Claimed by My Ex-Husband novel · Chapter 17 of 48

Chapter 17: Day Thirty

For fourteen days the lawyers told us to wait.

My recording was one voice in one kitchen, they said, and a voice could be called fake as easily as a photograph.

We needed the second phone, and Angelo's head of security was still going through five months of lobby doors.

So we waited, and I learned how many ways there were to be married.

I learned the weight of his coffee, too strong, and the sound of him on calls at midnight with his sleeves rolled to the elbow.

I learned that he stood at the bedroom window at three in the morning and looked at the lemon tree.

On the night of day twenty-nine, I put my cane against the wall and pulled him into our room by his belt.

"Tala," he said. "Your ankle."

"The brace is fine. Shut up and sit."

He sat on the edge of the bed, and I stood between his knees.

I unbuttoned his shirt myself, one button at a time, slower than he ever had.

He watched my hands.

"You're doing this on purpose," he said.

"I've been doing it on purpose for two weeks."

I pushed him back on the mattress and climbed over him.

I pulled my nightshirt off over my head and tossed it, and his hands came up to my hips and stopped there, waiting.

"Touch me," I said.

"Where?"

"Everywhere. You know where."

He did.

His palms slid up my ribs and cupped my breasts.

His thumbs circled until I made a sound I'd never made in this room.

I reached between us, got him in my hand, and sank down onto him in one slow slide.

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