“About twenty minutes ago.” He shrugs. “You were sleeping and I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“Maybe I wanted to take a shower with you,” I say with a little pout, marveling at myself. Since when do I pout?
His smile grows. “Next time. I promise.”
I like it when he promises.
He withdraws from the cracked-open door and I imagine he’s toweling himself off. I hear a drawer open. The clank of something as it settles on the tile countertop, water running in the sink. I lie back and close my eyes, listening to Ethan’s morning ritual and enjoying it. I feel so normal, so regular, so free.
I feel free. Like I’ve finally come over the other side of the mountain and survived. This is what life can be like with Ethan. The two of us together. Happy.
Complete.
His phone buzzes from where it sits on the bedside table, startling me, and I open my eyes, inhaling deeply to calm my racing heart.
“Hey, will you check that for me?” he calls from within the bathroom. “I’m waiting on a client to text me back and I think that might be him.”
“Are you meeting with him today or something?” I ask as I sit up, smoothing my hair back from my face. I hold the sheet tight against my naked breasts, my modesty returning in full force with the morning light, and I hope like crazy my clothes sitting in his dryer are actually dry.
Though really I wouldn’t mind if we didn’t have to get dressed at all, just for a little while longer. I want him to come back to bed with me.
“We’re supposed to meet next week, but he mentioned he’s going out of town so we might move our appointment up. To this morning possibly.” He pauses; the water turns on and then shuts off. “Can you check my phone please?”
Disappointment creeps in but I push it away. He has to work. I can’t expect him to entertain me constantly. But maybe we can sneak in some time in bed before he has to get to work.
“You sure you want me to check your phone? No secrets to hide?” I tease.
He pauses. “Go for it.”
I lean over to grab the phone from his nightstand, startled yet again when it buzzes once more. The message flashes across the screen, a phone number with an area code I faintly recognize, but no name attached to it.
Weird.
“Is it him?” he asks, but I don’t answer him. I’m too busy reading the text that slowly makes my blood run cold.
I believe this phone number belongs to a former William Aaron Monroe? If so, please contact me right away. This is Lisa Swanson.
I frown, staring at the message, the letters blurring the longer I look at it. “This can’t be right,” I whisper, reading the message again, the name William Aaron Monroe flashing in my mind again and again.
William Aaron Monroe.
William Monroe.
Will.
No. It can’t be.
The phone falls from my hands, landing on the floor with a dull thud. I can’t breathe, I feel like I’m going to hyperventilate, and I swallow hard, close my eyes, fight off the dizziness.
I need to get out of here.
I crawl out of bed, ignoring Ethan as he calls me from the bathroom, grabbing the phone because I don’t want him to know about that message. Not yet. I dash toward his laundry room, the cold air that hits my naked skin making me shiver, but I push on. The moment I enter his tiny laundry room I crouch down and open the dryer, pulling out my clothes—thankful to find they’re dry—and yanking them on, not bothering with the panties or bra.
My mind and body are numb. I have to go. What did that message mean? How could his phone belong to a former William Aaron Monroe? The William Monroe?
My William Monroe.
“Hey.”
I turn on a gasp to find Ethan standing in the narrow doorway of his laundry room, his broad frame seeming to fill the entire space. I stare at him, really look at him, but I don’t see it. Don’t see my sullen, dark and emo teenage Will. Will’s hair was so black, his face sharp and angular, though they have the same dark eyes now that I’m truly looking for it. Will’s lip and eyebrow had been pierced, his tall frame lanky. The man standing before me doesn’t resemble Will, not like this.
He just looks like . . . my Ethan.
“Already getting dressed?” His smile is easy and I hate thinking this, but he looks so incredibly good. So handsome, so comfortable in his own skin, so at ease with . . . everything. “I wanted to make you breakfast. Was that message from my client or what? I didn’t see my phone.”
“It wasn’t from your client,” I say, my voice a monotone. He frowns at me, his gaze so piercing, so intense, and I’m glad I already have my clothes on. They feel like a shield, like they can protect me.
But nothing and no one can protect me. Not anymore. The truth is dawning, thawing through my numb-as-ice brain, and I realize I’ve been lied to.
Tricked.
Betrayed.
Repeatedly.