She’d been through the wringer earlier, and the fact that she’d snuck out of bed without waking him was probably a sign that she could use a little time alone to sort through all the same stuff that was swirling in his own head.
His stomach rumbled, and he decided he’d see what she had in the fridge that wasn’t takeout. He could whip them up a little something and they could talk over food. Figure out what came next, now that...well, now that things had changed between them.
Wes headed into the living room, following along in the Roomba’s wake until it veered right and whirred back to its spot by the couch, while he continued on to the kitchen.
One o’clock in the afternoon, according to the digital screen on the convection oven. The perfect time for the culinary masterpiece that was the grilled cheese sandwich. Wes rooted around the kitchen for the ingredients, relieved and strangely touched that she’d set it up almost exactly the way he’d stored things in their old place.
He’d just flipped the first sandwich when the sound of her heels on the hardwood brought his head up.
She was fastening an earring in her left lobe as she came around the corner all buttoned-up in another of the tailored dresses she favored for the office...and stopped dead.
“What’s all this?”
“Lunch.” He thumbed toward the pan. “Fair warning, you only have one kind of cheese, so if it’s not as good as you remember, that’s probably why.”
There was a moment of awkward silence. And then: “I’m actually not that hungry. But thank you. That was...”
Shit. Wes’s shoulders tightened, bracing for impact. Whatever she was about to say, he didn’t want to hear it.
“Nice.”
Nice. Wes set the spatula on the counter with a lot less force than he would have liked to use. She thought he was being nice.
“My fault,” he said, as she placed her purse on the edge of the counter. “I should have asked if you had plans.” He didn’t bother to mask the sarcasm in his voice. “You going somewhere specific? Or will anywhere do?”
The verbal swipe got her attention.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You tell me. I’m the one making you lunch so we can talk about whatever the hell just happened between us. You’re the one bailing.”
“I’m not bailing.” Her attempt at blasé failed miserably as her entire body went rigid. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Really? Because I’ve got a list going. Screwing. Spanking. Sobbing.” He held up a finger for each verb. “And that’s just the S’s.”
“I knew this would happen,” she muttered, digging through her purse for something that never materialized.
Now it was his turn to play defense. “And exactly what do you think is happening here?”
“You’re turning this into something it never was. Assuming too much.” She gestured at the kitchen in general. “Trying to make things better by staging this trite, Dickensian tableau!”
You can’t make things better, so stop trying!
The paraphrase of his mother’s favorite refrain caught him where he lived, but he took the hit without staggering. Much.
“I can never remember, is the doggy-style spanking scene in A Tale of Two Cities or Great Expectations?”
Her eyes told him to fuck right off, and there was poison in her voice. “You’re the one out here making grilled cheese sandwiches. Because that’s what we used to do. But this isn’t a Ghost of Christmas Future kind of situation.”
She inflicted the cut with surgical precision.
“I’m not your girlfriend. I’m your lawyer. I’m trying to keep you from going to jail. You are here because the court ordered it. This is not some magical glimpse into the future we could have had if we’d stayed together.” That desperate little laugh of hers made his fists clench, even before she added, “I knew you’d read too much into this.”
“Okay. Right. That’s all this is. Me, reading too much into things. I guess I missed the memo on which rule book you’re using today.”
She crossed her arms, like she was above the fray, but he wasn’t the only one with white knuckles right now.
“So to recap, when you shove me up against the wall and fuck my brains out in the elevator, that doesn’t mean anything. But when you seek comfort in my arms while you cry your heart out, and then beg me to forgive you before you fall asleep on my chest, that also doesn’t mean anything. Got it.” His nod was curt as he shoved the pan off the burner and killed the flame with a turn of the dial. “I don’t know how I could have screwed that up when it’s so obvious to me now.”
“Wes.”
There was a softness in the way she said his name, a note of pleading, that caught him off guard after their heated exchange. It took him a second to realize her hand was on his bicep. When had she moved so close?
“Please. Don’t be mad. We’re—”
Her phone buzzed in her purse, and he used the interruption to steel himself against her touch.
“You should get that.”
The phone vibrated again, and her hand dropped away as she turned to retrieve it, bringing it to her ear.
“This is Vivienne Grant. Yes. That’s correct.” Her forehead creased slightly with concentration. “So what does this mean for my client?”
Her client.
That’s what he’d been relegated to. All he was to her.
“Okay. That’s great news. We can definitely make it there in an hour.” Vivienne nodded. “I’ll tell him. Thank you so much.”
“Tell me what?” he asked as she disconnected the call.
Vivienne dropped the phone back in her purse. “You’re free.”
“What?”
“The
