He tried harder for her than anyone he’d ever been with. Gaining a smile, a laugh, made him happy to his core.
He didn’t know when things went south. Didn’t know when she’d stopped loving him, when she gave up on their marriage. It was well before Dashiell, that he knew. Was it when they’d renovated the behemoth? Weren’t renovations a major driver in divorce cases, like Facebook and affairs? He thought he’d read that somewhere.
Or was it when the words he wrote for her dried up, and he stopped working entirely? Before he got desperate. Before he made the greatest mistake of his life.
No, he thought it was maybe before all of that when his warm and sexy wife had grown cold. Frigid. Unwilling. Distant.
The laughs had become few and far between. She’d looked at him with a mix of derision and bemusement, as if she’d woken up one morning married, and to a stranger, to boot.
He’d asked her, one very drunken night, why she’d stopped loving him. She’d laughed, harshly. “I love you more now than the day we met. That’s the problem.” And she wouldn’t say anything more.
And here they were. Five years later, parents of a dead baby, their ruined marriage strewed on the rocks, mistakes piled like a stack of ancient newspapers against the door.
He was responsible for Dashiell’s death. For Sutton’s madness. For the missed deadline, the stalking, the canceled book contract. Ethan knew this, knew it to his bones.
He’d made so many mistakes, there was no recovering from them all.
There was just one problem.
He loved Sutton to his core. He’d never loved a woman as much as he loved her. He would do anything for her. Anything.
He had to decide whether Sutton was simply hiding from him for a few days, or if she’d left for good. Problem was, if she didn’t show up by this evening, he was going to have to bring the police in to search for her, because everyone would be suspicious of him if he didn’t, and the subsequent investigation was going to rip apart their very carefully cultivated lives, and who knew what sort of roaches would scurry out of the woodwork?
If she was hiding out for a few days, all well and good. If she’d actually run, he would have to go after her. For her to disappear permanently and thoroughly would have taken planning.
Either way, Sutton was a very cunning woman. He simply had to think like her, and he’d find the path to her again.
And then it hit him.
The bank account. He hadn’t checked the bank account.
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
Then
Ethan’s agent nudged him. “There is a woman watching you from across the room.”
Ethan glanced over, didn’t see anyone of note. Then again, he was lubed up, like a lock drenched in oil. He’d already had a few cocktails, and had plans for a few more before he passed out in his soft king bed upstairs. He liked the rooms in the hotel; they were clean and spacious and pleasant, not at all threatening, unlike some of the aggressively modern places his publisher put him up at, thinking the extravagant price tag was a justifiable expense to keep their cash cow happy.
All he wanted from the evening was a solid drunk and a good night’s sleep. He didn’t have to fly back to Nashville until late in the afternoon. He could sleep in, have some room service delivered, take a long, hot shower, and grab the car to the airport with plenty of time to spare. He had nothing else on his calendar, and he was glad for it. The week in New York had damn near killed him. Breakfasts and lunches and dinners, a few women taken back to that soft king bed, endless talking and applauding and schmoozing.
He needed a break from his life.
You wanted this, jackass. Be careful what you wish for.
“Ethan. Did you hear me? There’s a woman over there who’s practically drooling.”
“Bill, I have no time for more women. You know that.”
A hearty laugh and a punch on the arm. Sometimes he wondered if Bill was humoring him, being kind because he was making them both so much money. He thought they were friends; Bill knew almost everything there was to know about Ethan. Almost everything. But sometimes he wondered. Ethan had made Bill rich. Very, very rich. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that the man loathed him and was simply in it for the house in the Hamptons he would soon be able to buy with his 15 percent.
Bill leered at him. “If you’re not interested, maybe you could throw an old dog a bone.”
“You’re married.”
“I’m married, I ain’t dead. I can look. Pretty please? Her dress is cut so deep in the front I won’t even have to stand on my tippy toes to look down it.”
Ethan glanced down at the much smaller man, shrugged. “Fine. Let me get a beer and we’ll wander over so you can gander at the lass.”
There were two lines at the bar. It was moving quickly. Maybe he’d have a Scotch instead of a beer. He started looking at the bottles lined up behind the bartenders, saw a Macallan 18. Nice. That would do.
He felt a hand on his arm. Glanced to his right. A woman stood next to him. Not the one from across the room. This one was tall, with long strawberry blond hair pulled back in a severe ponytail, and seemed endlessly fascinated with his arm. It wasn’t like she was touching him to get his attention, it was almost as if she was caressing him. It was a strange touch, wildly erotic, and the rest of the room bled away in an instant.
Was she drunk? She didn’t seem drunk. She seemed...hungry. And not in the let me take you to dinner way.
He smiled down at her. “I have another, if you’re wondering.”
She jerked back as if burned. Her face turned a becoming shade of red. She had freckles across her nose. Clean skin devoid of makeup. She didn’t need any. But no mask? In this mess? Interesting.
“Can I help you with something?” he asked.
She started to move away, still watching him.
“Wait.” What are you doing, you fool? Chick’s crazy, just another groupie. Let her go, stick with the plan.
The stranger halted, a deer in the headlights. Her eyes showed deep embarrassment and something else, something intriguing and attractive.
Her voice was soft, and he felt something stir deep inside when she spoke.
“I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I promise you I don’t go around touching strange men.” She turned on her heel and started away.
He stopped her, grabbed her hand. “Wait. Don’t run off. I don’t even know your name. I’m Ethan.”
She froze, glanced down at his hand, so large over hers. “I know. Ethan Montclair. I’m a fan of your work.”
He heard it so often it had become rote, but from this woman’s lips, it felt different. Like a prayer. A promise.