Page 71 of About Time

“Where is home? My sister’s house is gone. I’m not moving in with my niece and watch her play house with Griffin. Is it with you?” she scoffs, like she said the most ridiculous thing ever.

“Why can’t it be with me? You’re my wife.” Saying that is my second mistake.

“Don’t say that. I’m your wife through nothing more than some kind of clerical error. A real marriage isn’t spent apart. And it certainly doesn’t have the husband sleeping with all the single women in town.”

I take a breath in slowly through my nose. “I know that it wasn’t our intention to stay married. I’m not going to excuse my behavior, exaggerated as it is, because if I’d known there was a remote chance we could make it work, or that we were still married, I’d never have touched another woman. As it is, believe me or not, I was drunk off my ass every single time.”

She twists her lips. “I can’t go back with you,” she finally says.

“Wren is going to have a baby. Elisa is gone, and she’s going to need you. I need to atone for not speaking up when I realized that Liam was stepping out on her. Please, if you won’t come back for me, then do it for her. Do it because that’s what Elisa and Martin would want.”

Her eyes narrow. “Damn you, that was a low blow. You’re right though. She would want that. I’ll do it for Elisa and Wren.I need a few weeks. I’ve got to put in notice at my job, look for another one, and find a place to live. This doesn’t change anything for us. We don’t work together.”

“You could—” Her eyes snap to mine and the look she gives me stops me mid-sentence. I was going to suggest she come live with me, but she already shot that down.I know she wants to mean it. She doesn’t want to want me, but she does. I’m going to use it against her. I have to, because living without her isn’t living.

“You’re right. I can go look at places for you, maybe take some pictures.” Anything I can do to speed her along. I know that the first step is to get her back home. Once she’s on familiar turf I can start to win her over. Or wear her down. Whatever gets me back in her life.

Hattie huffs. “I know that look,” she says, pointing her finger and circling it around my face. “You think that if you just get me to come back, everything will magically fall back into place and that we’ll beusagain.”

“What’s so wrong with that?” Again, thinking before I speak would do me a world of good. I’m going to have to work on that.

“Really? Well, let me see. I don’t want to go back to being your dirty little secret. I’m not sure what the point of being married is if we’re the only ones who know about it, and it would be really great if the husband didn’t fuck other women,” she seethes.

Yeah, I’m really going to have to think before I speak. “I’m going to prove to you that we can be different this time. And why do you keep talking about me being with other women? You just broke off an engagement.”

“But I didn’t have sex with him. I haven’t—” She slaps her hand over her mouth to stop talking.

“Haven’t what?” I say in a low, almost growling tone.

She keeps her hand over her mouth and shakes her head.

“You haven’t been with anyone else?” I ask.

Once again she shakes her head.

I bite my lip. If I’m going to say dumb shit, I may as well go for gold. “Are you saying you’re still mine? No one has touched my toy?”

Her eyes widen. I’m sure she’s going to jump up and slap me, or scream at me. Instead, I notice her pupils widen, and the pulse in her throat beat a little faster. Slowly, she shakes her head again.

“My poor Doll is probably so frustrated.” I hold my hand out. “You should stop fighting me and just do what you’re told. You always have a much better time when you do.”

She blinks and unfortunately snaps out of the sex haze she was starting to fall into. She takes a deep breath and rolls her shoulders back. “If we do this?—”

“Oh, we’re going to do this,” I interrupt her.

“If we do this, it’s just sex. No one can know about us. I don’t want to be the pathetic girl with a crush. I want things you can’t give me, so I don’t want to play pretend behind closed doors that we’re anything more than sex,” she insists.

“We’ll see,” I mutter. I won’t be able to promise her any of that, because she’s laid out the map on how to win her over. It’s time Hattie and I go public. I’m going to crawl on my knees in front of the entire town if that’s what it takes to show her that this time I’m all in.

For the first time in six years, my dick is also all in. I don’t need beer goggles to be with Hattie. I know that a more romantic man would wine and dine her. I should lay out rose petals and make love to her under a canopy of stars.

Instead, I wrap my hand around her throat and force her to look up at me. “You’re offering me your body, and not your heart, is it?”

She tries to nod in my grip.

“We’ll see,” I repeat. I’m not going to lie to her. She’ll realize soon enough I never actually agreed to her terms. I will, however, take the benefits.

“I think I’m going to need a show of good faith. When you say that we’re just sex, does that mean that you’re willing to accept the terms that we started out with? When we’re alone together you’re my toy and I can play with you however I want?”

---