Page 58 of Wait for Him

She's straightening her blazer, perfectly composed.

I want to tell her it wasn't just an inconvenient erection. That it's never been fucking nothing. That I've spent so many years being the friend she trusts, the man she calls when she needs to feel safe, and I wouldn't trade that for anything, but there are nights when being safe is the last goddamn thing I want from her.

Instead, I pick up my laptop bag.

“Go home, Rose.” It comes out softer than I mean it to. “You've had two of the worst days a person can have back to back. Sleep. Drink some water that isn't wine. Let your brother be my problem tonight.”

That same little drop of disappointment from earlier lands on her face before she can hide it — the one from when I mentioned Elyse. Then she reaches for her bag and slings it over her shoulder.

“He's always your problem,” she says. “That's the whole tragedy of you, Jackson. You collect us problem children like strays and then act surprised when one of them won't leave.”

She means it as a joke. It doesn't fucking feel like one, because she has no idea how close she just got.

“Goodnight, Rose.”

She holds my eyes a little longer than she needs to, the gray going soft in a way that's going to follow me straight to Stacy's house and ruin every fucking plan I had for the evening.

Then she gives me a small, crooked smile.

“Goodnight, Jackson.”

Her heels click down the hall until I can't hear them anymore, and my office becomes just an office again.

I sink into my chair and drag a hand down my face.

Maybe I need the bourbon before Stacy. Maybe I need several bourbons and no Stacy, because going over there while my head is still full of Rose feels like using one woman to burn another one out of my system, and Stacy deserves better than that even if our arrangement has never pretended to be anything more than exactly that.

Fuck.

This is the math of my life lately. A wife I don't want, a woman I can't have and a booty call I'm suddenly developing a conscience about.

Fantastic.

“Your wife's headed up to your office, Mr. Jackson.”

Emily's voice crackles over the intercom and murders the first thirty seconds of peace I've had all day in cold blood.

“Thanks, Emily.”

Here we fucking go.

Hate is a strong word, and I've spent enough time testing whether it's too strong for what I feel about the woman I'm married to.

It isn't.

I've checked from every angle available to me, and the finding remains consistent.

I hate my wife.

The closer the click of her stilettos gets, the tighter my hands curl, some old reflex they've developed after three years of this shit.

“Marcus. You're not answering your phone.”

And there she is, filling the door the same way she fills the rest of my life: uninvited, expensive and impossible to get out from behind.

“Because I've been working all day, Elyse. What a novel fucking concept. Work.” I don't look up from my desk. “Why are you in my building?”

“It's not your building.” She walks in without being invited because she lives to make my life a living hell. “It belongs to that smoking-hot best friend of yours. You're just a peasant with a nice office in his world, sweetheart. Don't forget it.”