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“I can’t do that to Lucy. I promised I’d be here when she got back.”
“You don’t ow—”
“Don’t finish your sentence, Amelia. Not if you want us to stay friends.”
She appears frustrated but doesn’t sound it when she says, “I’m just trying to look out for you, Henley. It’s what friends do.” Her brows furrow before her face smooths. “Do you have access to Brodie’s email server?”
“If it’s on his laptop, yep.”
“Get it. Go. Now. Move. I tried to watch that remake three times already. It is so bad I left the theater at the exact same scene. They could be home in ten minutes.” My stomach gurgles as I race into the kitchen for the laptop Lucy was tinkering with earlier. “How many stars are in the password box?”
“Doesn’t say,” I reply, defeated.
“Try Lucy.”
My heart pumps out a crazy tune when it is denied.
“What about her birthday?”
Once again, we come up empty-handed.
“His name?” When I glare at her, she shrugs. “What? If I had a dick as big as his, I’d be in love with myself too.”
She has a point, so I punch in Brodie’s name.
“It isn’t his name, and we only have one more attempt before we’re locked out for thirty minutes.”
“Shit.” Amelia peers around the kitchen like the answer might present itself, before the color drains from her cheeks, and she murmurs, “What about his wife’s name?”
I hate myself for the bitchiness of my reply. “From what I can tell, she died years ago. Do you truly think she’d still be his password?”
“If he hasn’t gotten over her, yeah, it’s a strong possibility. But I’ll leave the decision up to you because it isn’t my life on the line.”
“Life?”
“He used your first name in an email, Henley. There could be a handful of Henleys in the world, but how many aren’t of British descent and don’t have using assholes on the lookout for her?”
“Fuck.”
With shaky hands, I type “Caroline” into the login box.
It gains me instant access to Brodie’s inbox that displays he sent his message to the nanny agency minutes before confronting me in the kitchen.
“Delete it and her reply, then block her email.”
I do as asked while mumbling, “It won’t stop her from calling him.”
“It will when we disconnect the landline phone. If she had Brodie’s cell, she would have called it immediately after hanging up. She wouldn’t have emailed him.”
Her assumption makes sense, but I can’t harness my curiosity. “What the hell is a landline?”
“Get rid of that first, and then I’ll walk you through the ancient world of old people.”
15
BRODIE
After how I’ve acted the past few days, I have no right to get jealous when Thane cozies up to Henley’s back while attempting to teach her how to defend herself if an attacker approaches her from behind.
It could be construed as an innocent gesture if he didn’t waggle his brows every time our eyes collide. He’s riling me, and it’s fucking working. I’m pissed, jealous, and fighting like hell not to storm into the basement and take over the self-defense class he’s been running the past hour.
Thane knows what he’s doing. I’m just annoyed as fuck that he can do whatever he wants without consequences.
I’m not so lucky.
My every move is watched—even the ones that occur in the privacy of my home.
I fucking hope Caroline wasn’t looking down on me three nights ago when I screwed our daughter’s nanny on the bed she purchased when we moved in together. Lucy was conceived on that bed, but with my head in a lust cloud and my smarts shut down, I couldn’t stop what was happening.
It seems as if I have no willpower when it comes to Henley. She drops my defenses like a bomb and has me acting as if I am a decade younger than I am.
God, that night.
Fuck. I’m hard now just thinking about it.
I treated Henley like a whore, and she loved every damn minute of it.
Caroline was beautiful but more reserved in the bedroom—almost shy.
We didn’t fuck. We made love.
That phrase can’t be used to describe my exchange with Henley. We fucked like wild animals, and at the time, I couldn’t get enough.
Then the guilt set in.
Our house isn’t the one Caroline and I purchased following our wedding, and neither is half of the furniture. But that mattress, the one I sullied and stained, was ours. I couldn’t stop replaying the last time she told me she loved me on that same bed, her lazy smile when I kissed her goodbye for the final time. She was no longer on maternity leave, but Lucy slept peacefully in a crib beside our bed.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m expected to move on. Caroline wouldn’t want me to be miserable, but I could have picked a better spot to do that.
I should have respected my wife.
