Chapter 7
Seven
I dreamtI was in college. It was finals week, and I realized I had enrolled in a five a.m. Algebra class that I had blown off all quarter. I was desperately flipping through my textbook, trying to take in whatever I could, but the faster I turned through the book, the more the pages blurred. Someone was laughing, and my throat went tight with panic?—
And then the floor fell out from under me like cracking ice. My eyes shot open. I wasn’t in college. Not anymore. I was a thirty-seven-year-old woman lying on a mattress that cost as much as a car.
I could hear low male voices from downstairs—it was probably what woke me up. One of them was my husband’s.
Henry—Xander—the disastrous dinner last night—fuck.
I rubbed my temples. This was Xander’s first visit since the wedding, and it was going terribly. The tension escalated last night, thanks to Henry’s jabs. If his father’s many slights bothered him, Xander hid it well.
How could they be arguing again? It had barely been twelve hours.
I got unsteadily to my feet, and the comforter dragged from my lap to the floor. It tangled around my feet as I awkwardly stepped over it.
By the time I changed into my new pedal pushers and marched downstairs, I heard the distinct sound of the front door slamming shut. Xander was in the dining room, gulping down a bottle of cold water. He was in joggers and a white T-shirt that clung to his chest with sweat. His damp, dark hair was sticking to his forehead. I guess he still liked to run in the mornings.
My mouth went dry when he unexpectedly lifted his shirt to wipe his face and neck with it, revealing a set of stone-hard abs. I found myself intruding on his semi-private moment and wished I had announced myself sooner. I considered making a run for it when his gaze landed on me, green eyes bright and alert.
“Morning,” he said.
Caught red-handed, I gave him a plastic smile. “Umm…Morning.” My pitch was higher than usual. I was at eye level with his torso, trying very hard to ignore his bare chest and the V-shaped slopes running along his sides.
“How did you sleep?” he asked, drawing out the syllables with an insinuation I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
The awkward smile vanished from my face. I nervously swallowed as I struggled to maintain eye contact. We were playing some sort of nonverbal game, only I didn’t know the rules.
I inhaled deeply to clear my mind and breathed in the scent of masculine sweat strong enough to make someone lightheaded.
“G-good.”
His gaze rested on my face as if trying to memorize every detail. The intense stare made me feel charged. He had always unsettled me, and the smug satisfaction on his face said he knew it, too.
To my relief, Xander pulled his shirt down, and I stepped back as if I’d been doused in a bucket of cold water.
“Have you seen your father this morning?”
Something in his expression shifted at the mention of Henry. He nodded. “I saw him on his way in. He changed, then left for the office.”
He didn’t even bother saying hello.
I bit my lip, trying not to feel the hurt that threatened to pierce my heart with little thorny vines. This shouldn’t be a surprise, not really.
“Oh.” My voice sounded like a frog was caught in my throat.
My gaze landed on the empty dining table. It was almost lunchtime, and breakfast had long concluded. I inwardly cursed myself. I couldn’t remember the last time I slept away the morning.
“What do you want for lunch?” I should make his favorite to make up for last night’s dinner and for making him eat alone at breakfast.
“Nothing homecooked. Let’s go out.”
“Go out?” The thought of leaving the confines of this house sounded foreign. I barely left the premises. There were always projects around the estate Henry needed me to attend, and he got upset if I left without ample notice. “I’m not dressed to go out.”
Xander eyed my pedal pushers and peplum blouse. “When was the last time you left the house?”
It had been a while, but Xander didn’t need to know that.
He closed the distance between us until only a small gap separated his bare chest from me. I swallowed. “If you’re worried about my father, it was his idea,” he said. “He wants us to be seen together…for publicity.”
Oh.
“Plus, we need to discuss your new job as my PR rep.”
I blinked, having forgotten about Henry’s decision to pair us together again.
“Okay,” I relented. “Let’s go out for lunch.” It needn’t be this awkward. Maybe this lunch could heal old wounds.
“I’ll hit the shower.”
I headed upstairs as well, telling myself this was a good sign. Xander had never reached out, and if this outing went well, perhaps we could have a normal relationship again.
The laptop on my desk pinged me with a new email—a contract from Henry’s assistant to represent Xander.
I read the agreement while rolling down the pedal pushers over my hips and pulling off my blouse. Everything seemed standard. I signed the document from my touchscreen with a wave of my finger while walking to my closet in my La Perla panties and bra. After changing into a fresh linen dress, I grabbed a Fendi purse that was out of season but still cute and a sweater, then headed down the stairs.
Xander was waiting, arms folded. He was freshly showered in chinos and a white button-down with the sleeves rolled up. He looked like one of the rich boys at the club, the ones particularly popular with the girls.
My brows knitted when I caught his gaze trailing the length of my body. Just as abruptly, he turned away. The moment was so fleeting that I was convinced I’d imagined it.
I forced a smile. “Ready?”
“Yeah. I can drive.”
“Where are we going?”
“The club.”
Made sense. Our country club was the best place to start if the rumors were to be squashed. Henry’s business associates and board members frequented the club. Two members also owned magazines and would likely run a story upon catching us together.
“I love their charcuterie boards,” I told him. “They also do a mean French 75.”
Xander gave me a half-smile and swung behind the wheel of his rental. Because his large frame took up so much space, our shoulders grazed every time he moved. Ignoring his clean scent in such close quarters was impossible. Once upon a time, the smell had been a source of comfort for me, and I felt slightly lightheaded that nothing had changed despite all the years.
Heat prickled my skin, though it was winter, and I extended my hand to turn down the temperature. He must’ve had similar ideas and reached for the temperature control.
Our fingers collided. I held my breath, surprised by the warmth of his touch. Neither of us retracted our hands. Silence stretched between us as I stared at our digits, fascinated. His supersized hand strangely complemented my delicate fingers.
Almost as if someone had reminded him about an undisclosed resentment, Xander withdrew his hand and slipped back to his standoffish self. I glanced at him. Cold eyes watched the road as he drove, dismissing my presence entirely.
Great. What did I do wrong now?
His moods had been similarly mercurial in the past. Some days, he’d be my best friend, and the next, his frosty demeanor left me confused.
Tension seeped through the cracks of his collected composure as he suddenly asked, “Why did you go through with the wedding?”
I nearly choked, taken aback by the unexpected question. “W-what?”
“I warned you not to marry Henry,” he replied unapologetically. The taut muscles in his arm tightened with the reinforced grip on the steering wheel, and he was driving a bit faster than he had been a minute ago. “Why did you go through with it?”
I couldn’t take offense to his question. After all, his warning proved right within the first year of my marriage, leaving me with a bigger desire for children to fill the hole in my heart.
Was that the reason behind his ire all these years? He had gone against his father to warn me, and I didn’t listen to him.
Xander’s behavior in the days leading up to my wedding was odd. One moment, charming; the next, officiously cold. I figured I must have said something to upset him.
There had been no opportunity to check in with him afterward. By the time Henry released me from an embarrassingly inappropriate kiss following our vows, Xander was gone. He never visited us again.
Given my determination to maintain a semi-cordial relationship, I opted for an honest answer.
I sighed. “I spent my twenties building my company. By the time I turned thirty-three, it seemed everyone else had already gotten married and had kids, and I had somehow missed the boat. Guess that’s what happens when you aren’t paying attention. Life kind of passes you by. I had given up on having kids, but then I met Henry. I was going through a rough patch and had recently lost my family. He was there for me and said he wanted a new family with me.” I shrugged. “I thought we were a good fit.”
Xander seemed to be making a monumental effort to stifle a scoff. He clearly knew something that I didn’t.
Something told me I wouldn’t like the answer, but I still asked, “Has your father never mentioned wanting more children?”
“Not to me,” he replied bluntly.
My stomach dropped, and my fingers bit into my thighs. “You think it’s pathetic to hold on to this hope, don’t you?”
He turned his head. Though he had previously seemed filled with sarcasm, whatever he saw on my face softened his stance.
“I know what it’s like to want something more than anything else,” he said resignedly. “All I do is slave over hockey, photo shoots, and advertisements. But I never once considered the idea of giving up, even if it came at the expense of everything else.”
We stopped at a red light.
He tilted his head, eyes moving over my face. “I don’t think it’s pathetic to hold on to hope.” Something in his tone set me on edge when he added, “I only wished it was with the right man.”
The brutal honesty was startling. At least I didn’t detect any malevolence in his tone. My answer had fed his curiosity, and he had reverted to a mellower version.
Relaxing a little now that the conversation was moving in a better direction, I joked, “Unfortunately, we’re not all perfect like you.” He smirked at that. “Why do you let hockey take over your life?”
“Hockey’s seasonal, and while training can be intense, it blows over like that, and then the games are over in a flash. It’s the brand endorsements that are a year-round thing. That and the fans can be a handful. There’s no work-life separation there. We’re just projections of whatever they want us to be. Some of them want to fuck us. Some of them want to be us. But they don’t see us as real people.”
I’d heard similar refrains from some of my clients, and to my chagrin, my response was usually a social media hiatus or accepting it as the price of fame. For some reason, my fallback responses were souring on my tongue like bad wine now.
“That sounds difficult,” I said at last. “How are you managing?”
“I avoid social media,” he replied, scanning the congested street for parking spots.
It finally made sense why his social media was sparse. I assumed it was his rep’s doing. “Well. That’s one way of handling it.”
“How do you handle it?”
“Self-curation,” I told him. “I sell the life my clients want—neat, quietly luxurious, and aspirational.”
“That sounds boring.”
I laughed. “Once you get to a certain age, a quiet life has its appeal.”
“Is that what you want?” His gaze was curiously intense. “A quiet life?”
“Oh good, someone’s leaving!” Instead of answering, I pointed at the newly vacated space as Xander executed the world’s smoothest parallel park.
Xander shoved his hands into the pockets of his chinos as he followed me inside, his tall form casting a shadow over me in the afternoon sun.
“You’re going to love the club,” I said, unable to hide the excitement in my voice.
It hadn’t dawned on me until now that I’d be having lunch outside the house after a long time, and I found myself getting more eager with each step. Perhaps I had also been starved for meaningful conversations.
I had shared more with Xander in ten minutes than anyone else in years. I lost touch with my best friend after my wedding, Henry hardly expressed his thoughts, and I never got too deep with my clients. The prospect of a quiet, insightful lunch was exhilarating, though it quickly came to an end when Xander was promptly discovered.
“Oh my god, Xander Maxwell!”