Sucking in a breath, I blow it back out. It’s nothing. One two-minute chore doesn’t mean he’s a changed man. And if he has changed, it doesn’t mean he wants me back.
With that thought, I spin on my heel and go inside. The girls’ faint laughter filters through the house. Closing my eyes, I soak it in. After a day spent by Mom’s bed, I need this. I need to come home and just have it all be dealt with.
I see Simon out on the patio through the blinds of the French doors next to the kitchen. The girls are frolicking in the sprinklers. The smell of steaks grilling hits me and my stomach rumbles. The cafeteria sandwich I ate for lunch was hours ago.
I step outside and get my first look at Simon. My mouth drops open. He has athletic shoes on—and it isn’t just for his morning run. Not only that, but he’s wearing navy shorts and a striped button-up linen shirt. Casual Simon hasn’t made an appearance for years.
He looks over his shoulder and lifts his chin. “Hey, how’s your mom?”
“Janie Wagner will live to see another day, if only so I can kill her for not going to the doctor sooner.” I flop into a lawn chair. The girls squeal and wave at me as they take turns on a Slip ’N Slide.
We don’t have a Slip ’N Slide.
“Did you go to the store?” Does he even remember where they are? His personal assistant sees to all his meals.
“Yeah, wow, they really redid Target. So your mom didn’t go to the doctor? But I thought you knew she had pneumonia?”
“She wasn’t getting better despite being on meds and ignored it. They’ve switched her antibiotic and have her on breathing treatments. The head issue wasn’t serious, thank God.”
“She’ll pull through okay?”
“They’re going to keep her another day or two to make sure it’s all working, then they’ll cut her loose. But she’ll be in a regular room so the girls can go see her. I said we’d be by tomorrow. I’ll have to have a serious talk with them. When I go help Mom out after she’s released, she’s going to be so worn out. They can’t expect her to be an active grandma for a few weeks.”
“Leave them with me.” He shrugs. “I took the week off. Helena’s taking charge. I’ll get her to cover the evening calls and meetings too. Our London investors are pretty quiet in the summer.”
“Doesn’t Helena have a life?” And how much does Simon participate in it? I bite back the thought. I hate petty jealousy. Besides, he’s a single man. Eligible. I should concentrate on his declaration that he’s taking a week off, but it’s a case of I’ll believe it when I see it.
“I have no idea, but she doesn’t say anything.”
“Why would she? You’re the boss.” Ironically, I’m not too jealous to advocate for her. I know what working for Simon is like.
His expression darkens. “I’m not a bastard.”
“No, but you’re pretty oblivious to the personal lives of others.”
He waves the metal spatula around like a wand. “If she needs time off, she’ll say so.”
He can go ahead and think that. It’s not my job anymore. “So what’d you guys do all day?”
“The park, the store, and then I promised them hamburgers but I got you and I ribeye. And I guess we’re watching Frozen.”
“It’s cute. I’ve seen it ten times.”
“So you aren’t going to join us?” He makes it sound casual and it feels a lot like when he asked me on our first date.
I thought instead of the party the guys were going to throw, I’d catch a movie if you wanted to come with.
I’d gone back to my dorm and jumped up and down with my roommates. The frat boy stud asked me, studious uncool girl, out. The rest is history. Just like our marriage.
“No. I’ll take advantage of you staying here to catch up on some training.”
He nods, but disappointment simmers in his eyes. He wants to hang out with me? He’s actually taking time off and he wants to spend it with me. That’s a revelation I don’t need to look deeper at.
If I go ahead and snuggle up in the recliners to watch the movie, I’ll start to remember how good it can be between us. How nice it is to have us all together.
Then he’ll go back to work and crush those fantasies. If he’s going to be here all week, then I’ll have to concentrate on what I’ve been letting slip when he can’t hold up his end of the co-parenting gig. My half-marathon training. The business I’m starting.
I had big plans once. By the time I graduated with my college degree, I was pregnant and married. Not exactly the high-powered CEO I envisioned myself as. My professional dreams and having kids shouldn’t be mutually exclusive. I can be a mom and a businesswoman. But those plans are the first to take a back seat when life gets busy. I’m not even thirty. Do I have to wait until I’m forty before I get my chance?
I’ve never discussed my issues with him. The few times I brought them up shortly before the divorce, he circled the conversation back to Gainesworth Equity, insinuating that I had my chance.
Anyway, he has enough hang-ups with his family. He’s proven unwilling to handle mine. Simon’s presence makes it hard to concentrate, and it’s him manning my grill that’s bringing up all these questions I’ve been ruminating over for years.
“I’ll head to the office. Let me know when dinner’s ready.” I don’t bother to look at him. Instead of feeling prudent, the sense that I’m running from him follows on my heel.
Chapter 5
Natalie
I drape Mom’s bedspread over her. Dad and I had brought her home from the hospital and shuttled her straight to bed despite her protests that she’s fine to sit in a chair. If we get her settled in her chair, she won’t rest. She’ll straighten the end table, and that would lead to a little dusting and maybe popping outside to check the garden.
“I’ve been doing nothing for days. I don’t think I can rest any more.”
Says my mom with the pale face, who ended up short of breath walking from the garage to the bedroom.
I put my hands on my hips. “You might not sleep, but you can rest. What do you need done?”
Mom purses lips that haven’t returned to their normal deep pink. “After the rain earlier this week, the weeds are probably going wild.”
“I’ll weed before I go.” Dad with his bad back shouldn’t be out in the garden trying to figure out what’s crabgrass and what’s sweet corn. “What else?”
“Oh, honey. I don’t want to—”
“Simon’s with the kids. I’ve got all day.”
Mom falls quiet, her contemplative stare in no way diminished by her illness. “He’s been helping quite a bit.”
“Well, he always liked you.” Being around Mom gives him a chance to witness a mother figure who gives a shit and doesn’t cut him down every moment she gets.
“Is he staying at the house?” Her question’s deceptively innocent as she straightens the blankets across her chest.
“Yes, actually. He didn’t really ask and it’s been so handy, I just…” I shrug. If it wasn’t for Mom in the hospital, this would’ve been perfect. Months too late but perfect nonetheless.
“Uh huh. Is he sleeping in the guest room or in your room?”
“Mom,” I admonish but my cheeks heat. She tries to laugh but breaks out in a junky cough.
Dad saunters in. “What’s this about you and Simon?”
“Nothing. We’re still divorced. But according to that article, he co-parents. I couldn’t believe it at first, but that’s what he’s been doing all week.”
Mom sighs and relaxes into her pillows. “I still remember the first time you told us about him, and I thought he’d be a pretentious young man. He kind of proved me right toward the end, but I think there’s still hope for him.”
“Don’t hold out too much. He’s on his phone whenever the girls are occupied and I heard him taking some conference calls in the middle of the night.”
“I wish he’d get his head straight.” Dad sets a glass of water on the bedside table.
I tie my hair in a messy bun on the way to the backyard shed, unable to escape the sensation that this is too good to be true. Simon won’t be around that long. The siren call of work and living up to his brother’s legacy will lure him away.
But it hasn’t yet and I’m free to help Mom. I find her gardening gloves and the rest of her supplies. Selecting a trowel and the claw tool, I head out to her coveted gardens. Evaluating the job and the way the weeds seemed to mutate after a nice rain, I pick a side to start on.
Dad meets me at the garden with a hoe.
“I’ve got it, Dad. You have other things to do.”
“I need some fresh air after being stuck in the hospital for so many days. And if I don’t try to save these jalapeño plants, she won’t be able to hand them out like candy at the church social this fall.”
Mom’s garden is more than a hobby. It’s an obsession. She pickles and cans, and everyone that passes her during preserving season gets a jar of something from the garden. I usually help her. I plan to help her this year, and I’ve started fortifying myself for the emotions it’s going to bring up.
Last year was when I decided over a boiling pot of salsa that I couldn’t do it anymore. The girls and I stayed overnight to help can applesauce and apple pie filling the next day, staying away the whole weekend—and Simon didn’t notice. He pulled late nights at the office and used up all the individual freezer meals I made him. When we returned home, I had a full night of prepping him another week’s worth of meals for the office, confirming my decision to look up a divorce lawyer the next day.
I rip out a weed. Then another and another, until sweat drips down my face. Dad’s white legs come into view. He hoed through the rhubarb and cleared around the larger and more obvious plants like the squash.
“Want to tell me what’s really going on with you and Simon?”
I sit back on my heels and squint up at him. A chemical woodsy smell rolls off him. Bug spray. I probably have mosquito bites all over.
The incessant itching will take my mind off other, much more dangerous feelings, tonight in bed when my body is well aware that my ex is under the same roof. Maybe if he wasn’t so good in bed, I would’ve left him sooner. Just another reason I can’t trust myself around him.
“There’s nothing to tell. He took off work and is carrying the weight around the house so I can help Mom. I’m even getting all caught up on my training so I can start my own business.” My parents, Aleah, and Rachel are the only ones I’ve told about Let Me Assist You.
Simon was the last to know.
“That’s awesome.” Dad’s look is the same one he got in high school when I ran the car out of way more gas than it took to get to the grocery store. “Then what?”
“Then he goes back to work and I start my own business.”
“There’s no chance that you two…”
“Nope. He’s still married to the company.” I wipe my forehead with the back of my wrist. The fingers of my gloves are black but I’d need to garden for another eight hours before I ripped enough weeds to straighten out half my thoughts.
“Then you don’t think he’s started dating?”
“He works too much to meet anyone. I don’t think he’s involved with his assistant.” I didn’t plan to say that. I’m not aware of when I accepted that there’s nothing with him and Helena, but he’s too absorbed in his career.
“Isn’t she married?”
“That doesn’t always stop people.”
Dad shrugs. “Simon never struck me as that kind of guy. Besides, if he was interested in doing, you know, that, he wouldn’t have hired Charlie. I’m sure plenty of attractive young women applied.”
“Charlie’s still attractive.”
“And not Simon’s type.”
I can’t deny that I worried about who Simon would surround himself with at work. Not everyone applying to work with him would be interested solely in professional development. Simon’s my age and when we were married, even during the times I was so frustrated with him I could hardly stand to look at him, I couldn’t deny him in bed. He got what he wanted and he wanted it a lot. And no matter how conflicted my mind was about him, about us, my body never doubted how good, how cherished, he’d make me feel.
The thought that he’d move on and do that for someone else kept me awake too many nights over the last seven months.
“He hasn’t changed.” I’m done with this conversation. It doesn’t help to know that my parents would support a reconciliation. “The company comes first. The company always comes first.”
“Maybe when he goes back to work, he’ll realize everything he’s been missing.”
“He’s had seven months to do that.” More if you counted when we separated those couple of months before the divorce was final.
I know Simon better than anyone. It’s why I’d called the divorce attorney. Simon’s single-minded. A handsome guy like him never quits getting hit on just because he wears a wedding ring. But he was focused on me. A heady experience for a girl who drifted through life never standing out.
The company came and it was our priority. Then the girls got older and my priorities shifted. Liam died and Simon’s priorities shifted. I lost my husband, my partner.
His single-minded focus is growing that company to something his big brother would’ve boasted about at country clubs across the nation. Liam’s company was a whopping success and Simon’s determined to outdo him ten times over.
I can’t compete against a dead man.
Simon
I lie awake and stare at the ceiling. It’s one of the only mornings I don’t wake up with a kid in bed. Somehow, they remember in the dark of night that I’m across the hall and find me instead of trekking across the house to Natalie’s bed.
It’s also one of the few mornings I don’t have a ton of messages from Helena. Apparently, Graham pulling out of the companies I invested with left my clients panicking that something’s wrong with my choices. Helena’s had her hands full the last few days. It wasn’t like I could tell them that the guy hated my brother and was toying with me, or something like that.
I still haven’t figured it out.
I let out a long breath. The house is quiet, but I’m sure Natalie is in the office. Every night I’ve gone to bed harder than I’d ever been. I have to lock myself in the shower and stealth jack off after bedtime. I switched to nighttime showers so I don’t have to worry about the kids pounding on the door to ask for their eighth snack of the morning or yelling about a show they can’t agree on.
Natalie spends her mornings in the office, listening to training courses and setting up her business. I want to ask her more about it, but she deflects me every time. I get the impression she assumes I’ll think it’s lame. I’m proud as hell of her.
I swing my legs down and rub my eyes. After getting dressed in black shorts and a white T-shirt, I go to the bathroom. I take an extra minute to finger comb my hair after I brush my teeth. I should get a trim but for once it’s nice to be casual from head to toe. I skip shaving. Again. My morning routine is shot to hell and that alone feels like more of a vacation than our trip to Niagara Falls for our honeymoon.
I head downstairs and tell myself to keep going to the kitchen and start breakfast, but I go straight for the office. Tapping lightly on the door, I don’t hear anything. Taking a chance, I open it.
Natalie looks at me, then whips her head back to the computer screen, but not before I see her glistening eyes.
I cross to her and drop to my knees. “What’s wrong?”
She sniffles and sighs, accepting that I caught her crying and I’m not leaving. “It’s this—It’s nothing.”
“Natalie, you don’t cry over nothing.” She tears up at movies where the love story ends in a funeral. She cried when her grandparents died, and when she was pregnant,
she cried at—well, I couldn’t predict when it’d happen then, just a lot. But other than that, she holds her emotions in, only opening up to me when she really needs to talk.
That she’s reluctant to let me in now is a kick to the nuts.
She waves at her computer. “This job. Am I crazy to think I can do this? How do I even find my first client? I’ve been in this office for hours trying to figure it all out. I can’t open my virtual doors and hear crickets. The girls are going to ask. They’re going to ask how many people I’m working for and they’re going to ask how’s business going. And what if… what if I suck?” A tear escapes each eye and streaks down her face.
I gently brush them away with my thumbs. “One, you don’t suck. You know that. Two, you’re going to kill it because you know how to do the job and you want it.”
“I haven’t done it virtually. This isn’t like picking up dry cleaning and grabbing coffee.”
“You did more than that.” Gainesworth Equity was our brainchild. She might’ve done a lot of administrative duties, but only because she wanted to be free for the kids. I clasp her hands. “Whatever is asked of you, you’ll be fine. You’ll figure it out and you’ll be good. Before you know it, you’ll be so in demand that you’ll have to turn clients away.” She makes a face, but I press on. “Remember that statistic? The one that said women wait to apply for a job until they’re like ninety percent qualified and men will apply even if they’re ten percent qualified?”
She gives me a small smile but it’s a win. “I don’t know if those percentages are correct.”
“The point is, you’re going to do great. You’re going to be awesome.” I look at my big hand over hers. “You were the best thing that happened to me.”
She goes rigid. “Simon—”
“I mean it. I can’t imagine anyone who’ll be better at this job than you. You were excellent in the company and you did a hell of a lot more than pick up dry cleaning. You’re an amazing mother. And you were the only wife I ever wanted.”
Eligible Ex-Husband: A Hero Club Novel Page 4
