. As I looked at her, so completely in her element with her hips swaying to the beat of the music and chopping up tomatoes for a salad, it hit me that this really didn’t feel arranged anymore.
Jane and I weren’t two people tolerating proximity for the sake of strategy right now. We fit like puzzle pieces no one expected to match until they did.
Once the food was ready, we ate together at the counter, drinking wine and joking around. Jane’s smiles were finally coming faster again, her posture not nearly as tense.
“This is good,” I said honestly.
She raised an eyebrow at me. “I know, but again, don’t get used to it.”
“I rarely make promises I can’t keep, so the best I can do is say that I might not get used to it.”
She laughed, the sound making impatience coil low in my gut. Now that the tension of the day was gone, my body was becoming more and more aware of her presence, the sweet scent of her perfume on every inhale and even the way she pressed her wine glass to her full lips.
“Rarely, but not never? What promises have you made but not kept, Alex Westwood?”
I shrugged, trying to ignore my libido in favor of keeping the lighthearted easiness of the moment.
“A few. In eighth grade, I promised to give back Nate’s copy of the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in the same condition as it was when he loaned it to me, but I only borrowed it to read to Charlotte and I might’ve told her it was okay to draw in it. ”
Jane smiled. “That’s surprisingly sweet, that you read to your sister, but if you ever tell anyone they can draw in one of my books, I’ll choke you with fresh basil.”
“That’s a weirdly precise threat.”
She pumped her eyebrows at me. “Mess with my books and find out if I’m serious.”
“Seriously, you’re giving me the fuck around and find out line?”
She stood to take our plates to the sink, and I moved before she could protest, scooping her up and throwing her over my shoulder. “Alex—”
“I’m fucking around,” I said, smacking her ass as I carried her toward the stairs. “I really can’t wait to find out.”
She yelped. “Absolutely not!”
“Too late,” I said, already grabbing the banister and heading up. “I was going to let you relax for a while longer, but you had to go and throw down the gauntlet.”
“About my books,” she cried, laughing as she pounded her small fists against my back. “Put me down, you big oaf!”
“Nah.” I grinned, tightening my hold on her as she squirmed and tried to break free. “I’m not scared of fresh basil.”
“This is an OSHA violation!”
I laughed. “I’ll file the paperwork.”
She slapped my back again, still laughing. “Have you told anyone to draw in my books? Because if not, this is entirely unnecessary.”
I hauled her up the stairs with my heart pounding, smiling like an idiot. “You threatened me. With an herb. So yeah, it’s necessary.”
I didn’t put her down until we were inside my bedroom. She slid off my shoulder with a huff, swatting at my arm, but her cheeks were flushed and her eyes bright.
“Are you always like this when someone makes a joke with you?” she asked breathlessly.
“Only when I’m hungry,” I said, then corrected myself. No one could accuse me of not being honest to a fault. “Or when I want something.”
Her gaze flicked to my mouth before lifting back to my eyes. “And what do you want?”
I stepped closer without even thinking about what I was doing. Or maybe I was thinking and I just didn’t care anymore. Yeah, that’s the one. “You.”
It came out rough, less polished than I might’ve aimed for if I’d been trying, but Jane didn’t retreat. That was the thing about her—she never retreated.
She just tipped her chin up like she was daring me to finish what I’d started. I wrapped my fingers around her waist, eyes locked on hers as I tugged her a little closer. She answered by resting her hands on my chest with her fingers splayed, feeling me like she needed proof I was solid. Real.
“Alex,” she said, but it wasn’t a protest or out of exasperation this time.
It sounded more like a plea, and it was all the permission I needed to lean down and kiss her, not hungry or wild but deliberate. I couldn’t have pulled back if I wanted to. I didn’t have that kind of restraint when it came to her. Not anymore.
She made a soft sound against my mouth and my hand tightened at her waist, pulling her closer until there was no space left between us. Her fingers slid into my hair, tugging hard enough that a slight sting coursed through me.
Whatever balance I’d been clinging to tipped and I kissed her harder, deeper. She melted into me, her body softening as she surrendered. She sighed as I pressed my mouth to her jaw, her neck.
I walked her backward until her knees hit the bed and she sat without breaking the kiss, pulling me down with her, laughter bubbling between breaths like this was somehow hilarious to her. “Remind me to threaten you more often.”
“You got it,” I said, murmuring against her lips. “And that’s a promise I fully intend to keep.”
She moaned into my mouth when I crawled onto the mattress with her, pinning her against the bed with my entire body covering hers. Both of us knew exactly where this was headed and we were choosing willingly to follow.
We’d come a long way, Jane and I, but in the back of my mind, I thought about everything that was supposed to happen in the next few days, and I hoped it all went according to my plan.
Because if not, this thing between us would implode, and there was no way I could let that happen. I couldn’t let her go. Not now and possibly not ever.