Page 44 of Beyond the Cottage (After the Fairytale #1)

Chapter 44

T hey climbed into a hack, and as it carried them off, Ansel watched the city pass by. The night air held a crisp edge he wasn’t used to. Fog hung from it, diffusing light from the gas lamps until everything appeared wrapped in gauze. He’d expected traffic to thin out after dark, but weekend revelers roamed the sidewalks, and carriages clogged the thoroughfare.

Dinner had been filled with easy chatting, but now his tension returned. Their night was ending. The morning loomed large. Also, he couldn’t stop thinking about Gretta’s absurd, sexy story. Her taste in plotlines had certainly evolved over the years.

“There’s the chancellor’s residence,” she said, flipping her hand at a palatial white mansion set back from the street. “If Nat gets his way, he’ll be living in it next year.”

“The senator is running for chancellor?”

“He hasn’t officially announced it yet, but he will soon. If you can believe it, he’s been pestering Philip about becoming his chief of staff.”

Ansel grunted. If the senator fired Gretta and promoted Philip, he deeply questioned the man’s fitness for office.

“Over there’s where the vice chancellor lives,” she said. “And that gothic monstrosity is the secretary of state.”

Ansel looked, but his enthusiasm for sightseeing waned. As they got closer to Gretta’s neighborhood, the knot in his stomach tightened.

She turned to him, mouth open as though she wanted to say something. The carriage clattered to a stop before anything came out.

Ansel paid the driver this time. He led Gretta through the dim alley with his hand grazing the small of her back, scanning every shadow. She gave him an indulgent smile. As soon as they entered her apartment, she took off her shoes and dashed to her bedroom.

Ansel left his boots on.

She came out with her jacket off and her previously pinned hair in a ponytail. She didn’t have his case. When she saw him standing near the door, she stopped short, hands still tying her hair ribbon. She veered to the kitchen and took a bottle of red wine and two glasses from the cabinet.

“Nightcap?” she asked, pouring. “I know you stay away from the stronger stuff.” She approached with a generously filled glass.

“It’s late, Gretta.” He slung his duffel over his shoulder.

She set the wine on the entryway bench and returned to the kitchen. Leaning against the counter, she sipped from her glass.

“If you don’t mind,” he said, “I should get my case and be—”

“Do you think I’m a drunk?”

Ansel’s head snapped back. What kind of bizarre waters had they wandered into? “Why would you ask me that?”

“The idea’s come up before. I thought you’d be the one to know.”

“Because of my father?”

Her eyes lowered. “Yeah. I guess.”

He thought back to the nights his father would come home annihilated from rotgut and on a rampage. Then the mornings when he’d wake in a vacant stupor, finishing whatever was left in the bottle to achieve the bare minimum of functionality.

“You’re not a drunk. You do, however, use alcohol to deal with stressful situations.” While he didn’t judge her, he wished she’d found a better way of coping.

She set her glass aside and approached. “Do you think this is a stressful situation?”

For him? Hell yes. He was trying to walk away from the woman he loved.

Ansel’s vision grayed, and he braced a hand on the wall. His sudden, godforsaken realization nearly knocked him out.

He loved Gretta.

Fuck.

Why it stunned him, he didn’t know. He’d been highly in touch with those feelings for years. But loving her as a friend wasn’t the same as this. It was more complicated now and a hell of a lot more dangerous. The former was a warm bath on a cold day, the latter a headfirst dive into a volcano.

A biological equation? Brain chemicals and stimuli? They now seemed the naive ramblings of a cynic.

This felt like more.

He closed his eyes, hiding his fluctuating pupils. While his ultimate destruction was all but assured, he knew one thing with absolute certainty—he couldn’t run from this anymore. He loved Gretta in every way possible, and there was nothing he could do about it. There was nothing he wanted to do about it.

He pushed off the wall and stood before her without responding. She’d posed the question casually, and he lacked a casual answer.

Skirt rustling, she came closer with a hand on her hip. “Anse, this is stupid. Why won’t you stay here while you’re in town? You’ll save money and be more comfortable. It’s what friends do.”

Potential consequences played out in his mind. They were irrelevant. If she was offering him time with her, he’d fucking take it.

He dropped his duffel with a thud. “Alright.”

Her posture relaxed and she smiled. Glancing at his feet, she said, “You know the rules.”

He removed his boots, and she pulled him to the sofa. Wine glasses abandoned, she sat beside him, tucking her legs under her skirt.

“What do you feel like doing?” she asked.

“I’m not sure.” He was too emotionally drained to come up with anything.

“Are you tired?”

He laughed. “After taking a three hour nap this afternoon? I’ll be lucky if I’m drowsy before dawn.” Where would he be sleeping, anyway? Did friends share a bed once they’d gotten their ‘out of the system’ fuck over with?

Shifting sideways, she tucked her cute little toes under his thigh.

To hell with curbing physical affection. He picked up her legs and settled them across his lap. It seemed to startle her, but then she draped an arm over his stomach, snuggling closer.

“I’m not tired either,” she said.

“You’re welcome to the books I brought along. I’m sure they’ll have you nodding off in no time.”

“I brought a few of your books, too.”

Ansel’s neck heated, not entirely from embarrassment. “Did you?”

“Yeah. I’m not giving them back, by the way.”

The thought of Gretta reading his erotic literature in her bed made him want to gift her his entire collection. “I assume Lady Lovecock was among your selections?”

“Of course. I simply must know if she chooses the dashing hero who’d die to save her or the dastardly villain with the giant cock.”

“Shall I spoil it for you?”

“…Okay . ”

Ansel put his lips to her ear as though imparting a sordid secret.

“She chooses both,” he whispered. “At the same time.”

He heard a faint catch in her throat and grinned.

“Well,” she said. “I can’t say I blame her for choosing the best of both worlds.”

“Indeed.”

“The intrepid lady takes what she wants, and damn everything else.”

“Hear-hear.”

Gretta nestled closer. He idly toyed with the ends of her hair ribbon.

“Anse?” she asked.

“Yes?”

“Can we be friends who fuck?”

He choked on a breath. His immediate impulse was to flip that tantalizing skirt up and see what kind of drawers she wore to fancy dinners.

But would that be wise? Loving her didn’t make fucking a good idea. Their friendship remained his first priority, and it was likelier to last big picture if they kept sex out of it.

What big picture, though? He was living moment by moment. Once the meeting was over, who the hell knew where he’d end up? Shouldn’t he take what she was willing to give, whenever she was willing to give it, and damn everything else? Like Lady Lovecock would?

That he even hesitated was a fucking joke.

Ansel pushed her legs aside and stood. She looked up at him nervously, as though there was any chance in hell he’d refuse her.

He held his hand out. When she took it, he tugged her to her feet. His arm snaked around her waist, jerking her against him.

“Alright, Gret. Let’s be friends who fuck.”