Separation Anxiety (24 page)

“You might have a hard time walking for a few days,” he continued.

I closed my mouth and swallowed loudly. After I cleared my throat, I said, “May I ask what, exactly, you have planned?”

He leaned in close to my ear. He brushed his lips on the sensitive skin of my neck, causing my entire body to prickle with goose bumps that sent a shiver down my spine. “First I’m going to make love to you like I’ve wanted to since the moment I first reali
zed that I am in love with you,” he said, his voice soft and breathy against my ear.

“And when was that?” I asked, trying to control my lust.

He leaned back and looked at me. “The night we made chicken marsala together,” he said, and then he took a bite of cereal.

My heart melted as I remembered him standing in the kitchen, seemingly conflicted about something. Now I knew that the weight that he felt because of Allison and Carly had
been pressing down on him as he worked through his fear of getting close to me.

“Oh, Jesse,” I said, feeling tears form behind my eyes.

He winked at me. “Back to my plans for you,” he said, leaning back in toward my ear. “I’ll be gentle the first time. I’ll take my time, savoring and kissing every single inch of your perfect body that I’ve already had the pleasure of seeing fully naked.”

My breath caught in my throat as his soft, sensual words warmed me from the inside out.

“Then what?” I asked, my voice cracking like an adolescent going through puberty.

He kissed my neck again and leaned back to look me in the eye. “
Then I’m going to fuck you the way I’ve wanted to fuck you since the first moment I saw you in the library at school five years ago. I plan to take you whatever way I want to, and of course I am open to any suggestions you have, too.”

My eyebrows shot up at his words as my lady parts tingled.
My goodness, his use of words mixed with that raspy voice mixed with the lust in his eyes was some kind of magic.

“
Oh my,” I managed to say, my voice panting as the throbbing that was always present down low when I was with Jesse started to ache.

He grinned and leaned back in his chair, taking another bite of his Cheerios. How he managed to stay composed through that little speech while I was a melted puddle of desire on the floor was beyond me.

I took a deep breath. “These are going to be the two slowest weeks of my life, aren’t they?”

“For you and me both, babe. But it won’t be anything compared to the last two months.”

“Good point. But you’ll be in Mexico having a great time with your buddies, looking at women in teeny bikinis while I’m here missing you.”

“Haven’t you realized yet that I only have eyes for you?” he asked, a hint of frustration in his tone.

I glanced up at him, and his eyes burned into mine. I could read from that look alone that I was the only woman on his mind and in his heart.

“I know you do,” I said, realizing how true it was.
Based on his actions since I’d been crashing with him, I knew he meant it. As far as I knew, he hadn’t been with a single other woman during our time together, and I was certain that he would have told me if he had been, even if it had happened in our two months apart. It seemed to me that he wrote off all of those other ladies the moment I started staying with him.

I thought about
Tami, the waitress from our happy hour bar that he’d told me he had slept with that first night when I’d told him Richard and I were getting divorced. I remembered him going back in when he was going to take me home. I remembered with jealousy when I saw Tami’s arms lace around his neck, and then I remembered her looking angry as he left the bar. Clearly they’d had plans to hook up that night, and he’d gone back in to tell her it was off because he already knew that he was taking me home with him. I wondered at his thought process and when he had made the decision that night that he wasn’t going to take me to my home, but to his.

He finished his cereal and brought his bowl to the sink. I watched him, memorizing his movements so I had something to hold onto while we were apart.

He reluctantly left a few minutes later. He’d given me a list of instructions about the house, kissed me about seven hundred times, and told me he loved me. He asked one more time if it was okay that he was leaving me on my own to deal with Richard, and I assured him that I would be fine.

And then I watched as he pulled out of the driveway, tears prickling my eyes as I watched him pull around the corner and drive off toward Mexico. I held onto the love and excitement in my heart as I looked toward my trip to California in two long weeks.

CHAPTER 1
7

I headed back to bed, hugging Jesse’s pillow to my chest as I felt the empty space I always felt when we were apart. I breathed in tha
t masculine piney Christmas scent he had perfected, that scent that had become my favorite scent in the entire universe.

I fell asleep and dreamed of Jesse, a big bed, and all the promises he’d just made to me.

After I’d finally hauled my lazy ass out of bed later that day, I headed over to the house I shared with Richard. He was home, and I was conflicted over whether I actually wanted him to be there or not. I knew we needed to talk; I wanted to confront him about The Scandal, but at the same time, I wanted nothing to do with his slimy face. Hatred simmered in my heart as I thought about the misery I’d endured for the past two months at his hands.

I knew it wasn’t worth broaching the subject
because it wouldn’t change anything. The quicker I could get in and out, the better.

He was sprawled on the couch when I got there, watching the Golf channel. Something about that made me inexplicably hate him just a little more.

“We need to talk,” I said, standing directly in front of the TV.

“About what?” he asked.

“About why the fuck you think it’s okay to ruin my life.”

Oops. That just sort of slipped out. I hadn’t meant it to, but my intentions were
better than my words.

“What are you talking about?”

I shook my head.

He still didn’t move from his position on the couch. He waved his hand in the air, motioning for me to scoot away from the TV. I didn’t budge.

He sighed in exaggerated frustration. “Will you fucking move over?”

“No,” I said. Then I turned around and shut off the television just for good measure.

“Bitch,” he muttered under his breath. I chose to ignore that one.

“I’m moving my st
uff out this weekend, Richard. I’ll see you in court on the seventh. Don’t forget that if you list this house, half of the commission is mine.”

“Not if it sells after the divorce is finalized.”

“Is that why you haven’t put it on the market yet?” I asked, taking a power stance by placing my hands on my hips.

He shrugged, and he finally sat up on the couch.

“You’re a real piece of work,” I said.

A slick smile formed on his lips, and I rolled my eyes.

“I can’t wait until June 7, when I will finally be finished with you.”

“Oh, sweetheart. You’ll never be finished with me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’ll always be your first husband. A little piece of you will always love me.”

“You know, I thought that for a long time. But after the shit you’ve put me through, now I just think you’ll always be the man who wasted five years of my life,” I shot back.

I spun on my heel and headed toward the bedroom I once shared with my husband. I’d already packed most of my personal belongings when I’d moved into Jesse’s, and I really didn’t want anything that would remind me of Richard. I didn’t want our bed. I didn’t want our couch. I didn’t want our kitchen set.

I wanted the little things; artwork I’d picked up over the years, vases and decorations, a beautiful lamp, a decorative mirror. Old boxes filled with mementos from high school and college.

I didn’t want our sheets or our towels or even our kitchen
gadgets. Jesse had all of those things, anyway.

And that train of thought made me realize how dependent I’d become on Jesse. I’d always felt so independent with Richard; I was in a relationship, and I was married, but I was still on my own. I wasn’t part of a team.

With Jesse, I was part of something bigger. We were in it together.

It wasn’t dependence in the way that I became a
fragile woman who relied on a man to support her; rather, it was dependence in the way that I needed Jesse and his love. I needed his warm arms around me. I needed his encouragement and his strength and his laughter. I needed him to look at me with lust in his eyes and promise me that I was the only woman he wanted. These were the things that I had come to rely on in my life, and I was thriving in new ways that I didn’t know I could thrive. I felt confident, loved, cherished, and treasured, and I realized how much I’d been missing out on because I’d never had any of that with Richard.

I packed up my car with as much as I could manage, starting with the keepsake box I had in the bedroom. I took my wedding dress, hoping I could find someplace to sell it. If not, burning it was always an option.

I headed to the garage and pulled the Christmas ornaments that had special meaning to me. I took the boxes I considered mine and packed them in my car.

Richard didn’t
budge from his place on the couch. He never offered to help me. His eyes never left the television screen as I struggled through various rooms of the house with boxes.

The only time his eyes even flicked in my direction was when I pulled a painting off the wall next to the TV.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Taking what’s mine.”

“That’s not yours.”

“Yes, it is. I bought it at
Pottery Barn two years ago.”

“With my credit card,” he shot back.

“That we paid for out of our shared account.”

“
I want it.”

I didn’t want the argument, but I didn’t want to give it to him, either. “Fine,” I said. “All yours.” I tossed it in his direction, and it landed on the floor. The glass in the frame shattered, causing the art inside to tear, and the frame cracked nearly in half.

He gaped at me in stunned shock, and I smiled at him with sarcastic and fake sweetness.

“What the fuck, Veronica?” he yelled at me.

I just continued to smile sweetly.

“That was a big mistake,
” he said with a threatening tone.

“Marrying you was a big mistake. I’ll be back for the rest of my things later this week.”

I turned and walked out. I had everything I really needed, so if he decided to destroy what was left, then so be it. I didn’t need the reminders of him anyway, not after he leaked a very intimate and private moment between Jesse and me to one of his sleazy sources and not after he tried to take my job and my livelihood away from me.

T
he two weeks Jesse and I were apart dragged. Each day was a different uphill battle for a different reason, mostly due to the fact that I just plain missed Jesse. We talked a minimum of three times a day. We texted throughout the day. We Skyped a few times. But none of it was the same as being next to him, feeling his warmth, or breathing in his scent like he was my oxygen.

I’d gone back to the house only one other time, aiming for a time when I knew Richard wouldn’t be around. The asshole had boxed up most of what was left in the house, making it nearly impossible for me to find anything that I wanted. He’d taken every piece of artwork down that I hadn’t gotten to in my previous visit, and I had no idea what he had done with any of it. The house looked nearly empty, actually, except for the furniture, and that was fine by me. I found a few last minute items I had forgotten, but I realized that I’d have been fine without any of it.

I’d managed just fine without any of it since that fateful night in February when Jesse had taken me home with him.

I saw a picture of Richard and me on the counter. It was from our wedding reception. We were both smiling, but as I stared at myself in the picture, I could see an emptiness behind my eyes, an emptiness
that was now gone. An emptiness that had been filled by someone else.

It struck me as strange that I had never noticed what had been missing from my life. I thought I was happy with Richard, at least when we were dating and throughout our engagement. But maybe deep down inside, even on our wedding day, I knew that we didn’t really belong together. It just wasn’t something I came to terms with early enough to stop.

Finally, June 7 arrived.

I didn’t sleep well the night before
, mostly because my nerves were getting to me. I wasn’t nervous to go to court and appear before a judge who was legally dissolving my marriage, though.

I was a fucking nervous wreck to fly to San Francisco, meet up with Jesse, and finally have “our night.”

I pulled into the parking garage and walked to the courthouse where I would enter a married woman and exit a single woman.

The proceedings were fairly simple. We both had lawyers; mine was John Buchanan
, our school union lawyer. He didn’t specialize in divorce, but he knew the law and that was good enough for me, and I trusted him after the ordeal with Jesse and me.

The judge declared that our house had to be listed by the end of the month by an impartial third party and we would evenly split the profit. He said that I could choose who would list it since Richard had too many connections in the real estate world.

Then he decreed the dissolution of our marriage, and before I knew it, it was all over.

I thanked
John and the judge, and then I headed to the Social Security office right next door to begin the official proceedings to change my name back to Veronica Freemont.

I stopped in a bar for a quick glass of celebratory wine. It seemed poignant that I was there by myself, drinking a glass of wine, an independent, single woman ready to start over.

I couldn’t help the smile plastered on my face as I drank that glass of wine. A text came through from Jesse.

So are you
single yet?

My smile widened
as I read his words.
Indeed I am.

You won’t be for long.

I stared at that text for at least five full minutes as I tried to interpret his meaning. Did he just mean that I wouldn’t be free because we were going to have “our night” together? Or did he mean that I wouldn’t be free because he was looking toward building a future with me?

Was it strange that
I wanted that future with Jesse as much as I did after I had literally just ended a marriage?

T
alking to Jesse about his sister and about Carly showed me how fragile and precious life was. Even though they had chosen to end things, it didn’t mean that life couldn’t be ripped away from us in a heartbeat for a variety of other reasons. And maybe in their honor, Jesse wanted to push forward and live his life without any regrets. Wasting time when we both knew that we were headed toward forever together seemed pointless.

I still hadn’t replied when his next text came through.
I can’t wait to see you, V.

C
an’t wait to see you, either
.

I headed home and packed for my trip, and then it was time to get myself to the airport. Quinn had offered to drive me so I di
dn’t have to pay for parking during my three weeks away, and I gladly accepted. We left a little early so she could take me out for a celebratory drink on the way.

Once we’d placed our order, the gossip fest began. “So, Ms. Freemont, what’s the dirt of the day?”

“Apart from me finally being free of Richard?” I asked.

She nodded.

“I’m pretty sure that by tomorrow night, I won’t be able to walk from all of the sex.”

“You and Juicy Jesse Yummypants. Who would’ve ever thought?”

“I knew all along,” I said smugly, and Quinn laughed.

The waitress delivered our wine and we chatted and giggled.

“It’s good to see you laughing again,” Quinn said.

“It feels good, too. It was hell not knowing when I’d get to talk to Jesse again.”

“I can imagine. You two are good together.”

I nodded. “We’re better together than we are apart.”

Quinn paid for our drinks, and then we headed to the airport. I checked in for my flight about an hour and a half before takeoff (which was a little before midnight), and I walked toward my terminal. In a few short hours, I’d be back in Jesse’s arms.

I dialed his number
as soon as I found my departure gate and settled into a chair by the window. The terminal was fairly empty; it seemed like ours was one of the only flights taking off so late.

“Hey,
baby,” he answered, his voice sleepy.

“Hey, you,” I murmured.

“It’s nice to hear your voice.”

“Did I wake you?”

“Yeah. Trying to catch a few hours of sleep before it’s time to come get you.”

“I’
m sorry,” I said. “Go back to sleep.”

“Next time I get into a bed, it’ll be with you.”

“I can’t wait.”

“Neither can I
.”

I blushed. He didn’t
even have to be in the same room as me to make me blush. Or the same state, for that matter. “I love you, Jesse Drake.”

“I love you, too, Veronica Freemont. And tomorrow I finally get to show you how much.”

We hung up and I warmed over at his words. I was ecstatic to begin my life with Jesse.