Total pages in book: 35
Estimated words: 33290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 166(@200wpm)___ 133(@250wpm)___ 111(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 33290 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 166(@200wpm)___ 133(@250wpm)___ 111(@300wpm)
“That’s not—”
“Isn’t it? How long did Sarah last? Six months? And what about that teacher, Rebecca? She was good with Luca too, until you decided she was getting too attached.”
The names struck me like slaps. Sarah and Rebecca, two women I’d dated briefly over the past few years, both of whom had tried to build something lasting with me and Luca. Both of whom I’d eventually pushed away when things got too serious, too real.
“This is different,” I said, but the words sounded hollow even to my own ears.
“How? Because you married this one? Because you’re willing to commit fraud to maintain custody?” Lyla leaned back in her chair, looking satisfied. “Face it, Colby. You’re so desperate to keep Luca that you’ll drag an innocent woman into your mess and pretend it’s love.”
“Don’t tell me what I feel.”
“Then tell me yourself. Look me in the eye and tell me you’re madly in love with Gianna Stapleton. Tell me this isn’t about proving you can provide stability.”
I stared at her across the small table, my heart hammering against my ribs. The truth was complicated, messy, impossible to explain in simple terms. Had I married Gianna to help with custody? Yes. Was I in love with her? The kiss three nights ago suggested I was, but the foundation of our relationship made everything uncertain.
“I thought so,” Lyla said when I didn’t answer immediately. “You can’t even convince yourself, let alone a judge.”
“What do you want, Lyla?”
“I want what’s best for Luca. And what’s best for him isn’t watching his father manipulate women and call it love.”
“So you’re going to take him away from his home, his friends, his school? You’re going to uproot his entire life to prove a point?”
“I’m going to give him stability. Real stability, not this house of cards you’ve built with your convenient wife.”
I stood up abruptly, the chair scraping against the floor. “We’re done here.”
“Sit down, Colby. I’m not finished.”
“Yes, you are.” I threw a ten on the table to cover our coffee. “If you want to keep playing games, do it through the lawyers. Leave Gianna alone.”
“I can’t promise that. If she’s going to be part of this situation, she’s fair game.”
The threat in her voice made my blood run cold. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I’ll do whatever I have to do to protect my son. Even if it means exposing the truth about your marriage.”
I walked out of the café before I could say something I’d regret, but Lyla’s words followed me onto the sidewalk. The truth about your marriage. She was right that the foundation was built on legal necessity, but she was wrong about everything else. What I felt for Gianna, what she felt for Luca, the life we’d built together that was real.
Wasn’t it?
By the time I got home, my mood had darkened to match the gray October sky. The house felt different somehow. Not obviously wrong, but the subtle displacement of someone who’d been there while I was gone. A pillow displaced on the couch. The slight chemical smell of cleaning products in the air.
Lyla must have stopped by while I was at the Henderson job site. She still had a key for her visits with Luca, but she’d never cleaned before. My skin crawled as I walked through the rooms, wondering what she’d been looking for or what she’d left behind.
I found Gianna in the kitchen making lunch, her dark hair pulled back in a messy bun and paint smudged on her cheek from whatever project she’d been working on at the shop.
“How did it go?” she asked without turning around.
“About as well as expected.”
She glanced over her shoulder, taking in my expression. “That bad?”
“She knows. Or thinks she knows. About the arrangement, the timing, all of it.”
Gianna’s hands stilled on the sandwich she was making. “What did you tell her?”
“Nothing. But she made it clear she’s not going to let this go.”
“What does that mean for us?”
The question hung in the air between us, loaded with implications neither of us wanted to face. What did it mean for us? Were we still just following the script of our arrangement, or had we crossed into something else entirely?
“I don’t know,” I said honestly.
She turned to face me fully, and I could see the worry in her hazel eyes. “Colby, maybe we should talk about what happened the other night.”
“The kiss?”
“The kiss,” she agreed. “And what you said afterward. About not wanting this to be over.”
I moved closer, drawn to her despite the chaos in my head. “Did you mean what you said? About needing time to think?”
“I meant it. But I’ve been thinking, and I keep coming back to the same questions.” She wrapped her arms around herself, a gesture I’d learned meant she was feeling vulnerable. “What’s real here? What we feel for each other, or what we’ve convinced ourselves we feel because we’re living like a married couple?”