Page 7

I wasn’t sure how long I sat there—staring at those stupid paint chips on the wall, then at the stomach-churning photos, then back at the wall—but I didn’t think much time had gone by before a key clicked in the front door lock.

I checked the time and realized I was wrong.

Hours had passed; it was already eleven-fifteen.

I turned toward the TV and kept my eyes glued to the screen as Daniel walked in behind me. I couldn’t look at him right now, and I was trying to stay calm. Controlled. “How was work?”

“Brutal.” One of the kitchen cupboards opened, then closed.

“You better get to bed, then. You’ve got an early morning with that deposition thing you were telling me about.”

“Depo got rescheduled.” The ice maker dropped several cubes into a glass, and something liquid—likely whiskey—splashed against the ice.

I whispered, “Sure it did” and kept my eyes on the TV.

Daniel entered the living room and dropped onto the opposite end of the couch, leaving a three-foot gap between us. It felt even wider .

In my periphery, he pulled his right ankle up to this left knee, took a big gulp of his drink, and winced.

“So,” he said, giving his drink a stir with his finger. “What are we watching?”

“ Love Roulette .”

He put his finger in his mouth and sucked off the whiskey. “I never thought that show would make it past its first season.”

I hazarded a glance at him and immediately hated the lack of apprehension on his face. He looked the way he always did—handsome, blond, confident, self-assured. It made me wonder how long the affair had been going on. Was he really so good at playing pretend?

I folded my hands in my lap, remembering Jen’s advice to stay calm, though my little finger wouldn’t stop trembling. Should I play pretend too, or was it better to rip off the bandage?

I opted for the latter. I’d been betrayed, but that didn’t make me a coward. “Daniel, I know.”

“You too?” he asked.

I frowned, not comprehending. “ What? ”

“You didn’t think Love Roulette would make it past its first season either?”

“What?” I asked. “No. I’m saying I know. About tonight. About Adrienne.”

I showed him the incriminating evidence, but he barely looked at the photos.

“Ah,” was all he said.

“Ah?” I tossed my phone onto the couch between us, fury bubbling into my chest. “You don’t even want to try to deny it?”

He calmly set his drink on the coffee table. “I thought Jen might call you. ”

“ Jen? ” Wait… What? “You knew she was there?”

He exhaled sharply through his nose. “Sure.”

It took me several seconds to piece together what he was saying. “You weren’t trying to be secretive. You knew Jen was there, and you wanted her to see you.”

He just stared back at me, the bastard.

“You wanted Jen to see you, then to tell me because you didn’t have the balls to tell me.”

His eyebrows rose, and he leaned away from me. “Well, I wouldn’t put it that way.”

“There’s no other way to put it, Daniel. You wanted me to break up with you , so you wouldn’t have to do it yourself.”

Now, he turned his whole body toward me. He leaned forward, his forearms resting on his knees, and his face took on that patronizing expression I hated so much.

“I can understand why you’d want to end things, El. I’ve been thinking about us, and?—”

“So have I.” There was no way he was taking over this conversation. I didn’t want to hear about what he’d been thinking.

“You have?” He sat up straighter.

I made a hurried calculation in my mind. My first instinct was to kill him. My second thought was to make him squirm.

He wanted an easy out? He thought I was going to make this easy for him? No way was I going to do that, even if I had to fake it.

“I have,” I said. “And after what happened tonight, it’s clear to me that we should do couples therapy before we get married.”

My words settled over the room like a blanket, and Daniel did one slow blink. “C- couples therapy? ”

It was exactly the stunned, slightly panicked reaction I was hoping for.

I suppressed a devious smile. “That’s right.”

“You’re… Are you serious?” Now, his face looked a little pale.

“Well…” I played up the chirpy Pollyanna, “we are getting married, silly.”

He swallowed hard, then laughed in a nervous kind of way I’d never heard him laugh before. “Is that a proposal?”

“ Pfft. Of course not.” I waved my hand as if to dismiss the question.

“Oh,” he said, letting out a big sigh. “Right.”

I jumped right back in. “I wouldn’t steal the big moment from you. But let’s go out tomorrow and get that ring we were looking at a few months ago.”

Daniel took another big gulp of his drink, and I reveled in the little beads of sweat along his hairline.

“We’ve been together for two years,” I explained. “We live together. We’re practically married already. But after what happened tonight, I do think therapy is important.”

Of course, I didn’t mean any of that shit. Well, except the bit about therapy. I did think therapy was important. But my goal right now wasn’t to save the future I’d envisioned for myself. I only wanted to make him squirm like a worm on a hook—like the worm that he was.

“So!” I clapped my hands together and bounced once in my seat. “How many kids do you want?”

“Kids?” Daniel choked on the word.

“We’ve never really talked about it,” I said, trying to sound upbeat and excited, “but it’ll come up in therapy. Do you like the name Hermione?”

“I…I guess I’ve never thought about it. ”

“Well, you should start thinking. We need to get serious. We have a future to plan.”

Daniel leaned forward, head bowed, forearms on knees, hands folded, and he nodded contemplatively at the floor between his feet. “Maybe you’re right.”

I braced, instantly suspicious. “I’m right?”

He kept nodding at the floor, as if it were his job to count every fiber in the thick wool rug.

“Um…what— exactly —am I right about?”

“It’s time for me to get serious,” he clarified. “My parents have been badgering me about it for months. So, maybe we should get married.”

I stared at him for a long time, unable to process, until my brain finally exploded, and I slapped my hand down on the couch. “Are you insane?! ”

Daniel’s head jerked up, and he turned to face me. “What?”

“You seriously think I would marry you, of all people?” I was on my feet, not remembering when I’d made the decision to stand.

Daniel leaned forward. “But…you just said?—”

“I don’t want a cheater for a husband!”

He blinked once, then leaned back against the couch. “What about couples therapy?”

“Once a cheater, always a cheater.”

“Then why—?” He glanced left, then right.

“I wasn’t going to make this easy for you. I wanted to watch you squirm, you asshole. And what are you thinking? We get married, and you’ll have a wife at home and a piece on the side?”

“Oh my god,” he said, and he didn’t sound as ashamed of himself as he should have. He sounded like he thought I was being irrational .

“Don’t ‘oh my god’ me.”

“So we’re going to get into this?” he asked. “Right now? It’s almost midnight. Maybe we should sleep on things and?—”

“I’m not sleeping with you.” Had he lost his mind?

“Nothing new there,” he muttered.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Listen, El, you’re a nice girl…”

“A nice girl?” My voice went up an octave. He was acting like we’d just met. Like we were calling it quits after a couple dates, not two years .

He shifted his weight on the couch. “A very nice girl. Maybe too nice for me, actually.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

He let out a long breath, then lifted his gaze from the coffee table to meet my eyes. “This thing with Adrienne… It all happened because I need more.”

I narrowed my eyes. “More what ?”

“More in the bedroom.”

I curled my fingers around the bottom edge of my cardigan. I couldn’t believe I was hearing this bullshit from the man who only hit my target ten percent of the time. “You want more women in the bedroom?”

“No.” He blew out a breath. “Not necessarily. I just need more… variety .”

“A variety of what?”

He exhaled a weary sigh. “You’re too vanilla. Sometimes, Elli, I swear, when we’re in bed, it’s like you aren’t even there.”

My throat tightened because that fucking hurt. I’d been invisible to so many people in my life, but I never would have expected it from Daniel.

My high-necked blouse, cardigan, and Levi’s suddenly felt prudish when I thought of the thigh-high slit in Adrienne’s skirt. In fact, my clothes were starting to strangle me.

Whatever upper hand I’d had in this argument was quickly evaporating into painful slaps of humiliation.

“You were right,” he said. “We shouldn’t get married. We both deserve someone who’s more…compatible.”

“Now, wait one damn minute.” He couldn’t break up with me. He didn’t have the balls to do it; he’d practically admitted to it. I was supposed to be breaking up with him.

“This is best for both of us,” he said, gaining steam. “We should both be free to find someone who better meets each of our needs and expectations.”

My blood ran cold, but I broke out in a sweat. The wool fibers in my cardigan scratched and prickled against my damp skin.

Daniel kept talking. Why did he keep talking? “It’s good we figured this out.”

Jen’s warning about logistics came back to me a little too late.

If Daniel and I were over, I didn’t have anywhere else to go.

Not right away, anyway. I was sure one of my friends would let me crash on their couch for a while, but I couldn’t stand the thought of burdening them for more than a couple of nights.

“I understand it’ll take you a while to find your own place, so you can stay here until you do.”

I shook my head. That sounded like a nightmare. “I can’t stay here with you.”

“Then I’ll go away for a while. I’m sure Adrienne wouldn’t mind if I crashed at her place for a bit.”

That sounded even worse, but I forged on despite the tears that pressed hot and stinging against the backs of my eyes. “Your car? You’ll want the keys back. ”

He shrugged. “It’s ten years old. I’ll sell it to you for cheap.”

Now, I was hearing Lukas’s censure in my head, telling me if Daniel really loved me, he’d never let me drive that car.

I guess the stupid berserker had been right about that. Daniel didn’t love me.

“If I buy the car I won’t have enough in my savings for a first and last month’s rent. That is, once I find a place.”

“You could get a roommate?” he suggested.

I stormed toward the bedroom.

“Okay, okay,” Daniel said, trailing behind me. “Stay in the apartment for two months. I’ll cover the rent. That’ll give you time to save up for the deposits.”

“You suck!” I slammed the bedroom door behind me, then yelled through the thick wood panel with a trail of wetness sliding down my cheek. “Men suck!”

“I was being nice!” he yelled back.

And the maddening thing about it was, he kind of was being nice. I mean, he’d betrayed me and screwed me over, but at least he wasn’t going to make me suffer more than I already was.

I grabbed a blanket and a pillow off the bed, then whipped open the door and threw them at him.

He caught them awkwardly, juggling the pillow a bit before it slipped to the floor. “Thanks, babe. And…sorry.”

I gave him one scathing look, made a growling sound that even a hell hound would be proud of, grabbed my tablet, and marched back into the bedroom. I slammed the door in his face again. It was the only thing that had felt remotely good all day.

The mattress creaked when I jumped into bed. I pulled the blankets up to my waist .

“This is so fucking unbelievable,” I muttered, even though that wasn’t remotely true. It was totally believable. I was even used to this! I’d been overlooked, passed over, and ignored my whole life—that is, except for the last two years when Daniel made me feel I was finally out of the shadows.

Now, I knew that too had been a lie.

I exhaled long and slow, and everything was suddenly quiet. It was as if both Daniel and I, in our two separate rooms, were holding our breaths.

Was he even a little bit sad about any of this? Did he feel guilty? Was he relieved?

I stared at the foot of the bed, wishing I’d paid better attention to what was going on right under my nose. Like an idiot, I’d been utterly blindsided. Doused with a bucket of cold reality. Like I’d been in a coma and someone had slapped me awake.

What was I supposed to do now? I’d apparently built my life around a complete stranger. Even I was a stranger in my own damn life.

I wiped my cheek with the back of my hand and clicked on my tablet. I couldn’t afford to fall to pieces. If I was going to afford a safe car that Lukas would approve of, not to mention a halfway decent apartment, I’d need to convince a berserker boar that I could drum up excitement for his team.

Love sucked. Men sucked. An entire hockey team would be all that suckage times twenty-five. But I was still going to give everything I had to those twenty-five assholes. Even if they refused to give me the time of day, I was going to make the Spriggans the most viral team in the Savage League.