Thief

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I really want the macadamia nut sundae.”

She leans forward and her br**sts press against the table. “More than you want me?”

I stand up and grab her hand, pulling her to her feet. “Can you make it to the car?”

She nods. As we are rounding the corner, our server returns with our two hundred and fifty dollar an ounce port. I take it from him and pass it to her. She shoots it. The server flinches and I bark out a laugh, handing him my credit card.

“Hurry up,” I say. He races off and I press her against the wall to kiss her. “Was it a delight in your mouth?”

“It was okay,” she says. “I really want to put something else in my mouth…”

“God.”

I kiss her so I can taste it. When I turn around, he is back with my card. I quickly sign the receipt and drag her out of the restaurant.

After an intensely memorable fifteen minutes in a pharmacy parking lot in the backseat, we drive to an ice cream shop and eat our cones in the heat, outside.

“Doesn’t hold a candle to Jaxson’s,” she says, licking her wrist where the ice cream is dripping.

I grin as I watch the traffic on the street.

“Do you think we’ll ever get sick of doing that?”

We switch cones, and I eye her through my haze. She ordered the ice cream shop’s version of Cherry Garcia. I ordered something with peanut butter. I watch her eat it. She has that sexed look — flushed skin, ruffled hair. I’m tired, but I could easily go another round.

“I highly doubt that, Duchess.”

“Why?”

“Addiction,” I say simply. “It can span an entire lifetime if untreated.”

“What’s the treatment?”

“I don’t really care.”

“Me neither,” she says, throwing the rest of my cone in the trash and dusting her hands on her dress.

“Let’s go. Our hotel room has a hot tub.”

I don’t need to be asked twice.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Four months after Leah was acquitted, I filed for divorce. The minute — the very minute I made the decision, I felt a huge weight lifted from my figurative shoulders. I didn’t necessarily believe in divorce, but you couldn’t stay in something that was killing you either. Sometimes you f**ked up enough in life, that you had to bow to your mistakes. They won. Be humble … move on. Leah thought she was happy with me, but how could I make someone happy when I was so dead inside? She didn’t even know the real me. It was like sleepwalking; being married to someone you didn’t love. You tried to fill yourself with positives — buying houses and going on vacations and cooking classes — anything to try to bond with this person you should already have bonded with before you said I do. It was all empty, fighting for something that never was. Be it my fault for marrying her in the first place, I’d made plenty of mistakes. It was time to move on. I filed the papers.

Olivia

— That was my first thought.

Turner

— That was my second thought.

Motherfucker

— That was my third thought. Then I put them all together in a sentence: That motherfucker Turner is going to marry Olivia!

How long did I have? Did she still love me? Could she forgive me? If I could wrestle her away from that f**king tool, could we actually build something together on the rubble we’d created? Thinking about it set me on edge — made me angry. What would she say if she knew I’d lied about the amnesia? We’d both told so many lies, sinned against each other — against everyone who got in our way. I’d tried to tell her once. It was during the trial. I’d come to the courthouse early to try to catch her alone. She was wearing my favorite shade of blue — airport blue. It was her birthday.

“Happy Birthday.”

She looked up. My heart pounded out my feelings, like they did every time she looked at me.

“I’m surprised you remembered.”

“Why is that?”

“Oh, you’ve just been forgetting an awful lot of things over the last couple of years.”

I half smiled at her jab.

“I never forgot you…”

I felt a rush of adrenaline. This was it — I was going to come clean. Then the prosecutor walked in. Truth was put on hold.

I moved out of the house I shared with Leah and back into my condo. I paced the halls. I drank scotch. I waited.

Waited for what? For her to come to me? For me to go to her? I waited because I was a coward. That was the truth.

I walked to my sock drawer — infamous protector of engagement rings and other mementos — and ran my fingers along the bottom. The minute my fingers found it, I felt a surge of something. I rubbed the pad of my thumb across the slightly green surface of the ‘kissing’ penny. I looked at it for a full minute, conjuring up images of the many times it had been traded for kisses. It was a trinket, a cheap trick that had once worked, but it had evolved into so much more than that.

I put on my sweats and went for a run. Running helped me think. I went over everything in my head as I turned toward the beach, dodging a little girl and her mother as they walked along hand in hand. I smiled. The little girl had long, black hair and startling blue eyes — she looked like Olivia. Was that what our daughter would have looked like? I stopped jogging and bent over, hands on my knees. It didn’t have to be a ‘would have’ situation. We could still have our daughter. I slipped my hand in my pocket and pulled out the kissing penny. I started jogging to my car.

There was no time like the present. If Turner got in the way, I’d just toss him off the balcony. I was soaked in sweat and determined when I turned on the ignition.

I was one mile from Olivia’s condo when I got the call.

It was a number I didn’t recognize. I hit talk.

“Caleb Drake?”

“Yes?” My words were clipped. I made a left onto Ocean and pressed down on the gas.

“There’s been an … incident with your wife.”

“My wife?” God, what has she done now? I thought about the feud she was currently having with the neighbors about their dog and wondered if she’d done something stupid.

“My name is Doctor Letche, I’m calling from West Boca Medical Center. Mr. Drake, your wife was admitted here a few hours ago.”