I hadn’t heard from him in about a week and a half. I assumed he was busy with his pregnant fiancée now, catering to her, trying to buy a home, and also adding more hours at his job to care for his soon-to-be bundle of joy. He traveled a lot too, so I was sure he was busy.
I was going to tell him . . . I just had to give it time—prove to him that Roland and I were okay. I wanted to give our marriage half a year before telling Kell, then he’d see that Roland was good. That I was happy.
I opened the drawer to look for my toner and shuffled around for cotton pads. My finger landed on something cold and hard and I picked it up.
It was a gold earring, a dangly one with the shape of a dove on the end. I blinked twice as I studied the earring, knowing damn well it wasn’t mine. It had to be Melanie’s . . .
I sighed, carrying it to a container on a shelf on the wall and tossing it in there. Knowing her stuff was still lingering in this house, hiding in some of the nooks and crannies, was bothersome. His first wife was still lingering around, staking claim, not only of the home, but Roland too.
He loved Melanie. I could tell. It hurt him to talk about her and that pain cut him deep—so deep that I was sure when he felt it, his only wish was to see her again.
How the hell was I supposed to compete with that?
How was I supposed to be better than the wife before?
CHAPTER TWENTY
Last night I’d asked myself how I could be better than her. I figured the only way to become better was to actually be a wife. To me, it meant adding my own touch to the mansion, so I started shopping, in person and online. I had Dylan take me to the town to browse some furniture pieces at a local furniture store.
Whenever I had downtime, I’d sit in the den with a fire going and watch YouTube videos about renovations and interior design. There was one young woman I really liked named Evie King, who flipped houses, and I took a lot of home designing tips from her.
Roland didn’t mind it. He liked giving me money to go out. He liked that I was settling in and making the house mine too.
Everything was going so smoothly for us . . . but I also wanted to feel accomplished with my own life, so I decided to bring my plan up to him.
“I was thinking . . . maybe I can clear out Melanie’s things from the shed for you?” I couldn’t even look at my husband as I put it out in the air. But I had been thinking quite a lot, and not only did I want to see what was in there (and possibly see if we had anything else in common), but I also wanted to renovate the shed and make it my own.
We were seated in the den in front of a fire with glasses of rum. Roland was sitting next to me on the leather sofa with a motivational book by T. D. Jakes in his hands.
“You want to clear it?” he asked, lowering the book.
“Yeah. Well, I remember you saying you tried to get her sister to get rid of some of it. Maybe I can go through and organize it to sell some of it and whatever money we get, we can donate to a charity she would have liked.”
He stared at me blankly for several seconds before sighing and tucking a bookmark into the spine of his book. “I was going to get around to clearing it myself one day . . . just wasn’t sure when. Plus, I still have money being donated to a charity she chose when she was still alive.” He paused. “I kept the money going to honor her in a way.”
“Wow. That’s really sweet, Roland. And I get it about not having the chance to clear it yet. It’s probably tough for you to go in there. That’s why I don’t mind doing it for you. I know how hard that might be for you, to go through everything that reminds you of her.”
“Yeah.” He dragged a palm over his face and then tossed his head back, resting it on the sofa. “I don’t want you to do it if it’ll make you uncomfortable.”
“It wouldn’t,” I said, sliding closer to him and smiling. “I’m a big girl. I’ll be fine.”
His eyes shifted over to focus on me and he smiled.
“I also want to maybe make it over, if you think it’s okay? Do a little renovating on it, make it a place of my own? I’ve been watching these videos by this really good renovator named Evie King. She’s very detailed and I’m sure I could spruce the shed up.”