Page 35 of Seductive Nights

"Oh dear, I'm your guinea pig recipe taster?"

"Well, actually, it sounded good, and I've been taste testing a little bit as I've been making it. It's pretty good, Margo. I think you're gonna like it. I also am making puff pastry spinach, mushroom, bacon bites, and I'm making a little sauce that you can dip them into if you like."

"That sounds really good, actually."

"I didn't want to make anything with cabbage, or you know that would make you bloat for your date tonight. No sense in having a gassy belly."

"Well, thank you for that. That would be embarrassing, wouldn't it? To have my stomach roiling and rumbling."

"It would."

Margo looked into her glass and moved it around in small circles on the counter. The milk swirled around, and she watched the patterns it made. "Are you sure this isn't too soon for me, Carley?"

"I'm certain it isn't too soon. When you think about it now, you haven't really been married to Logan for a long time. The formality of his dying, in some ways, did you a favor. He set you free, Margo. You're free now to have a life."

She stared at her sister for a minute. She was pretty. She wore her hair a bit shorter than Margo did, but it was the same dark color as their father’s. Same blue eyes. Carley had her mom's cute little nose, but otherwise, they were similar.

"I've never thought of it that way."

"Well, start thinking about it that way. He did you no favors by keeping you in this marriage. It's like he wanted his cake and to eat it too."

"Well, more like a cash cow, I was the one bringing in all the money."

"Well, there may be that since we don't know what the dumbass was thinking, all we can do is speculate, and that probably doesn't do any of us very much good. So, let's not speculate. How about that?"

Carley picked up her cooling cookie and took a bite. She grinned. "It's good."

Margo bit into hers and agreed. "You did a good job with these."

Margo took another bite, sipped her milk, and finished her cookie. "Carley, you're spoiling me. What am I gonna do when you go home?"

Carley flinched, and Margo paused. "Is everything okay at home with you?"

"Well, I didn't want to bother you before since you've been going through so much. But Don and I have broken up."

"When did that happen?"

"It happened about a month ago, and I waited for a while to tell anybody because, well, I was processing it myself. And then Logan got sick, and I came here, and it was a nice reprieve not deal with the daily arguments and sniping at each other, which seemed to be the case. And when I went back after the funeral, I realized I didn't want to be there. I came back here partly...mostly, to help you through all of this, but also to give myself some space and decide what I want to do."

"Oh my god, honey, I didn't know."

Margo ran around the counter and hugged her sister. She hugged her tight. "I wish you would have let me know about this. All this time I've been blabbing on and on, and the focus was on me. We should have been focusing on you."

Carley mumbled, "No, we should have been focusing on both of us, I guess, but I wasn't sure I wanted to say anything just yet."

Margo pulled back and looked her sister in the eye. "All right, so are you moving out, or did he move out?"

"Well, I think I'm going to move out. I don't want to be in that house anymore. I know we bought it together, but he'll have to buy me out. I've already spoken to Grant Park. Actually, I called him today while you were at the office to see if he could guide me through forcing Don to sell the house and giving me my share of the equity, which will get me started somewhere else."

"Here, let it be here. Come here. Move here by me. We'll be close."

Carley smiled. "That's kind of what I was thinking. But I didn't want you to feel burdened with me being underfoot."

"You're not underfoot. Oh my god, Carley, come and live here. Stay here with me. You have your own room. You have your own bathroom. Do what you want to do until you either find another job or see if you can work remotely from your current job or whatever you decide to do. But come here. Live with me."

Carley smiled. "Let me just say this. That sounds great. I love being with you, and I'm absolutely going to think about it, but I also don't want to jump into a situation where I'm dependent on someone else. So let me just give it some good thought, okay?"

"Deal. That's a deal."

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