Page 66 of Surrender

“Call the rental. Ask them to put you on a waitlist or that you need more time, but now’s a bad time to leave.”

I glare at him silently.

“And I’m going to stay here with you.”

A heavy stone of surprise drops in my gut. My jaw falls open as a stream of arguments runs through my head. “I... what...? You don’t need to do that.”

“You can argue all you want to, but you know this is the best solution. I don’t think he’ll leave you alone.”

“That isn’t your problem.”

“You’ve sort of been my problem since you rolled into town a week ago.”

“So now I’m a problem?” I scramble to my knees and tower over him. He sits up in the bed, his face nearly in line with mine.

“Yes, a problem. The most fascinating, curious, intriguing, complex problem I’ve ever encountered.”

“I—what?”

He runs his palm over his stubbled jaw and pushes his hair back from his forehead. “Any man who would pretend to die, then let his wife and kids go through the grieving process that comes with that all for some money is not a good man. In fact, he’s a very bad one. And you’ve got amazing kids, and you’re you, and I don’t want to take a chance when I can do something about it.”

He... thinks my kids are amazing?

After screaming down his motel, and escaping through the door, and pooping on his stuff, and having to bathe them and hold them and help me care for them when they cry, he still finds them amazing?

I don’t even know if their dad ever found them amazing. He treated them like a nuisance.

“I’m me?” I ask hesitantly, my voice a rough croak. I blink back the moisture gathering in the corners.

“Yes. You’re you,” he says. Period. As if that’s the end of it. “Just to tell you, I already have a company coming to install security cameras, so it’s all settled.”

I gape at him.

“Now”—he takes my hands into both of his and draws me from the bed—“you’re going to go call the rental, take a nice bath, and when you’re ready, I’ll feed you, and we’ll go get the kids.”

“I’m still drunk, aren’t I?”

He tows me into the hall, both of us bare-assed naked. “No way. I wouldn’t have fucked you unless you were totally sober.”

“I appreciate that. Not because I don’t like a little drunk sex once in a while, but because the sex this morning is something I want to remember.”

“Whitney.”

“Yes?” I bat my eyelashes at him.

“Get in the bath before I decide to fuck you again.”

My thighs press together.Yes, sir.

* * *

Alice

I swear to you I didn’t know

Me

When did you find out?

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