Stitches

“You’re gonna handle my divorce,” he says, skeptically.

I draw my phone out of my pocket. “I’m better at it.”

After a few seconds, he says, “You’re not texting her, are you?”

“Of course not. I have nothing to say to her that I want recorded.” I push send and glance over at Griff, a crease marring my brow. “I feel like an asshole even asking this, but things didn’t get physical when you went to see her today, right?”

He scowls at me. “Fuck no. Seriously? You think I’d have sex with her? I’m with Moira now.”

“I was just making sure,” I tell him. “No need to get defensive.”

I already had Griff get tested to make sure his skanky wife didn’t pass him anything, despite his assurances that they never fucked without a condom, but I can’t be too careful with my Moira.

“There absolutely is a fucking need to get defensive,” he disagrees, fully riled. “That’s a bullshit thing to ask.”

“I know her tricks,” I remind him. “I know she’s used sex to handle you before.”

“Not when I had a better option at home,” he states, still surly as hell. Then he looks up at the ceiling. “Or, not home, but you know what I mean.”

&nbs

p; “This is your home as much as it is mine.” I miss a beat, then I tell him, “Ashley’s damn sure not getting your house, but after this is all over with, you should sell it and move in here. You can have the guest room for yourself, but you can stay in here with us if you want. On occasion, you can have Moira alone in there—not frequently,” I add, before he gets carried away with that offer. “But once in a great while. If we’re going to be a family, we should all live under the same roof.”

“I’d like that,” Griff says. “That house is too fucking big to live in alone, anyhow.”

I nod my agreement. “It’s settled then. After I get rid of your wife, I get rid of your house.”

“I think I can handle that part.”

“A house won’t try to manipulate you, so you might have better luck.”

He shoots me a dry look. “She didn’t manipulate me.”

“She manipulated the fuck out of you.”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” he mutters, clearly getting annoyed with me.

I smile faintly. “We’ve talked about it enough. You don’t have to worry about it anymore. Consider the matter resolved.”

That should put him at ease—it certainly would Moira—but Griff questions me. “How exactly are you planning to resolve it?”

The bedroom door creaks open and Moira peeks her head in. She sees us on the bed, so she takes another step inside.

“Did you need something?” she asks.

I crook a finger for her to come closer. “We do.”

“What do you need?”

“You.”

23

Moira

My elegant husband waits on our bed, his gaze commanding me to undress so his mouth doesn’t have to.

“I wasn’t ready for bed yet,” I murmur, kicking off my black kitten heels and reaching behind my neck to unfasten my necklace. “Griff owes me a movie,” I point out.