Pretty. So fucking pretty. A little minx. He’d thought she was his little minx. Got off on that. Bitch was wicked.

And he’d been wrong.

He couldn’t totally read her because he was the asshole who didn’t read for the five years they were apart that her wicked games were poisonous.

“Mia, go home,” he repeated.

“You want me to go?” she asked, leaning further into him, pressing her tits into his chest.

He instantly pulled back.

Her eyes narrowed and she shot out a hand to cup his crotch.

She barely got her hand on him before he moved his between them. Wrapping his fingers around her wrist, he yanked it away, listening to her surprised cry when he used precisely the strength he intended, making the hold he had on her bite just enough to make a point.

“What the fuck’s the matter with you?” he asked.

“Merry,” she whispered, twisting her hand in his hold to try to get away, uncertainty in her features now.

He jerked her forward and she gave another surprised cry as he bent to get in her face.

“Listen to me,” he growled. “You do not ever come here again. You sell that house. You pack your bags. You get your ass to Bloomington. And you forget I exist.”

She looked into his eyes, the uncertainty gone, the training he’d given her that she owned his dick and could lead him around by it shining from them now. “You don’t mean that.”

“You have another man’s ring on your finger,” he reminded her.

“Like that means anything to you,” she retorted.

“Fuck,” he whispered, staring into her eyes. “Do you not know me at all?”

Her gaze dropped to his mouth. “I know you better than you know you, baby.”

He used her wrist to give her a slight shake, and her eyes shot back up to his. “No, bitch,” he bit out. “You don’t. You wanna come and play and you made no promises that a man’s countin’ on to live the future he’s got mapped out with you, that’s one thing. This shit…it’s another. You wanna be that cunt who fucks over her guy, have at it. But you’re not usin’ me to get you off playin’ your games.”

“If it’s that big a deal to you, Merry, while you fuck me, I’ll take his ring off,” she offered.

Fucking bitch.

How the fuck had he not seen this before?

She came to him. It wasn’t rare; it wasn’t frequent.

But she came to him when she’d had a bad day…“and I just want to be with you, Merry.” Or when she’d had a go ’round with her mom…“and no one will get it like you, Merry.” Or when she felt…“we need to talk, Merry.”

What she needed was to fuck, for someone to get her off like, apparently, no one else could, and it took her little time to talk him around to that mostly because she’d put her hands or mouth on him and they wouldn’t talk at all.

He didn’t comfort her. He didn’t listen to her.

And most of the time, she’d be gone before he woke, or he’d lie in bed, watching her dress and listening to her say, “Gotta go, baby. I’ll call you.”

She wouldn’t call.

But she also wouldn’t hesitate to come back when she needed another dose of his dick.

He’d thought, one day, she wouldn’t get up early and sneak out. One of those times, she wouldn’t dress while he watched then leave, but instead come back to him and say shit like, “Dinner tonight. It’s clear neither of us can let this go. Let’s work it out.”

He’d thought her coming at all said they weren’t done. The door was open. He just had to walk through.

When that didn’t happen, he felt like the asshole because he didn’t ask for it, didn’t push it, didn’t point out that the finality of signing divorce papers was bullshit for the both of them.

She hadn’t led him on. He’d fully participated and he was not a dumb fuck. He knew early what was going on.

That didn’t mean he didn’t feel she was leaving that door open.

Friday night, he thought she’d gotten fed up and closed the door.

It pissed him off more than Cher’s rant that morning, not only that he’d been wrong but, with Mia’s most recent visit, how he had.

The past few days, he’d been recognizing Mia’s games for what they were, and it sat like a weight in his gut that information was confirmed.

He pushed her off, taking a step back and wrapping his fingers around the edge of the door. “Go home, Mia.”

She shook her head like she was clearing it and her brows drew together. “Are you serious?”

He stared down his nose at her. “You know, woman, I’m not a cheat, on either side of that deal. How the fuck you got it in your head you could come here tonight, I don’t know. But this is done. And just to make things clear to you, Mia, even if it doesn’t work out with that guy, when I say this is done, I mean that any way it can mean. This shit is done because we are done.”

She stared up at him, stunned.

“But…we’re never done,” she informed him.

“Never just became a fuckuva lot shorter,” he informed her, stepped back and shut the door in her face.

He locked it and turned away.

She didn’t knock again, and it was good she didn’t bother because he hadn’t lied.

They were done.

Christ, it sucked in ways she’d never understand that Cher didn’t recognize the fucked-up mess they already had was a fuckuva lot healthier than the fucked-up mess he and Mia had become.

All of a sudden this thought made him smile, because if Cher was right there and he could’ve shared that with her, she’d bust out laughing.

Garrett turned out the lights and headed to the bedroom thinking, yeah, his brown-eyed girl had a week. That was as long as he was prepared to sit on his ass and wait for her to come to him.

If she didn’t, she was ready or not, he was going to her.

Chapter Eight

A Week

Cher

Thursday Afternoon

My phone sounded with a text as I drove home from the grocery store, six bags of shit that had absolutely no nutritional value in the back of my car (plus four of those baby carrots snack packs).

In other words, I was good to go to keep my “cool mom” crown because Ethan and Everest were going to hit the better-living-through-chemistry food mother lode at about five tomorrow night when Everest came for his sleepover.

I’d also stopped by the bank and opened a new account with Trent and Peggy’s thirty-five hundred dollars. It and anything else they gave me was going to stay set aside.

I didn’t know why I did this, I just felt it prudent.

And if nothing came of whatever they planned to do but them giving me that money (as well as the hundred bucks every two weeks that they’d promised), then at least it was in a savings account earning interest until whenever I deemed it time to hand it over to Ethan.

I parked in my driveway and grabbed my phone.

The text was as I’d feared—not from Merry.

It was from Trent.

Call me. We need to talk.

I threw my phone back in my purse, got out, grabbed the bags, and took them in the house.

It was after I’d put everything away that I got my phone out again.

Just got back from the grocery store. I’m worried that my nutritional selections for my kid are preserving his body for science. So I bought carrots.

I stared at the text I typed in Merry’s text string, the bubble hovering over it still declaring DONE.

Then I backspaced through the text, tossed my phone on my purse, and walked out of the kitchen.

* * * * *

Friday Evening

I moved through the living room with my phone in one hand, the snack-size four-pack of baby carrots in the other.

I saw my son and his buddy lounging on the couch, controllers in hands, twisting and turning as they hit buttons, eyes glued to the TV, the detritus of a feeding frenzy in front of them so extreme, it covered the top of the coffee table and leaked over all four sides.