Wild Hearts (Forever Wild) (4 page)

On the stove there was a
faint stream of smoke coming from a pan as he pushed something around with a wooden spoon. He did all of this while constantly glancing over at Dexter, who was staring at him from the counter and listening intently as he sang “Wild at Heart” by Stevie Nicks.

I couldn’t remember the
last time I actually had a home-cooked meal and my mouth was watering as I padded into the kitchen. Wes must have heard me because he turned around with a big grin on his face. “Mornin’, darlin.”

Dexter didn’t give me the same respect and hissed as soon as he saw me. “Aw, Dexy, it’s okay, it’s just Valerie.” Wes looked over at Dexter and the cat instantly started purring. The guy had a way with women and men. Even the feline variety.

“What are you doing?” I arched an eyebrow, walking the few steps to the stove and leaning up against the fridge. A frying pan full of eggs and other various ingredients I couldn’t identify were simmering.

He stirred the
egg mixture with a wooden spoon before turning off the burner. “I couldn’t sleep last night. I looked for some food in your fridge, but all you had was some leftover Chinese. So I went to the nearest convenience store and picked up some eggs and other stuff to mix with it. Then I figured, it was close enough to morning, might as well make breakfast.”

“You didn’t
have to do that ...”

“Yeah, but I wanted to.” The large grin on his face was contagious and I couldn’t help smiling too.

“I hope you didn’t wear my robe to the store.”

He shook his head. “Naw, I put this on after my shower. I hope you don’t mind.”

“No, it looks good on you.”

He placed a quick, chaste kiss on my forehead. “I’m sure it looks even better on you.”

I heard Paige stumble into the kitchen before I saw her. For being so tiny she wasn’t very graceful, especially before she had her morning caffeine shot. “What the hell is this?”

I gasped, jumping back like I just got caught making out by my mom as a teenager. “Wes was just making us breakfast. Isn’t that nice?”

She curled her upper lip, slowly walking into the kitchen and grabbing Dexter off the counter. “What is that shit?”

She held Dexter tight against her, hiding her giant fake boobs that spilled out of her tank top. I prayed that Wes wasn’t staring at them or thinking that maybe it was time to trade me in for my roommate.

“Eggs and some leftovers. My Meemaw used to call it a morning scramble. She’d mix together whatever we had in the fridge with eggs and call it good,” Wes said as I grabbed two plates from the cupboard above us.

“Ugh.” Paige rolled her eyes and turned away, walking the few steps over to the coffee pot, grabbing one of the mugs from the hook above it and pouring herself a cup. “Like that shit won
’t stick to my thighs for a week. No thank you.”

“
It’s protein. Maybe it’ll make you a bit happier if you got some meat on your bones,” Wes said, taking the plate that I handed him.

Paige rolled her eyes. “How long are you going to be here again?”

Wes looked at me, his eyes practically blasting a hole through me. I didn’t know what answer he wanted me to give, so I gave the truth. “We’re meeting with a lawyer today over my lunch and seeing what happens.”

Paige took a sip of her coffee as Dexter jumped down and immediately ran over to Wes, rubbing against his legs and purring. “So, like, he’s just going to stay here and hang out in our apartment until you guys figure shit out?”

“Would you prefer he do something else? Stay out on the street?”

Paige opened her mouth to speak, but Wes spoke first. “You know, I can answer for myself
, ladies.”

He looked from Paige to me. “I can leave if y’all really need me to. I don’t want to mess up the roommate dynamic.”

I shook my head. “No. It’s fine. You’re totally fine staying here. Paige just doesn’t like men around unless they’re carrying a platinum card.”

“That’s totally not true. I sure as hell don’t care for Max. At least Tex here isn’t as big of a douche as he is,” Paige snapped.

“Well—”

I cut Wes off before he could say anything else. “Can we just drop all of this? I need to shower and get ready for work and I know you do too, Paige. We can figure all of this out later. Let’s just get through the morning first.”

“Fine,” Paige grumbled.

I looked up at Wes, his eyebrows knitted together like he was deep in thought, but he didn’t say anything. He only shook his head and then went back to humming and plated our food.

My PR firm was right off Michigan Avenue. When I first got the job I thought it was a dream come true, to be along the Magnificent Mile and the world’s greatest shopping. Then reality set in and so did my salary. Which was less than some of the handbags they had at Nordstrom’s.

The tourists weren’t out yet for shopping, but the streets were still bustling with men and women i
n suits, staring at their smartphones instead of watching where they were going. I pushed past a few businessmen and made my way into the building. My heels clicked on the tile floor and I was glad that I was running early. The encounter with Max a few hours before made things even more awkward with Wes and I didn’t want to stay around and make small talk. I even had a few missed texts from Max, but I wasn’t about to check them with Wes around.

Call it whatever, but I didn’t know what was going to happen after the divorce was final
, and if a hot hedge fund guy was going to call me, then it was hard to resist. I know it sounds slutty as hell, but big girls like me didn’t get many guys and to have two fighting over me as a prize the night before was one of the biggest highlights of my life. Even better than graduation or my first piece of pumpkin cheesecake.

I hopped on the eleva
tor between a few other people and pushed my way to the back, finally unlocking my phone and looking through my missed text messages.

WTF was that? Who the hell was the cowboy?

I don’t like being stood up, Valerie. It would have been nice to know that you have a boyfriend I should be worried about.

Coffee today?

The last text was the one that threw me off the most. Max never wanted to meet in daylight hours unless it was work related. And that was just when he came to my office to drop something off. No one knew we slept together and that was how he liked to keep it. He always said his work was his biggest priority and he wouldn’t be in a relationship that was second best, so our arrangement was the best he could do. Whatever stupid line that was.

I sent him a quick, one-
word text back:
Maybe
. Then the elevator dinged for my floor and I followed the crowd out.

When I first started at the firm I expected some luxury office building with mahogany desks, an office overlooking Lake Michigan
, and sexy men in suits like on some primetime TV show. But my firm was nothing like that.

White fluorescent lights beat down on baby blue carpet and made the white walls and beige cubicles look even brighter. The whole thing was sterile looking. Sterile and loud as hell. People stood out of their cubes yelling to the person next to them or tryin
g to talk to a client on their BlackBerry. It was nothing like the movies. It was reality.

I smiled at
Mrs. Flowers at the front desk that she always stocked with pretzel M&Ms in a bright green bowl. Any time someone went to grab any, she watched like a hawk with her beady little brown eyes, as if touching them was a sin. It made no sense why the hell she stocked them if she was going to judge anyone who walked by and tried to grab them.

I strode past her and a few other cubes before I plopped down in my ergonomic chair.
Most of my cube mates had pictures of their kids plastering their walls and popped up like Meerkats as soon as I came in to show me their kid’s latest soccer or ballet picture of whatever. My desk was almost the exact opposite.

I had all my folders neatly organized and locked away, a cup with my pencils in it
, and the only decorative piece was a coffee mug that my sister Melanie got me for Christmas that said “Gone Crazy, Back Later.” Melanie wasn’t the best with personalized gifts but I told her she couldn’t just give me a Starbucks gift card. At least the hot pink mug added some color to my desk.

Before I could even log on
to my computer, Abbi strode up to my desk and sat down at the edge of it. I knew Abbi’s whole life story: divorce, remarried, two kids. But not because she tried to pound me with it. Abbi actually cared about me and I actually wanted to get to know her. Abbi was assigned as my mentor when I started at the firm and at first I didn’t think I’d like her since she was freaking gorgeous with her strawberry-blonde hair, skinny waist, and designer suits. Then she found me crying in the bathroom on my lunch break after a gym client told me that he didn’t want the new fat chick working his promo. She took me out for cheesecake at lunch and we’d been friends ever since.

“Hey
, lady. How are you this morning? Have a busy night?” She raised her eyebrows expectantly.

I glanced around to see if anyone was listening. People were just starting to pile in and mostly everyone either headed for the break room or made a beeline for the Starbucks on the first floor. When I was sure no one was listening I leaned in. “Max showed up at my apartment last night.”

“Holy!” She covered her mouth before she could finish her sentence and then dropped her hand. “Seriously? What happened?”

I gave her a brief run down, nothing big. Not too many people knew about Max. Paige knew because he only came to our apartment for hook ups, never his. And Abbi knew because she hooked me up with him as a client. She jokingly said she wanted to set us up and after enough pestering about it I finally told her that we were casually hooking up.

She shook her head, crossing her legs and then uncrossing them. “What did Wes say about it?”

I shrugged. “Not much.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “Was he jealous?”

I sighed. “Abbi, I know you believe in happily ever afters and all that, but seriously this was just a clichéd marriage by mistake. The guy married me for the money he thought I had and now is just happy to be out of the strip club scene for awhile. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t already trolling for a sugar mama at the Viagra coast right now.”

“You don’t know that,” she said, fiddling with her bracelet. Even she couldn’t pretend it wasn’t true. Guys as hot as him didn’t go for girls like me for more than a piece of ass.

“No.” I sighed. “I don’t, but I’m not going
to get my hopes up.”

Abbi gasped, covering her mouth, her eyes wide.

I looked behind me, hoping that the people walking in weren’t eavesdropping. I then looked back at Abbi. “What?”

“You’re totally into him! You really, really like him.”

“I do not!”

She shook her head. “I thought you really liked Max, but the way your face lights up when you talk about Wes, you actually dig your husband.”

“Shhh!” I put my finger to my lips and then dropped it, lowering my voice. “Still trying to keep that on the DL.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh please. No one cares about your personal life.”

“Seriously? This is an office. Everyone loves to gossip about everyone else’s business. I don’t want to be the laughing stock of the work place if they find out that I married a stripper in Vegas.”

“Fine, fine.” She put her hands up. “I get it
. But don’t say I didn’t tell you so when you end up looking for houses in the suburbs with Mr. Wild.”

I was busy checking my email, lost in all the junk mail that gathered while I was in Vegas, when my desk phone rang. I deleted my last spam email and picked up the receiver.

“This is Valerie, how can I help you?” I turned on professional voice. Abbi always joked that I sounded like a phone sex operator when I answered and if that was the case, I thought I’d have a lot more clients.

“Hello, Valerie.” Max’s voice was smooth as silk on the other end.
Even those two little words made everything heat up between my thighs. The guy oozed sex appeal.

“Hello, Max, long time no talk.” Max never called me at work, except for the first time we set up a client meeting
at his office. That was when I ended up giving him a blow job under his desk. Ever since then it was all text messages. Usually in the middle of the night.

“It has been too long. I thought we could go grab some coffee. Maybe we can talk about some new publicity for the firm?”

I hoped ‘the firm’ wasn’t code for his dick. Any other time I would have gladly jumped on it, but not now. I wouldn’t do that to Wes. So we got married by mistake. That didn’t mean I was going to cheat on him.

“Yeah. I can do that. Where and when?”

“How about twenty minutes? Pierrot?” He didn’t ask it as much as he told me. As if there was no way I could say no.