After getting out of bed too, she tried to remember where she’d tucked the extra sheets. The tiny third-floor closet, if she wasn’t mistaken, so she put on her slippers and prepared to follow him down—only to hear the ding of an incoming text message, then another in rapid succession.
Curious as to who would be texting her so late, she shuffled back over to the tiny bedside table and checked her display.
Azlan, her casual friend and house-renos contractor. Who was on California time, obviously.
Tackling the last of the plumbing issues first thing tomorrow. Anticipate being done by noon. We’ll clean up, haul out the construction debris, and be out of your hair by end of day.His second text was brief, but punctuated with a smiley-face emoji.Welcome back home, Molly!
Staring down at her screen, she exhaled slowly.
Her heartbeat thudded inside her skull, and her stomach roiled.
The workers had finished right on time, a full week before she was due home. Which was great, right? Impressive, even, given the frequency of construction delays.
Only... she wished the whole concept ofhomedidn’t seem so nebulous to her right now. Wished she didn’t feel like a hummingbird hovering in midair, ceaselessly flapping her weary wings as she waited for a place to set down and rest.
Suddenly jittery, she opened her browser. Checked her email. Since this morning, a half-dozen unread messages had appeared in her inbox, most of them regarding the literary novel she’d soon begin narrating as Molly Biddenwell.
Her in-home recording booth was excellent and expensive. It was also—as she’d told Athena—modular, specifically built to be easily taken apart, moved, and reassembled. If Karl wanted a future with her, she could get it transported cross-country with relative ease, although she might need to rent recording studio space until it arrived in Harlot’s Bay.
But he hadn’t asked for a future together. Hadn’t even introduced her to his family during the Dean clan’s nightly phone calls or their weekly, much-loathed-by-Karl video chats.
Yeah, he’d tried convincing her to stay in town, but without giving her the foundation she’d need to build a life here. Without offering her the assurance of long-term love and commitment that would allow her to leave behind her grandparents’ home and her comfortable—albeit lonely—existence out in LA.
She was trying her hardest to have faith that he would, to trust that he hadn’t said anything yet because he didn’t want to pressure her, or because words were hard for him. Which she knew. Ofcourseshe knew talking about his feelings pained him. But if he couldn’t bring himself to do it anyway, how could she possibly believe what they had together meant as much to him as it did to her? How could she redirect her entire life for a man who hadn’t offered her his heart?
And sure, she hadn’t mentioned her willingness to move to Maryland for him either. Hadn’t mentioned love or lifelong devotion. She’d told him all her secrets, though. Things she’d never shared with another living soul. In every conceivable way, both physical and metaphorical, she’d let him in, and he understood how private she was. Understood how terribly she’d been hurt by her ex-husband.
He had to realize what all that openness meant, right? How much she was already risking for him?
So she needed more from him. She needed him to meet her a few steps past halfway, one final time. She needed him to declare himself first.
And maybe that wasn’t reasonable or just. But she’d spent her entire girlhood with a man who’d eventually measured her need for him, his love for her, and clearly found both less powerful than the draw of another family. Then she’d spent seventeen long years trying to be equitable with Rob, who’d used her remorselessly and tossed her aside the moment he no longer required her presence.
She wouldn’t survive someone else who’d count the cost of loving her, of staying by her side, then leave her empty-handed or brokenhearted when she came up short.
No more scales. No more bargains. This time, she wouldn’t accept anything less than a heedless, reckless love, entirely free from calculation. A love so overwhelmingly powerful Karl had to express it, even if that meant prying each word from the terrified depths of his soul with the Jaws of freaking Life.
If she got that kind of love from him, she’d move across the country for it. Uproot herself from the only long-term home she’d ever known and take her chances building a new one with a man she hadn’t seen for over twenty years, until three short weeks ago.
She’d give and give and give some more. She’d break her damn back for him.
And if she didn’t get that kind of love?
She was leaving, because she’d rather fracture her own heart than wait for him do it.
Again, maybe that wasn’t fair. But she didn’t claim to be fair anymore. Only honest.
24
“HolyJesus,” Karl wheezed the following Saturday.
Sounded like someone had punched him in the gut. Felt like that too.
Mouth agape, he watched Molly come down the Spite House stairs to where he was fidgeting in his rental tux near the kitchen table. In the late afternoon sunlight slanting through the over-sink window, her pin-straight hair streamed over her shoulders in a gleaming sheet, her glossy lips shimmered, her blue eyes sparkled, and—
Shit, the rest of her should’ve burned out his retinas.
She’d actuallydoneit. Worn one of those hot-as-hell suits with a low vee in front, no shirt or bra in sight. Her midnight-blue satin jacket and matching high-waisted pants shone from her shoulders to her wrists and ankles, demanding attention without apology. The jacket’s lone button held the fabric together beneath her pale, pushed-together breasts, and the whole thing fit like a burnished second skin.
