Page 68 of The Homemaker

When his attention shifts to me, I return a sad smile. “That’s good advice.”

“No.” He grunts. “It’s not advice.”

He’s on the verge of marriage and all the bliss that’ssupposed to come with it. Yet, all I see is a tortured soul. Did I do this to him?

I want to reach across the table, squeeze his hand, and apologize for everything I did, but mostly for the only thing I didn’t do.

“Do you think Callen is your future husband?” His question jumbles my thoughts.

“Uh …” I press the pad of my finger to a crumb on the table, giving it all of my attention while I formulate the response to a question I’ve never considered. “No,” I say with every intention of further explanation, but there is none. At least, none that I can give Murphy.

“Keeping it casual, huh?”

“Keeping my whole life casual.”

A tiny muscle twitches in the center of his forehead, like he’s trying to disguise his reaction. Everything is a disguise between us.

Murphy clears his throat. “How long do you think you’ll be Hunter’s homemaker?”

“Oh,” I say dramatically. “Now that’s the one relationship in my life that could go the distance.”

The grin on his face looks like it’s there against his will.

“I don’t know what I’ll be doing tomorrow.” I shrug. “Today I am here.”

“But?”

I shake my head. “No but. No comma. No asterisk. Today I am here. Period.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Murphy

If love doesn’t break your heart,

perhaps it’s not true love.

Eight Years Earlier …

She saidshe wanted to come back to me. Yet, when we made love, we did so with an intensity and desperation of the world ending.

Deadlines be damned. We spent our last days together in bed or in the kitchen, making a meal to refuel before going back to the bedroom.

“Murphy,” she whispered, hand curling with a fistful of my hair as I kissed her inner thigh.

“Come back to me,” I murmured, reaching for her breast as my mouth tasted her.

Her chest rose and fell in hard, erratic breaths while shelifted her hips from the mattress. When she closed her eyes, a tear escaped. It wasn’t the first, and I knew it wouldn’t be the last. What I didn’t know was the reason for them.

She gasped when I crawled up her body and pushed inside of her like I could claim something that wasn’t mine. And there was no uncertainty about it. Alice wasnotmine.

The only thing that felt real about us was the inevitable wreckage.

“I love you,” I said with a labored breath before kissing her.

She curled her fingers, nails digging into my flesh, while turning her head to break the kiss. “Don’t,” she said, eyelids blinking heavier with each thrust. “Don’t love me now. Love me when I’m yours.”

God, if only she knew how badly I wanted that, how often I imagined it, and not just when I was inside of her. Every time I walked into the room, she’d grin and take an audible breath as if I were the very air that fed her lungs. It was such a subtle, intimate gesture.