Page 144 of Wait for Him

I've been on mine at 4:55 every single morning since, doing sun salutations badly in the dark, and I couldn't tell you which is more embarrassing: that I do it, or how aggressively I'd defend the practice if anybody found out why.

I haven't even looked at another woman. Haven't let one touch me, haven't wanted it. Nine months of nothing, and somehow it hasn't felt like discipline. The thought of Rose with somebody else fills me with a turmoil that I'm not proud of, and I know I have no right to it. She released me in writing, her own hand, and a man with any sense would take the exit she drew him.

I know Rose. She's a deeply sexual woman, and the realistic math says nine months is a long fucking time. Maybe she's been with someone. I try not to think about it because there's absolutely nothing productive waiting for me at the end of that thought, and whatever she's done while she's been gone is hers. She doesn't owe me fidelity to a relationship she explicitly released me from.

I'm holding out hope anyway, not because I've claimed anything she didn't give me, but because I made a promise on a jet once about who I belong to, and nobody has revoked it. I can live my life while I wait. I can build this company and take stupid magazine photos and let Blaire drag me out to lunch three times a week. Waiting for Rose doesn't mean sitting in a dark room until she comes back. It just means I don't want anybody else in the chair beside me.

She told me not to wait.

She didn't say I couldn't still be here when she gets back.

Dad was sentenced last week. Life, for the culmination of all of it, every woman who came forward and every count they could make stick. The reporter shadowing me for the feature waited until the car ride to try it, casual, recorder already running.

"Any comment on your father's sentencing?"

"My father's name has had enough airtime," I said. "This piece is about the firm. If you want him, the prison schedules interviews."

She studied me for a second, then flipped to her next question, and I watched her mentally file away the quote she wasn't going to get.

That man spent a lifetime making himself the center of every room. He doesn't get to be the center of mine anymore, not in print, not on the record, not ever again.

***

Smack.

I shoot upright so fast I roll straight off the couch and hit the floor, blinking against the sunlight while one ass cheek burns.

"The fuck?"

"Rise and shine, sleepy boy."

Blaire's voice chimes from somewhere above me. I squint up at her and find her standing there in full CEO attire, looking disgustingly put together for whatever ungodly hour it is, with two coffees in hand. One in a mug, the other in a to-go thermos.

I rub a palm over my face and try to get my brain online. "Did you just smack me on the ass?"

"Yup. Couldn't help it. Sleeping naked was bad decision-making on your part. Your tushy was just hanging out in the open, waiting for me to smack it."

The way she growled the word smack is deeply concerning.

She sets the coffee down on the table. "Speaking of, you may want to cover your junk. I am a lady, after all. I may get... urges."

I look down.

Suit shirt.

No pants.

No underwear.

Well, this seems promising.

"What the hell happened last night?" I grab the blanket off the couch and drag it over my lap, suddenly far more awake than I was thirty seconds ago.

"Really? No response to my urges comment? That was top-tier shit, Jack-Jack."

I just look up at her.

"Ugh, fine." She takes a sip of coffee. "You showed up pounding on our door, drunk off your ass after a bender with the reporter from yesterday, going on about how you had to let her down easy because she wanted a ride on the Jackson Five."