Page 77 of Fierce-Zander

He was throwing all his dishes in the dishwasher and taking everything off the counter to wipe it down. The least he could do was start with Regan seeing his place.

When his phone rang twenty minutes later, he was thrilled to have the reprieve from trying to figure out what the sticky substance was behind his coffee pot that took a lot more scrubbing than it should have.

He grabbed his phone to see if it was Regan.

“Hey,” he said. “Are you home?”

“I am,” she said. “I have been for a while. How about you?”

“Home and cleaning.”

“Yay,” she said. “Guess I’ll get to see your place sooner rather than later.”

“We’ll see about that,” he said. He wrinkled his nose at the strong smell of lemon. “I’ll have to keep it clean.”

“You will,” she said. “I know I shouldn’t ask about Justin, but you told him what you found out, right? I mean I did sign that contract and all.”

He laughed. He liked that she brought up the contract rather than him doing it. It kept everything clean and he could ask her advice now if he wanted. Or if he got called out on a case when they were together as it’d already happened.

“I did,” he said.

Justin had been embarrassed that he didn’t trust his wife. That even the names of the men, not just the locations his wife was at were on her calendar that Justin could see. Zander hadn’t been informed of that and hated that he could only do so much without being given all the facts.

He’d asked again what Tricia’s job was. It was always that she worked from home days and had clients she’d meet at night.This time Justin admitted that she did web design and set up a few side hustles on social media sites. Those side hustles would have led him down a different path in a much shorter timeframe if he had the facts.

Again, if he’d known that, he would have been able to figure things out faster.

Justin finally admitted he didn’t know exactly what his wife did with her side jobs and whenever he asked and she started to talk about it, he shut her off because it didn’t make sense. And that when she came home the other night they’d gotten into a fight because he’d been texting her. Just as Regan had seen. And that Tricia said once again they were work dinners and she couldn’t take time away from her clients to deal with him and had explained that many times.

“Was he surprised?” Regan asked.

“No,” he said. “Because by the time I gave him my report he and his wife had it out and she explained it all to him. I think he felt like a fool, but that is on him, not me. Who knows? If they want to work on their marriage and communication, I can suggest this great doctor for couples therapy.”

Regan laughed. “We got some nice dinners out of it and had some fun. Totally worth it.”

“Sure,” he said. “It did get us our first date.”

“See, we could credit Justin and his lack of information with his wife’s life pushing us together rather than the Fierces if they decide they want to get involved.”

“There you go,” he said.

He’d told her more about the setups and how it all worked. She still found it funny and they agreed to let it play out for a short period of time.

“I’ll let you get back to cleaning,” she said. “Then maybe I’ll get to see your place this weekend.”

She was laughing. “Maybe,” he said.

“Just remember, you love me. I won’t judge.”

“Yes,” he said. “You will.”

23

RECRUITED BY THE FIERCES

“I’m glad you could come,” Royce said to him when he walked into his best friend’s front door two weeks later for Willow’s first birthday party.

“I wouldn’t miss it,” Zander said. “Where is the birthday girl?”

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