Page 80 of Wife Number One

“Fuck off.”

He laughed and went back to poring over the contract while I paced up and down the small living room impatiently waiting for him to be done. I was so wired I was practically crawling out of my skin.

“I could set you up with one of Mae’s friends, if you want? Or maybe someone from my office? You’re always going to the movies alone, why not take someone with you once in a while? A couple of the women at work asked about you after the award thing the other day.”

I stopped pacing. “Why?”

Liam rolled his eyes behind his black-rimmed glasses. “Oh, I don’t know. Might have had something to do with the fact you walk around looking all bad boy. According to Mae, that shit is catnip.”

I glared at him. “I meant why would you set me up with someone? I don’t date. And I don’t need to get laid.”

“So you’re just going to be celibate forever then?” He sighed. “I know that shit with Kara really messed you up.”

I cut that shit off real quick. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Liam eyed me. “You never do.”

“Would you?” I snapped. “I already think about it every fucking day. The last thing I want to do is talk about how I had to deliver her baby in a shitty Saint View slum house. Or about how if I’d let her go, Caleb would have hurt Ripley or Jay. Or you.”

Liam wasn’t ruffled by the vague hint of panic that still laced my tone whenever I thought about that time.

“That didn’t happen,” he assured me. “We’re all fine.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t remember it every time I look at one of you.” Or every time I thought of her.

Which was the whole reason I hadn’t dated in years. Hadn’t even touched a woman.

When you’d done the things I had, seen the things I’d seen, you didn’t just give yourself a free pass to be happy.

I didn’t deserve that, and I knew it.

Liam sighed and tossed Luca’s contract onto the coffee table. “Then why the hell are you even considering that contract? You know very well what Luca is involved with. Not much of it is legal.”

I gripped the back of my neck with both hands. “I know! I know, all right! But that contract is offering me everything I’ve ever wanted. And all of that is legal, right? I read it all, every word. It’s on the up and up, isn’t it?”

Liam sighed heavily. “From what I can tell, and from the research my team did into Luca’s business investments, yes. He seems to be using the profit from another restaurant he owns in the city as start-up capital for this. It’s all above board, taxes filed, all the I’s dotted and T’s crossed. It’s a very good contract. If it were anyone else offering it to you, I wouldn’t think twice in telling you to accept it.”

I groaned. “You think I should turn it down.”

Liam shook his head. “I can’t make that decision for you. You know the risks. It’s up to you if you want to roll the dice. But if it were me, no. I wouldn’t take it.”

I let out a huff of air and frustration. It was so easy for him to say that when he had a beautiful house, a job he was passionate about, enough money in the bank that a twenty-thousand-dollar check hadn’t felt like a lottery win, and family to come home to at night.

I threw a hand out, indicating the shitty apartment I’d lived in for five years. “If you lived here, in this shithole, had no job, no prospects, no family…would you still turn it down? If that contract was offering you all of your dreams, would you still say no?”

He screwed up his face and then slowly shook his head. “No, you’re right. I probably wouldn’t.”

“The contract is good,” I confirmed. “When Luca says he isn’t running women anymore, we have no proof to the contrary.”

Liam nodded.

I barely hesitated this time. “Pass me a pen.”

Liam still didn’t seem sure, but he did it anyway.

And just like that, with the ending credits of Pulp Fiction playing in the background, I became head chef and part owner of the restaurant of my dreams.

Ileft Liam continuing our Quentin Tarantino marathon, two out of three cats curled up asleep in his lap. He’d refused to budge before he got to watch the end of Kill Bill, but I was too impatient to wait. I got in my truck and drove it into Providence, my heart rate picking up with every mile I passed, and the signed contracts burning a hole in the passenger seat beside me.

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