Page 29 of Happy Wife

Noble. Obviously…But he’s “seeing someone”? That sounds like more than just having fun.

He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “People are going to talk. Let them.”

People weren’t just talking. They were shooting daggers at me with their eyes. Whether I was teaching their kids to swim or checking them in for an afternoon at the museum, the country club moms glared at me like I was a predator—a threat to the natural order of their world.

“You told her that you were seeing me or that you were seeing ‘someone’?” I asked. He frowned, failing to see the difference. “Will, I know women. My mom’s been married four times, and there’s never been an ex-wife in history who didn’t have an axe to grind with the new girl.”

“Constance isn’t like that.”

I remembered Mia’s warning from the pool the day we met. “You don’t understand, my mom is crazy.”

But doesn’t every teenager think their mother is certifiable?

“Maybe she’s not, but her friends could be. Everyone has at least one crazy friend,” I said. “I just want to know if there’s a Chanel-wearing, Birkin-swinging mafia out there calling for my head.”

“You’re not really afraid of my ex-wife, are you?”

“Just tell me you didn’t give her my name specifically. Tell me you said, ‘I’m seeing someone from the club.’ Or something equally untraceable.”

“All I gave her were your fingerprints and social security number.”

“Perfect.”

“You said it yourself, the moms at the club are already giving you dirty looks. It was all going to get back to her either way.”

“It’s different if someone else tells her who I am. It’s less…”

Serious.

He reached for my barstool and tugged it toward him. We were inches apart now, inches away from truly making a scene. “Maybe we should get out of town for a little while.”

“Like witness protection?”

“Like, let’s go to Miami or New York.”

“Or Helsinki.”

“Seriously.” He lowered his gaze to mine. “Let’s take a trip. You and me.”

I considered that for a minute. A trip would be raising the stakes. It would be a next-level, capital T Thing. Traveling together exposes all the inefficiencies in a relationship—which, arguably, would be a problem only if this was actually a relationship. But since it wasn’t…

“What is that face you’re making?” Will searched my face with downturned lips.

“Oh, it’s not a face. Sorry, I was just—”

“Worrying if we can endure a trip together?” The twinkle in his eye when he was gently teasing was enough to melt me. “I think we’ll manage just fine.”

A trip. Hot Mean Lawyer wants to take me on a trip…

“Okay. Let’s go to New York.”

Chapter15

After a weekend in New York with Will, I was prepared to forget about Winter Park forever and start a new life in the city that never sleeps. We stayed in a hotel suite that would have made Marie Antoinette proud, forty-seven floors above Fifth Avenue with a view of the real Central Park.

“Let’s only do this forever,” I said, curled against Will in the four-poster bed.

He breathed a gentle laugh, and I savored the feeling of his chest rising and falling underneath me.

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