Page 36 of Wild Blades

“Kali?”

I turn my head, breaking ourwhatever the hell that wasmoment.

“Oh, gawd,” I mutter under my breath, then fake a smile. “Hey, Michael.”

“Great to see you.”

I wish I could say the same. Cheating asshole.

“Who is this?” Wade mutters under his breath.

“Oh, forgive me, sorry, this is Michael. Wade, Michael, Michael, Wade.”

“The ex-husband?” Wade asks through the side of his mouth.

I wipe my brow as I nod, answeringyes.

Wade tenses next to me, squaring his shoulders, chin raised. I can tell he already doesn’t like Michael.

Which makes two of us.

Since our divorce, every conversation we now have goes south. Very quickly.

“Holy shit.TheWade Collins.” Michael stares at Wade. Michael is all about celebrity status and what those celebrities can do to make him look good. He’s fame-hungry, just like Wade’s mother, Miranda, seems to be from the research I’ve been doing. They’d be a perfect match for one another.

Michael would never have handled my retirement well; he likes the limelight. Me retiring would have kept him in the dark. Where he should be. He’s a fungus. “Pleasure to meet you, man.” Michael looks at me as if to ask what the hell am I doing with Wade Collins.

Wade closes the distance between us, pressing his firm thigh against mine.

Oh-kay.

“Glad I bumped into you, Kali. Been meaning to text. You know, out of courtesy and all.” Nervously, he finally says, “I wanted to let you know that I’m selling the house in New York and looking at moving to our old house here.”

Is he serious?

I moved to be close to my family, and as far away as I could from him.

His entire family lives in New York.What the hell does he want to move here for?

“Because Darcy is pregnant,” he adds.

Ah, and there it is. Darcy wants to move home.

Bumping into them more than I would like would become athing. A thing I don’t want.

See what I mean? South. Every time I see Michael, with one sentence, he has the ability to suck all the joy out of my body.

They’ve been together for a year, and are already starting a family together. That irks me more than it should because we were together for six and only became apparent he never wanted children until after we married.

“Congratulations.” My smile is tight and unfriendly. I wish he would crawl back under the stone he came from.

I now realize why I stayed married to him for so long. It was more out of convenience than anything else. Him being my manager worked for both of us. He did all the paperwork; I did the work. I earned the fee; he took his cut. He made lots of money from me. I floated him for years. He abused my trust and kindness, fucking his way around the world it would seem, because after I found out he was cheating on me, a list of other women the length of my arm came out of the woodwork maintaining it wasn’t his first rodeo.

Great.

Finding out about his repeated indiscretions affected my self-esteem. Squished it into the floor to be honest, in the same way you would kill a cockroach. It’s only just starting to spark back to life again. Truthfully, that’s the main reason I haven’t dated or slept with anyone else.

According to my therapist, I have trust issues.

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