Page 24 of Carnal Wagers

I tugged the lapels of my wool coat straight, tightened its belt, smoothed my skirt down, and focused on the pattering of rain instead of my heart rate. I lived for the power trip each board meeting gave me, the way those men in suits looked up to me, respected me, envied me, and probably even cursed me under their breath. This was just like any other meeting. Nothing emotional, just pure business and an iron-binding signature on divorce papers.

War armor on and ready to attack, I strode across the street and weaved around the parallel-parked cars, like this was my town, not his. Onto the brick-paved sidewalk, around a streetlight, and headed directly into my husband’s territory. Except my heel caught on a crack and stopped me short before I could reach the door. Talk about cramping my style. I tugged my leg up, but my foot didn’t budge. I wiggled my ankle and hissed from the twinge it caused.

The rain tapped harder on the umbrella, and the wind chilled me through my sheer stockings. I tried gathering momentum and thrusting my leg up, but the shoe refused to wiggle free.

I was just two meters from the door. Could he see me through the window? Did he think me a klutz? Had I lost my advantage? How was I going to come back from this and take charge of the situation? God, I was making a mess of this before I’d already gone in.

My breath shook, and I locked my limbs as my skin began to crawl. I scratched my index fingernail between my eyebrows as my heart pounded in my chest, the sidewalk blurred, and the umbrella shook in my grip.

Stop it! This was not the time for panic to hit. I wasn’t the type of person to get this riled up over something so inconsequential. Not anymore. Not this easily.

Over the years, my therapist helped me identify ways to cope with the panic attacks. Different techniques worked for different people. For me, it was always about control and pain. If I worked to control situations ahead of time, the fear and panic hit me like a dull tap instead of a roaring tsunami. It was why I always wore a tracker in my belly-button ring, always had a small knife hidden in a fake tube of lipstick stored in the lining of my bra between my breasts, several sharp hairpins in my hair, and vials of poison stored in the heels of all of my shoes. When that failed me, I used pain. Pinching, slaps, or digging my heel into the other foot. Whatever it took to ground me back into reality.

I dug my nails into my temples under my hairline, the bite of pain driving away most of my inner noise. I locked onto five different things I could see: a silver coupé, a pink brick among the red, a puddle of water, a rust stain on the base of the streetlight, and a strand of my hair dangling in front of my face. Next, I identified four things I could feel: raindrops, the wet wool of my coat, the plastic of the handle, and the texture of my fingertips.

My inhales and exhales smoothed out. The edges of my vision lightened. My heart rate lowered. Only a slight lightheadedness remained. Nothing I wasn’t used to pushing through. Get it together, Alizé. The wind swept away the thin layer of sweat coating my face, chilling me to the bone. As a shiver racked my body, I peeked over my shoulder. Thankfully, a car hid me from Erel’s view. This was nothing he or my brother needed to know about, not after this many years of dealing with it myself.

The problem was that my heel was still stuck. I twisted my boot, but there was no give. With a huff, I tossed the umbrella to the ground. Rain immediately pattered against my face. A soft bell trilled in front of me, but I ignored it as I wrapped my hands under my knee and jerked my leg up. Finally, the heel popped free. Unfortunately, my balance went with it too.

Chapter 7

One second, I was falling, my arms wheeling, legs somehow both airborne. The next, warm arms wrapped around my waist, halting my fall but dragging my skirt to my upper thighs. My head thumped against a hard chest. Long, thick fingers dug into my rib cage, along the underside of my breasts. I gripped onto that arm, dense and sinewy, even above his coat, as my legs fumbled for balance.

“Watch yourself.”

That voice. I recognized its harsh brass and no-nonsense attitude with a touch of hoarseness from the back of his throat like he rarely spoke, glazed with an Irish lilt woven with Bostonian charm. My gaze snapped up.

Cillian O’Leary’s face loomed overhead like an ominous warning. The sound of his voice was just as spine-tingling as I remembered. I’d only heard it seven years ago, and somehow never forgotten it. It still sounded like every word was both a reward and a promise of pain.

Drizzle showered down on my face and eyelashes, misting his features into a blur of dark-copper hair and harsh angles, but it was him. I could have guessed it from his cologne alone. A familiar mixture of leather, musk, and cardamom clung to his clothing, with an added hickory smokiness. I never forgot a scent, and apparently, he was a creature of habit. Seven years, same cologne.

I wiped my eyes, the back of my head still against his chest, his arm tight against me. Water sluiced down his temples, dripping onto my face like blood from fingertips. Set against the stormy sky and his vibrant hair, his dark-blue eyes pulsed with apathetic severity and deadly secrets, ones I could spend a lifetime trying to decode. They made me want to rip open his mind and devour the monster pacing behind his callous glare.

“Well, this is dramatic,” I said.

He grunted and jostled me upright.

The years had been kind to him. His shoulders were broader and thicker, outlined under his trench coat. More tattoos peeked out from his sleeves and up his neck around his ears, and the block lettering along his fingers particularly stood out, which spelled láidir abú, Gaelic for strength to victory. His face had hardened since our wedding, features sharpened and prominent, with small crease lines along his forehead and the corner of his eyes, but it suited him. If only he didn’t look half bored to death.

I swept off the raindrops clinging to my clothes, tugged on my skirt, and adjusted my glasses. My hair was probably a sopping mess at this point, but I tried puffing some semblance of volume back into it. We were still close enough that I could count the freckles speckling his nose and cheeks.

“This was not how I expected us to meet,” I added.

“Oh?” He gazed down at his watch with complete detachment.

Now, I wasn’t overly vain, but men generally found my features attractive: blue-gray eyes, natural curls to my brown hair, high cheekbones, a narrow nose, and pouty lips, with breasts that could comfortably fill a pair of strong hands and a rounded butt that looked fantastic in a skirt. No man I met had ever forgotten my face or name. This man though—my legal husband—looked straight at me without a glimmer of recognition.

“You have no idea who I am, do you?”

“Should I?”

“Naturally.” I tossed my wet hair.

He cocked a brow and stepped past me. Guess that answered whether or not he’d looked me up over the years. I had no place in his life, and he’d never wanted me to.

I caught his arm.

“We’re not done here.”