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But nothing changed.It was almost as though his outbursts at the park didn’t exist.Except they had.
I knew the kind of man Stan was. He wasn’t just going to let this slide; he’d find a way to punish me, he always did.
“That’s good,” Zeke said and motioned to me with his fingers. “Come here.”
I hesitated. “You’re not messing up my hard work again.”
It had taken many weeks of effort, but Callie and I had finally organized everything in Zeke’s office. It finally looked like a lawyer worked here. All the boxes on the floor were gone. His law journals and books were organized on the shelves. I’d ordered him two filing cabinets, one for his case files and the other for his business documents, both tucked into the corner of the room.
And his desk.
My masterpiece.
The clutter was gone. Everything was color-coded and stacked based on priority or tasks for the day based on Callie’s information. I had everything prepped for him before he sat down each morning and before I headed over to Blooms to take up my tasks there.
“I thought you accepted my several-orgasm apology?” he teased with a wink.
Heat bloomed in my stomach. “I did.”
Those winks… his teasing smiles… his hungry stares… they’d all been more frequent. Less guarded. The walls we’d had in place had come down as easily as if they were no more than sheets strung up on a laundry line.
“Come here, wife.”
I shivered. If Stan had talked to me like this, I would’ve hated it. He would’ve turned ‘wife’into a weapon—another means of controlling me. But Zeke… he used wife as a call to worship. A promise to give me anything and everything I needed.
Biting my lip, I walked around his desk, knowing it was a dangerous game to put myself in arm’s reach. For the last two weeks, we hadn’t been able to keep our hands off one another.
He took my hand and brought my palm to his lips.“What is it? What’s worrying you?”
I swallowed hard. I wanted to trust him—I did trust him.But this… it went bigger than trust. I knew the lengths Zeke would go to defend me, and if he knew what worried me, I worried he’d forget every law he’d sworn to uphold in order to make Stan pay.
“What’s going to happen when I file for custody,” I said weakly.
“There’s nothing he can do, angel. It’s up to the judge.”
I wished that each time he said it made it truer.
He must’ve seen my doubts written on my face because he asked, “What do you think he’s going to do?”
“I don’t… know,” I offered carefully. “He’s good at twisting things. Twisting truth into lie and lie into truth. Good at hiding his narcissism with selflessness. Wanting to care for me. Wanting me to have to worry for nothing. Wanting to protect me. Wanting to make sure I’m healthy—” I broke off before I said too much. “I’m afraid a judge won’t see through that.”
Zeke moved his hands to my waist, drawing me into his lap. “I’ll make sure he does.”
I tensed. “Is Callie…”
Callie and I got along well, and she’d welcomed the idea of me as Zeke’s wife so easily. Maybe because she had the most proof that at least certain parts of our relationship were real… it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out how Zeke’s desk had gone from pristine to a mess in the course of one night, or how one of the legs on the small loveseat mysteriously broke one day, or the reason for the sudden dent in the hallway drywall that appeared over the span of her lunch break.
Maybe it was because Callie and her husband had ended up married under questionable circumstances, too, but regardless, I was grateful for her kindness. Grateful for everyone’s kindness. But at the same time, the way they welcomed me with open arms hurt because the reason for it wasn’t real… and when they learned about Jake and my custody battle… I was afraid of losing everyone who’d come to mean so much to me.
“She left for the day.” Zeke cupped my cheeks and claimed my mouth in a deep kiss.
My tongue instantly tangled with his, and I sighed into the embrace. I couldn’t get enough of the way he kissed me. Not to distract me or make me forget my worries, but to let me know I wasn’t alone.
“You don’t have to worry about him,” he broke the kiss and said. “We’re going to file for custody, you’ll both go before the judge, and a decision will be made. There will be rules. Lines. And you won’t have to worry about him again.”
I hoped he was right.
“Yeah.” I let my forehead drop to his, fighting back the nagging thought that he still had no idea what Stan was capable of… and I couldn’t tell him.
