Page 16 of The Drummer's Heart

“Can we not talk about that right now?” Her breathing quickened. “We’ve been doing so well today. I don’t want to end up in a fight.”

It was too late. Even that quick mention of Julian put me over the edge. “Have we really?” I cocked my head. “Been doing so well? Or have we just been suppressing everything better than we normally do?”

Nicole’s face reddened. “You’d rather me talk about what’s bothering me? I’m not sure you want that, because then wehave to discuss all the women you’ve slept with since we’ve been divorced.”

Heat rushed through me. So much for the wine calming me down. I straightened. “I have nothing to hide. I’ve been doing what anyone in my position would, whatever it takes to fucking survive after getting my heart broken.” I stared into her eyes. “But I’ll tell you one thing, you don’t know a single one of those women.” My bottom lip trembled. “I wouldn’t fuck around with one of your supposed friends.”

“No…” Her voice shook. “You’d do worse than that.”

My chair skidded against the concrete patio as I got up. “You know what? Fuck this. I’m going out front for a smoke.”

I was halfway across the grass when she called after me. “Atticus, wait. Don’t.”

I turned. “Why?”

“You haven’t smoked since you’ve been here. I can tell because I haven’t smelled it on you. And I heard you tell Mimi you’ve been trying to quit. You’ve been doing so well. Don’t ruin it.”

My eyes widened. She’d been keeping track? “Well, I know Mimi doesn’t like it. She’d smell it on me, too. So I’ve been trying not to.”

Nicole’s eyes glistened. “Please don’t smoke anymore.”

She looked like she might cry.What the fuck?I wouldn’t allow myself to speculate as to why she cared so much. But it fucked me up a little to see that she did.

“Okay,” I whispered. “I won’t.”

I returned to the table across from her as we both attempted to recover. The peace didn’t last long though. “How come you never responded to even one of my emails?”

She blinked. “Emails?”

“Don’t act like you don’t know.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Idon’tknow what you’re talking about, Atticus.”

“I’ve sent you dozens of emails over the past few years.”

“I never received them.” She shook her head. “Where did you send them?”

“To your main personal account—the Nicole Gellar one.”

She shook her head again. “I stopped using that account. It kept getting infiltrated by spam. I haven’t checked it in years.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, shit.”

“What did they say?”

I had to laugh. Whatdidn’tthey say? Those emails were a series of brain dumps, many written in the middle of the night while I lay on a bunk traveling along a dark highway. It would be impossible to summarize them.

It was probably better that she hadn’t read those messages. It wouldn’t have changed anything. But at the time, I’d needed to let out some of my feelings and emailing them had seemed like the right choice.

“It doesn’t matter what they said.” I took another sip of wine and slammed the glass on the table harder than I intended. It did make me feel a bit better to know she hadn’t just ignored them, though. I’d always assumed she had.

“I’m sorry if you thought I’d chosen not to answer you,” she said softly.

I looked up at the sky for a while. When I turned back to her, my eyes fell to her cleavage, my mouth watering with a desire to taste her soft skin.Myskin.My wife.I would never look at her as anything other than mine, even if that was far from the truth. I remembered the times we’d finished a bottle of wine together and taken our buzz back to the bedroom to fuck each other’s brains out—drunk, uninhibited sex at its finest. Somethingabout being angry at her made me want to fuck her so hard right now. That was all my body craved. Sex with Nicole was unlike anything I’d experienced with anyone else. It didn’t matter if I lost my inhibitions with her. I could let myself go without worry.

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