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Then she walks from the office in those high as hell heels that put all kinds of thoughts into my mind. Not a single one should be there.

Every single one pisses me off more.

The next five months is going to be the longest I’ve ever lived.

Faye returns with a mug of steaming coffee. She smiles that bright smile at me as she sets it on the corner of my desk. “Your coffee, sir.”

She’s trying to be smart. She can’t know how that title tickles something dark and forbidden inside me.

She’s my brother’s wife. And I’m an asshole.

I’m even more of an asshole, because as I lift the cup to my mouth for a sip, I watch her round ass sway in her tight skirt as she leaves.

I take a sip and spit the liquid back into the cup with a scowl of disgust. What did she do? Dump the entire sugar bowl into my cup?

I think I hear her giggle under her breath.

“I said black, Faye.”

“You’re already too bitter, Holt,” she calls from the hall as she walks away, those goddamned heels clicking on the tile. “You can use a little sweet. Drink up, buttercup.”

13

IT’S BEEN A LONG TIME

APRIL 2023 – PRESENT DAY

The man hasn’t demanded I make his coffee since that first day when I put him in his place. I worked myself up all weekend long to work with him in a professional and amicable manner. Then, within minutes of me walking into the office, he made it clear he had every intention of playing hard ball. So, I pivoted.

I wasn’t about to let him walk all over me.

I refused to let the guilt I carried around our past dictate how the next five months played out for me. I’ve had a hard enough time the last fourteen months to willingly allow Holt to throw me into the ringer and kick the emotional crap out of me.

So, I gloved up and punched back. With a hefty dose of sugar.

I’ve been doing that daily for the last week. He scowls, I smile.

He grunts, I giggle.

He curses, I coo.

I’m driving him crazy, it’s plain to see. But surprisingly, this is the most fun I’ve had in the last fourteen months.

Who’d have thought the thing to pull me out of the funk of losing my husband would be driving his brother up a wall, across the ceiling, and down the other wall?

But it is pulling me out in a way that waking before the sun, working out and dressing pretty hasn’t entirely been able to do. This last week, I’ve been waking with a jitter in my heart. I think it’s edging excitement.

Over the weekend, knowing I wouldn’t see him, I woke without that jitter—and it sucked.

I shouldn’t be so excited to see Holt. I shouldn’t crave his ire the way I do—but I do.

It is what it is.

For the first time in a long time, I feel alive again. I don’t have to fake my smiles or fear they shine with a little too much water. Because they are real, if a little on the maniacal side.

Whatever. I feel alive. Like a woman.

It’s been a long time.