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CHAPTER ELEVEN

Suki

“Aunt Rosie, this is Darling. Isn’t he handsome?”

Hallie walks him into the kitchen on his leash, and he immediately heads for the pantry, tugging the leash taut.

“He’s the handsomest pig I’ve ever seen,” Rosie says. “I can’t wait to get to know him better.”

“Can he have a snack?” Hallie looks at me.

“A little one. Maybe some crackers. He’s gaining weight so quickly; we need to keep the sugary snacks down.”

Rosie laughs. “How big is he going to get?”

“We don’t know. He’s a micro pig, but he’s growing like crazy.”

Carter walks into the room, a packed overnight bag in each hand. “Hey, Aunt Rosie.”

He sets the bags down and walks over to hug her.

“You look good,” she says warmly as she embraces him. “And I just love Darling. What a great idea that was.”

Carter frowns. “I’m not so sure about that. He pissed on my shoes again.”

“He’s still a baby.” Hallie gives him a serious look as Darling scarfs Goldfish out of her hand. “You can’t get mad at a baby.”

“Maybe he needs a diaper then,” Carter quips, making Hallie laugh.

“Suki left me instructions for him,” Rosie says. “And did you say he sleeps in bed with the girls?”

“He does, but he always ends up in Charlotte’s bed because she keeps snacks under her bed for him.”

“What?” Hallie’s jaw drops. “She said he just loves her the most.”

Carter growls with disapproval. “I told Charlotte to quit doing that.”

“Never mind for now,” Rosie says. “You two are already getting too short of a honeymoon. You need to get out of here immediately.”

I can’t say I’m looking forward to a weekend alone with Carter in Ann Arbor, Michigan, but it’ll be nice to sleep in and not have to wake up early to take Darling out.

“There’s mostaccioli in the fridge you can use for dinner tonight if you want to,” I tell Rosie. “I left instructions on a note and taped it to the top. And Olivia’s present for the birthday party tomorrow is on the dining table. You’re picking up her friend Kate at twelve forty-five and dropping both girls off at the party. Kate’s address and the party address are on the paper I left. Kate’s mom will bring Olivia home after the party.”

Rosie gives me a warm smile. “I like the way you do things, Suki. Thank you for all your work making this weekend easier for me.”

She looks like she’s in her late fifties, her hair styled in a short, feathered silver bob. I liked her immediately when we met.

“No problem at all.”

Hallie runs over and throws her arms around my waist. “I’ll miss you.”

I hug her back, bending to kiss the top of her head. “I’ll miss you, too. But I know you guys will have the best time with Aunt Rosie.”

Rosie gives Carter a pointed look. “What do you do around this house other than look good and carry the bags to the car?”

“He colors with me,” Hallie says, hugging him. “And he makes good popcorn.”

“Well, good.”

Carter gives me a questioning look. “You ready?”

“Yeah.”

“Where are Olivia and Charlotte?” Rosie asks.

“In their rooms. I said goodbye to them already.”

“I better go do that,” Carter says.

Hallie gently tugs Darling’s leash, bringing him closer to me.

“Darling wants a kiss and hug.”

I laugh. “How about ear scratches and belly rubs?”

I love on Darling while Carter is gone, and he’s back in the kitchen within two minutes. I’m sure he literally just said “bye” to both girls. But at least he said something, I guess.

Things have been tense between us since our conversation about the business. I liked it better when he didn’t know a single one of my weaknesses or past mistakes. Now I feel exposed, and I don’t like it.

Carter puts our bags in the back of his Lincoln Navigator and we start the drive in silence for the first fifteen minutes.

“If you want some of the five hundred thousand dollars now, I can do that,” he says out of nowhere. “However much you owe on those loans, there’s no reason to rack up another year of interest.”

It’s a nice offer. I fight my urge to tell him to drop the subject. Simply because it makes me so uncomfortable to talk about anything related to how stupid it was of me to trust Tyler so much.

“That would be nice.”

“Would three hundred be enough?”

I decide to bite the bullet and be honest with him. If online sleuths keep sleuthing, it’ll only be a matter of time before it’s public record anyway.

“Two hundred would be enough. I owe just over a hundred and eighty thousand.”

He nods, a cringe flickering across his face. “I’ll take care of it Monday. My accountant will need your account information for a wire transfer.”

“Thank you.”

He sighs softly. “I shouldn’t have gotten so mad about it.”

“I get it. You’re paying me a lot of money for this arrangement. I never imagined anyone would dig into my past like that.”

“I was a dick about it, Suki. I’m used to the way I communicate with my teammates and that’s not how I should be communicating with you and the girls.”

I’ve never seen Carter be contrite. It’s endearing, him admitting he was a dick, his half scowl in place and his massive hand wrapped around the steering wheel.

“It’s okay.” I glance over at him. “So, where are we going in Ann Arbor?”

“I booked us an Airbnb just outside the city on a lake. It’s cold as shit there, so I got a place with fireplaces. There’s a chef coming to make us dinner there tonight and I figured we can go out tomorrow night.”

“That sounds nice.”

“I’ve always liked Ann Arbor.”

“Did you used to go there with the archaeologist?”

He shakes his head. “Kaia lived in New York, so we only saw each other two or three times a month. She’d fly in for weekends when I had home games. When we spent more time together during my offseason, that was when we argued the most.”

I can’t help being nosy; I’m dying of curiosity about his relationship with her. “Were the arguments her fault or yours?”

A smile plays on his lips. “Probably sixty percent me and forty percent her. She liked the New York nightlife a lot, you know? Wanted to take me to all these dinner parties with her friends and colleagues, and it just wasn’t my jam. And she just wanted more out of the relationship than I did.”

“How long were you guys together?”

“Almost two years. She gave me an ultimatum that if we weren’t engaged after two years, she was out.”

“And she didn’t wait the full two years?”

He shrugs. “I told her it wasn’t happening.”

“Do you ever second-guess your decision?”

“No. I talked to Rachel about it a lot. She thought Kaia was too controlling and in too much of a hurry to have a husband with money.”

He touches the screen in his car, glancing at me. “What kind of music do you like?”

“Mostly jazz.”

He lowers his brows. “Really?”

“Hell no. I like Taylor Swift, Lizzo, Ed Sheeran, Gracie Abrams. How about you?”

“I listen to a lot of Eminem, Post Malone, old rock. Got lots of Metallica on my pregame playlist right now.”

“Hmm.” I smile. “I’m not sure we have much overlap.”

“The girls made me become a Swiftie. It’s all we listen to in the car.”

“Same.” I take off my seat belt and lean forward to slide out of my coat. “There are mornings where we just sing the entire drive to school instead of talking.”

He selects a Taylor Swift playlist from his screen and turns the volume down so we can hear it but still talk.

“I spilled my guts about my ex, so what’s the story with yours? Other than him being a massive douchebag?”

Discomfort stabs me in the gut, but I swallow it. “I was an idiot who trusted a man I’d only been with for ten months. He meant more to me than I meant to him and I got burned. That’s about it.”

“Did he have a job when you met him?”

“He worked for a venture capital firm. He made good money but lost it all by going all in on his business idea.”

“It sucks that he took you down with him.”

I shrug and look away. “It was my own fault. There’s a reason why I didn’t tell my family and friends about cosigning those loans. I knew it was dumb, but I thought we were in love.”

“Do you still love him?”

I’m caught so off guard by the question that my laugh comes out as a little snort. “Absolutely not. I’d punch him in the dick if I saw him on the street.”

“If we see him in Ann Arbor, I’ll give you an assist. I’ll hold on to him so you can wind up hard for that punch. Maybe follow up with a nice kick.”

“I appreciate it.”

It’s the first time anything related to Tyler has amused me. Usually I just feel bitter and angry.

I take out my list of stuff about me and read it, Carter learning that I love standing outside when it’s snowing and reading sci-fi romance novels and I hate peas.

When he passes me his list, it’s full of little details about him that make me smile.

“Your top three favorite foods are Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cocoa Puffs and Honeycomb? I thought those were for the girls.”

“I mean, they eat some, too. But I can take down about half a box of cereal on a cheat day.”

“Okay, so cereal is just a treat for you?”

“Unfortunately. It’s not that I love grilled chicken that much; it’s just that it’s good for me and I make a living with my body.”

“That sounds dirty.”

He grins. “Yeah, it does.”

We talk for the entire drive to our destination, and the tension between us from last night is forgotten. When Carter pulls up to a massive lakefront home with a modern design, I gape at him.

“Here? Is this like a bed-and-breakfast with tons of rooms?”

He makes a face. “Fuck no. This whole place is ours for the weekend.”

“No way! This is beautiful.”

“Can’t take my fake wife to Motel 6 for our fake honeymoon, can I?”

“I mean, you could. But I’m glad you went a different direction.”

When we walk into the sprawling home, I’m like an awestruck kid in a candy store. The main area is an open two stories with a gorgeous stone fireplace surround and a modern stainless kitchen. The entire back wall of the home is made of windows to maximize views of the sparkling water.

“You can pick your room first,” Carter says as he sets both our bags down.

Separate bedrooms. What a relief. I don’t have to smell his soap on my bedsheets or worry about accidentally rolling into him for the next two nights.

It should be a relief. But it’s kind of not.

“What is he doing?” I mumble to myself as Carter carries a huge satin silver pothos plant out of the Ann Arbor store we were just browsing in.

The boutique is next door to the restaurant where we had a late Saturday breakfast and I saw the beautiful plant behind the register. I admired it and told Carter a plant like that would easily go for several hundred dollars.

“Did you steal that?” I say when he opens the door to the back seat and sets the plant on the floor.

He scoffs. “No, I didn’t steal it. I bought it.”

We were on our way out to the car when he said he needed to run back in and use the bathroom. Clearly, he was actually going back for the plant.

“You bought it?” I ask as he gets into the driver’s seat.

“You wanted it, right?”

It takes me a couple of seconds to respond. “Yes, I love it. But it wasn’t for sale.”

“I asked the store owner how much she wanted for it, so it was for sale.”

My stomach does a full somersault. Plants are my love language. My apartment is a mini jungle.

“Thank you.”

The emotion in my voice gives away how unusual it is for me to get a thoughtful gift from a man. Tyler once took a fifty from his wallet and gave it to me on my birthday, saying he hadn’t had time to shop for anything.

“Yeah, no problem,” Carter says, not even looking at me.

I smile to myself. He’s like this with the girls, too. He accepts tenderness and affection about as well as a grizzly bear would.

Yesterday, I lounged around the house, enjoying the views and reading. Carter went for a long run, and a chef came and made us an amazing dinner of steak, scalloped potatoes, roasted vegetables and flan.

We talked and laughed like old friends, watching a movie before I went to bed in a room where I had a king-size bed all to myself.

This morning, Carter was already at the kitchen table when I came in, freshly showered and having a cup of coffee, the Henrietta Lacks book in hand.

“Want to go throw some axes?” he asks.

“Sure. Do you have some in the back seat we can just hurl out the car windows?”

He smiles. “I thought we’d do something more organized. There’s a local place.”

It only takes us ten minutes to get there, and when we do, the guy working behind the counter does a double take when he sees Carter.

“Stanton...you’re Carter Stanton. From the Crush.”

“Yeah.” Carter shakes his hand and the guy asks for a selfie with him.

Then we’re assigned a lane and given some basic instructions on axe throwing. Of course, Carter is a natural, getting the axe to stick exactly where he wants it almost every time.

I can barely even get it to reach the target, let alone hit it.

“I’m hopeless,” I grumble when yet another axe lands on the ground.

“Here.” Carter grabs an axe and comes over, standing behind me.

He’s solid and warm, my ears on the same level as his broad shoulders. His flannel has the scent of his light leather and pine cologne. Nervousness coils low in my belly as he puts the axe in my hand, covering my hands with his own.

“Back more.” His voice is a soft caress on my ear, making me shiver.

He moves one of his hands to my stomach, placing a flat palm there as he says, “Use your core.”

I’m going to melt. Every nerve ending in my body is firing and heat is flooding me. Carter is more man than every guy I’ve ever been with added together. And then multiplied by ten.

“Ready?”

I nod, not trusting my voice. He does most of the work for me, and the axe lands left of center, but at least it’s on the target.

“Nice job.” He puts a palm on my lower back as he steps away.

What happened to my plan to never be with another man again? If Carter asked me to go have sex in his car right now, I don’t think I could say no.

It’s my traitorous body overruling my good sense. I can’t let myself fall for another man.

“I’m taking a break,” I say, walking over to our table and sitting down.

I watch him throw axes for another hour, and then we walk to a local bookstore and a few more boutiques. We have dinner at a local microbrewery, and even several hours later, I’m still feeling pulled toward Carter.

I want to be close enough to smell him and feel his solid body against my much softer one. I want to see if I can possibly undo him the way he’s unknowingly doing to me.

I trust my instincts, though, and instead of watching another movie with him, I go to my room to read.

I fell in love with a fake in Tyler and got burned. Carter has been completely transparent about our relationship being fake. Not real. All for show.

Stick to the plan, Suki. One year. For the girls. And the money.

Then, I can start over and make all my decisions based only on what’s best for me.