Page 6 of Payback, Penelope

“Trishahappened.”

“Who?”

“Daniel’s pickleball partner. Such a cliché. Oh, he says he never cheated—that they waited until after we separated—and there was never any proof that he did, but come on. I’m not an idiot. What twenty-three-year-old with a fat ass and tiny waist that made even me turn my head with appreciation plays pickleball of all things with a guy who’s about to turn fifty, then casually starts texting him to ask him to come over and fix her pipes?” She snorts. “Can you believe he thought I’d buy that excuse and not think it’s suspicious? Fix her pipes. I’m sure that’sexactlywhat he did…if he could even get it up for her.”

Maybe she’s feeling the effects of the alcohol more than I initially thought, or else she probably wouldn’t be sharing allthese nitty-gritty details. Hoping she’s willing to give me more, I ask, “He couldn’t get it up, huh?” It’s been difficult trying to get my dick to godownin her presence. It’s a real shit-show of finding ways to adjust it in my pants so I don’t scare anyone off.

“Nope. Can you believe it? There I was in the prime of my life, and he told me he wasn’t attracted to me anymore. Not that his dick was all that impressive when hecouldget it up. Big dick energy with nothing to back it up.” Stopped at a red light, I lock eyes with Penelope when she drops her head and lets it roll on her shoulder. “I miss him,” she says softly.

My stomach drops. “For the love of God, tell me you’re joking. You don’t honestly miss the limp-dicked, cheating asshole.”

Penelope wipes away a tear. “No, not him. I miss being married. Having someone to come home to. I miss my stepkids.” She laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “You know, Sebastian and Sonya didn’t even like me? Not that I blamed them. They were already thirteen and fourteen when Daniel and I got married, so we weren’t close. But I miss seeing them every other weekend and genuinely enjoyed taking care of them.”

I reach across and take her left hand in my right, resting our linked fingers on the center console. She looks up with watery eyes. I hate that I have to take mine off her and turn my attention back to the road when the light turns green.

By the time I pull into her neighborhood lined with mature trees, she’s in full-blown tears and tugs her hand away to catch them as they fall. “I haven’t seen Sebastian and Sonya since we got a divorce. Just poof. My whole family gone in the blink of an eye.”

Hesitantly, I ask her, “What about kids of your own? You didn’t want any?” Anxiety makes my heart beat faster. Half of my future is dependent on her answer.

“I did,” she sobs. “Still do. But Daniel said he was done having kids and had a vasectomy before we met. And I thought…I was such an idiot. I thought I loved him enough to sacrifice having children. And now I’m old! Past my prime! My internal clock is about to run out. Tick, tick, tick!”

This is not a laughing matter, but it takes everything in me not to do so as she gets louder with everytick. After pulling into the driveway of her small, natural gray brick home with two planter boxes of various flowers under the windows—I have no idea how she’s kept them alive in this heat—I cross to her side and pull her out of the car.

Cradling her gorgeous, upturned face that has starred in every one of my dreams of the future, I force her to look at me through her tears. “You arenotold, Penelope, and you’ve got plenty of time left on your clock.”

“Oh yeah, that’s easy for you to say,mister I’m twenty-two and only going to get hotter as I age.”

“You think I’m hot, huh?”

Chapter 4

Jacob

Penelope’s eyes widen, and her jaw drops. She makes a strangled sound in her throat and wrenches out of my hold. “I didn’t say that,” she yells over her shoulder as she stumbles a few times across the lawn, the grass dry and brown in the areas not shaded by her two front trees. She fights to keep upright in her sexy high heels up to her sky-blue front door and pulls her keys out of her tote bag. I grin as I follow behind her and catch her around the waist when her foot slips off the front porch, her ass brushing my dick.

The sun is still shining bright in the cloudless sky during this time of year, but Penelope must have left the overhead porch light on when she left for work this morning. It flickers off and on, then dies as she jangles her house key in the lock and finally gets the door open. The scent of sugar cookies wafts in the air. She won’t make eye contact as she inches the door closed, ready to dismiss me with color high in her cheeks.

Needing an excuse to stay, I point to the porch light. “Want me to change the bulb for you?”

“Oh my god, really!” she yells, then winces. “Sorry. Yes. That’s so nice of you.”

“Told you I could be nice,” I say gruffly, painfully aware of how alone we are. I could scoop her up and have her flat on her back in the middle of her bed in no time.

Either she doesn’t catch the innuendo in her intoxicated state, or she’s choosing to ignore it when she simply says, “See! This is why I miss being married. I’m too short to reach the light, even with my step stool.”

“So if I asked you to marry me right now, you would, just so you’d have someone around to change your light bulbs?”

“Darn tootin’.” Penelope claps a hand over her mouth, spins, and catches herself on the wall before darting through the house. “Be right back.”

I step inside her tidy home while I wait, searching for the source of the sugar cookie scent. I pat my stomach, disappointed when I trace it to a wax warmer shaped like a picnic basket on a side table in the living room rather than a batch of fresh cookies in the kitchen. Eh, it’s probably for the best. I’m not exactly everyone’s type at my weight, taking after my dad and his “big bones”. None of that matters, though, so long as I’mPenelope’stype.

Once I have replaced her porch light bulb, Penelope hovering at the edge of my vision, supervising my work, I search for another excuse so I don’t have to go home to my empty apartment just yet. “Need anything else taken care of, Mama?”

“I need a shower.”

My brows shoot up, and my damn dick jumps for joy. If any more of my blood heads south, I might just pass out here and now.

I crowd her in the doorway until she backs up on bare feet since she kicked off her heels a few minutes ago. After closing and locking the front door behind me, I cage her in with myhands on the wall on either side of her. “You need my help for that?”

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