AllFreeNovel
Share Us
But sometimes, she wished she’d worked harder to convince him to move to Boston. Several law firms in the city would have snapped someone like him up in a heartbeat. Perhaps he could have found a better work-life balance. At the very least, he would have less stress about finances. Those firms were known to pay very well.
After his mother passed, Rose thought Steven might consider going back, but he had his heart set on opening his own firm. In the end, it hadn’t taken much to convince her to stay in Cedar Haven. She was already in town, and the thought of packing up everything to move again sounded exhausting. So they’d stayed.
But he’d never told her how much capital he had sunk into the venture until it was too late. On top of that, he still had to pay off his student loans from law school. The sixty-five thousand dollars he’d inherited from his mother after paying off the estate helped, but it wasn’t enough to make a substantial dent in what he owed.
To say they were financially strapped was an understatement. If only they hadn’t moved to Cedar Haven so quickly. Maybe if they’d stayed in the city, they could have saved a nest egg to help him build his business.
She checked her phone again but had no new messages. Perhaps he’d decided to give her some time. She grimaced. Or maybe he was doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing, like working. It would be like Steven to take advantage of her absence to dive into his caseload and make some headway. After all, he probably reasoned that if she was mad at him, she would be less likely to stop by and catch him in the act. She hated how well he knew her sometimes.
She’d stewed long enough. She needed to have it out with him, and if she caught him working, it would add fuel to her already simmering fire.
After grabbing her purse and keys, she headed out the door and drove to the house. They hadn’t been able to afford much of a mortgage, even that far from the city. But it was enough for them—two bedrooms and one and a half baths in less than sixteen hundred square feet. One of the bedrooms hardly qualified as a full room, but it allowed for a home office. Part of her wondered if she should have insisted Steven use that until they could afford to buy commercial space, but he’d fallen in love with the location of his firm, and his father had helped him secure the loan. It hadn’t seemed worth it to fight at the time.
Her hand hovered over the doorknob. Shaking her head, she turned the knob. He always said it was her house too. So she supposed she shouldn’t feel weird walking in.
“Steven?” she called. The late-summer-evening sun poured into the room from behind her, basking the hallway in an orangey hue.
No response came, but the distinct sound of keys clacking on a keyboard drifted down the hall. Unbelievable. She prepared to catch him in the act.
Sure enough, Steven scrambled to shut his laptop as she entered the living room. He was in his chair beside the couch. His hazel eyes widened, and he bit his lower lip in quite possibly the guiltiest expression she’d ever seen. If she wasn’t so angry, she might have laughed.
“What do you think you’re doing?” She crossed her arms.
“Nothing,” he said a little too quickly. “I mean, it’s not what it looks like.”
“It looks like you’re working.” She raised an eyebrow.
“Not really. I mean, I’m trying to catch up on email, I swear.” He raised his hands as if in surrender. “I’m not working on any briefs or pleadings, nothing that would cause me undue stress.”
She scoffed. “Knowing some of your clients, I find that hard to believe.”
With a wry smile, he slid the laptop onto the coffee table. He moved over to her cautiously. When he grabbed her hand and began pulling her into his lap, she stiffened, and he released her with a frown.
“What are you doing here?” He searched her face.
“I came to finish our argument,” she said coolly, narrowing her eyes. “But it appears we’re about to have another one.”
He sighed. “I told you Lanie brought the laptop here so I could catch up on work.”
“No.” She jabbed him in the chest. “Lanie brought the laptop home to write the advertisement for a law clerk, which you’ve done. She should have taken it back to the office where it belongs.”
“Be reasonable, Rose,” he whined. “I can’t just sit here day in and day out doing nothing while my business goes to hell.” He leaned closer to her, both eyebrows raised in a challenge. “Do you want me to fail?”
That caught her off guard, and she staggered back. “Of course not, but I don’t want your heart to either.”
Taking her hand, he placed it on his chest. His pulse pounded beneath her palm. “It’s still ticking.”
A faint smile pulled at her lips before she could stop it. She tried to rearrange her features into a sterner expression. “For now.”
But Steven took advantage of her faltering anger and brushed his hand over her cheek. She started to pull away, but he slid his other hand around her waist, pulling her into his lap and kissing her.
“Not fair,” she murmured against his lips.
He chuckled and released her. “But the best part of fighting is the making up.”
“You assume we’re done fighting,” she retorted as she stood and put her hands on her hips.
“I took a nap earlier, and I’ve taken multiple breaks. I promise you, even though I’m working, I am heeding Dr. Myers’s advice.”
