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“She’s not going to stop, is she?”
He turns and takes my hand across the island, thumb rubbing over my knuckles. “I gave her the lawyer’s card. Told her I don’t want contact unless it’s an emergency.”
“And if she doesn’t listen?”
“Then we handle it through the lawyers. I’ll get a restraining order if I have to. I’m not letting her run our life.”
I want to believe him, but it’s hard. She’s already shown she doesn’t care about boundaries, and this is about the hundredth I’ll handle it I’ve heard from him about her.
He finally looks at me. “I know what it looks like. But I promise, Blaire. I’ll do anything I have to to protect you and Theo.”
The heat in his voice as he says it makes butterflies stir low in my belly.
He glances down the hall, toward Theo’s door. “How’s he been?”
“Still warm, but not like last night. He kept down toast around ten and then crashed. I checked him twenty minutes ago. 101. I was going to do another dose at two.”
“Your boss pissed you took another day?”
I huff. “She sent a very polite email reminding me about attendance policy and asking me to ‘touch base when I return.’ So, probably pretty pissed. But they won’t fire me this close to end of semester.”
“I’m sorry you had to miss again.”
I shrug. “It’ll be fine.”
He drinks the rest of the water. Shoulders still tight.
“Maybe we should do something this weekend,” he says. “Get Theo out of the house if he’s better.”
“Chance texted this morning, actually. He wants to do a family hike. All of us. Take some pictures at the top. Anniversary gift for Mom and Dad. Updated ones, since the last decent family photo is from before Jackson. Before Alex. Before—” I gesture at us. “This.”
Simon nods, a little too fast. “Yeah. That sounds good.”
The eagerness sits wrong for a second. For one stupid beat I think this is a ruse. I know he’s been talking to my dad. But I quickly throw that delusion it out. Dad and Mom’s anniversary is in a couple weeks and she’s been talking nonstop about updated photos. That’s all this is. And I’m pretty sure Simon wouldn’t propose with Veronica still hanging over us. We’ve barely been back together a month. Thinking about it isn’t the same as doing it.
“You okay?” I ask, just to see what he says.
“I’m fine.” He sets the glass down and fidgets with it. “I lost my temper on Veronica. I’m just sick of this shit. I wanted things to go differently when you moved in with me. I wanted it to be us and Theo building what we missed out on this whole time. Not her on my porch screaming that I’m ignoring her.”
“What did you say to her?”
He huffs a breath through his nose. “I told her she needs to stay the fuck away from my family.” His jaw flexes. “I may have also called her a manipulative bitch”
Something hot and unhelpful goes through me.
It shouldn’t. A woman just screamed in our driveway. Theo is sick down the hall. None of that is sexy.
But hearing Simon talk about standing his ground, about defending our family, about putting that manipulative little bitch in her place. It’s definitely reaffirming that a competent partner is a kink of mine.
I go to him. He meets me halfway, hands on my waist, and kisses me, hi tongue immediately slipping past my lips and into my mouth. When I make a sound against him he backs me up until my hips hit the counter.
“Up,” he says.
His hands are already under my thighs, lifting, setting me on the edge of the island. The granite is cold through my leggings. He steps between my knees and I can feel him, hard already, thick against the inside of my thigh, and I hook my ankles behind him without thinking.
“Theo—” I whisper.
His mouth is at my jaw, then my throat. “You have to be quiet.”
