Lainey felt her chest seize, though she froze to appear unaffected by the question. “Why would this be anything like it was with Hayden?”
“He had a way of making you feel desperate—”
“Desperate?” Lainey spat.
Bree’s face grew soft. “Cornered, I mean. Scared. Like you had to do it his way or you’d lose everything.”
Hayden had been Lainey’s first and, unfortunately, most formative adult relationship. At the time, bartenders were still scrutinizing Lainey’s brand-new ID for signs of fraud, but she’d been an “old soul”—or at least that was what Hayden, fifteen years her senior, had always said. He had a way of making compliments sound like accusations and accusations sound like pleas for mercy.
You’re such an old soul, he’d tell her. Like his perception of her maturity at the age of twenty-one was some sort of manipulation on her part. She was a siren, a dangerous temptation, luring him into his undoing.
Bree had been seeing three different therapists of various modalities at the time and was quick to name her relationship with Hayden in a way Lainey hadn’t been ready to do. Upon reflection, Lainey had always known it wasn’t healthy, even if she’d made a million excuses for his behavior.
He loved her too much. He was too passionate. He wasprotective. He needed more from her. Or less, depending on his mood.
Hayden always had a long list of needs she was failing to meet at the ready, while her needs were somewhat inconsequential to him. But she was so different back then. So needy. So desperate to hold on to what she thought was love that she’d let him slip under her skin, feeding from her like a parasite until she was an empty shell.
The whole thing lasted only nine months. Not long enough to cause any real damage. Bree still monitored his social media, but Lainey had him blocked. She preferred it that way. Out of sight, completely out of mind.
“Honestly, I can’t even remember the last time I thought about Hayden,” Lainey said, shifting her weight to her back foot.
And it was true. She used to think about him more when she was dating someone, but when she gave up on all that, the ruminating over their relationship—the signs she missed, the ways in which she feared someone’s affections would turn ugly—stopped, too. It had been years since she thought to remember him.
“You swear?” Bree’s hands moved to her hips. She was breathing hard.
“I swear. Now, can you sit down?” Lainey pulled out a chair from the table before moving in the direction of the kitchen.
“I’m sorry.” Bree held her belly as she sat. “You used to keep secrets when you were with him. Then you hid this from me, and you never do that…”
“I should’ve told you.” Lainey poured a glass of water from the Brita and handed it to her. “I thought you’d try to talk me out of it.”
Bree took a long drink as she relaxed into the chair. “Iwould’ve. It’s a stupid plan. If you really needed insurance, I would’ve married you.”
Lainey smiled. “I know, and I couldn’t let Lozenge grow up in a broken home.”
“It’sPastille, not…are French people really going to think I named my daughter Lozenge?”
Lainey let out an airy chuckle. She was glad Bree knew about the marriage, even if she didn’t wholly approve.
“Oui. Je suis désolé.”
“Fine, Baby Lozenge is out.” Bree blew a strand of hair out her face. “And tell your ‘husband’ he’s safe to come back in.”
Chapter 9
A Very Legitimate Business Arrangement
57 Days until Busy Season
Lainey spent hersecond morning as a married woman pretending to be asleep while Elliot got dressed for his morning run.
Elliot’s room was the true primary bedroom and home to the house’s single shower. She wasn’t prepared to knock on his door and ask permission to use herownbathroom and, thus, was pretending to be asleep until the moment she’d hear Elliot exit the house for his run—or what she believed to be an act of self-inflicted misery masquerading as a desperate attempt to cling to his last vestiges of sanity.
When she heard the click of his bedroom door, she tucked her hair into a shower cap and drifted into Elliot’s room half asleep. But today, he was not out for a run. Today, he was striding out of the steamy shower in nothing but a damp towel.
“What are you doing here?” She held up one hand to block his wet torso like a modesty screen while the other tugged down the bottom of her robe. It was the one Jennifer Schlottke had gifted everyone who’d attended her sweet sixteen party at Mt. Olympus Water and Theme Park, which was to say that the robe was approximately four inches too short for her adult body.
“This is my room,” he responded. He had the absolute gall to be confused. As though they hadn’t wordlessly agreed to never deviate from the previous day’s schedule and its resulting expectations even once without express written permission. He had to already have some sort of process for this. Perhaps a memo carbon-copied in triplicate? Lainey had never worked in an office and couldn’t be sure what that even meant, but Elliot would. Elliot and his rack of immaculately starched button-downs practically hadSerial Intra-Office Memo Offenderstitched onto his shirt pockets. Lainey’s life might’ve been a variable mess, but it was held together by the steadfast predictability of other people.
