Entirely unlike the woman who’d walked into my office the day before.
Exactly like the woman I’d thought she’d grow up to be.
Here was Hope. She was in the fairy lights strung along the ceiling, twinkling against the gold walls. In the rattan hanging chair in the corner beside a small table piled with books. In the massive, overstuffed, brown velvet couch that should have been too much and somehow wasn’t, even covered in blood-red velvet pillows.
There were things everywhere. I could look all day and not catch all of it. A figurine of a girl holding a wand was propped on the windowsill, almost hidden behind the heavy curtain. Flowers crowded one end table, books and a haphazardly placed coffee mug another. A lamp was shaded with fringed paisley scarves. Paintings and photographs filled the walls.
It was disorderly, a riot of color and texture, and the polar opposite of the woman Hope was pretending to be. How did she hang those bland suits in the closet? I imagined the apartment would eject them straight out the front door, unworthy to exist in this fever dream of a home.
Thinking of her suits led me straight to thoughts of her bedroom. What I could see of her apartment pulsed with energy and passion, with pure hedonistic pleasure. If this was her living room, what had she done to her bedroom?
I turned slowly to see Hope beside me, shifting from one foot to the other, her cheeks pink with embarrassment as I absorbed the impact of her apartment.
“You live here?” I had to ask.
Hope nodded with a jerk and swallowed hard. “I… I know it’s a little… Uncle Edgar said it’s awful, but I—”
“Edgar is an ass. It’s not awful. It’s perfect. I could sleep on that couch for days.”
Hope looked around as if seeing the room for the first time. “I didn’t really have a sense of what I wanted when I moved in. I just saw stuff and bought it. I know none of it really goes, but I like it.”
“I like it, too. It reminds me of you.”
At that, Hope laughed. “It absolutely doesn’t remind you of me. It can’t. But that’s okay.” She crossed the room, leaving me behind. “There’s beer in the fridge if you want one. I’m just going to change and then we can figure out dinner.”
She disappeared through a door at the opposite side of the room. What was Edgar paying her? The son of a bitch was wealthy, but he’d always been tight with a dollar. I wouldn’t put it past him to convince Hope she was lucky to have a job and then pay her a pittance.
Her apartment was cool, especially considering what she’d done with it, but it was small and run down. The appliances I could see in the kitchen were far from new. So were the fixtures in the tiny bathroom that adjoined both the living room and the bedroom. I changed clothes in the cramped space, aware of Hope doing the same in her bedroom, just on the other side of the door.
Like the asshole I am, I found myself wondering what she looked like under that ugly suit. Wondering how long it would be before I found out.
I’d been watching Hope in the car. One stroke of my fingertip over her soft skin and she’d shivered under my touch. Not in fear or revulsion. In arousal. She’d done that in Harvey’s office, too. So responsive, even when I hadn’t touched her yet.
She’d had a crush on me as a girl, but that was a lifetime ago. She was a woman now.
She was my wife.
Five years. No adultery.
She’d had her chance to run, to negotiate, to beg for mercy. Instead, she’d married me.
I’d never trust her again. Not like I had before.
In a fucked-up situation like this, trust is relative.
Did I trust Hope? Not fully. Not to the core.
Was there anyone in Sawyers Bend I trusted more than Hope?
Not even close.
We could make this work. It was only five years. We’d team up—work during the day, in bed at night—and when it was done, I’d set her free.
I exited the bathroom to find Hope in the kitchen, standing over a selection of take-out menus spread across the counter. Her hair was still in a bun, but she’d traded the suit for a slouchy gray sweater and a pair of jeans so old they were white at the seams. The jeans weren’t tight, but they fit the curve of her ass like they’d been made for her.
Her eyes brightened when she looked up. “You changed. I’m glad you had something else.”
“Me too. I like your jeans,” I said, checking out her ass again so blatantly she blushed. I’d always liked teasing Hope, though I’d never teased her like this. She’d been a kid. She wasn’t a kid now. And she wasn’t wearing a bra. She probably thought her breasts were too small to need one.