They Toasted the Happy Couple, So I Bought the Groom novel · Chapter 12 of 32

Chapter 12: The Condo

His condo was on the top floor of an old cannery in Canton, four blocks from my father's building.

I'd had a key once. I'd given it back in a padded envelope.

I knocked at nine that night.

He opened the door in his suit trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled, barefoot, a beer in his hand.

He looked at me for a long moment.

"Did you come to collect?" he said.

"I came to see where you live."

"You know where I live."

"I know where you lived."

He stood back and let me in.

The living room was half boxes. Some packed for Briarwood, some unpacked from it, and you couldn't tell which was which.

His banker's box from the office sat on the kitchen island.

The windows ran floor to ceiling over the harbor. The cranes at the Cromwell docks were lit up red on the far side.

"Nice view of the company," I said.

"I used to look at it and think I'd made it." He held out the beer. "Want one?"

"No."

He put it down.

"So," he said. "What happens now, Ms. Cromwell?"

"Now you pay rent."

He actually laughed.

It surprised both of us.

"The partners called after the meeting," he said. "They're very sorry. They've decided my practice group is restructuring."

"Without you."

"Without me. Cromwell was half my billings."

"Was it worth it?"

"Saying it out loud?" He looked at the cranes. "The look on the widow's face was worth it."

"She wants to see the wires."

"I can get them."

"I know you can."

The radiator didn't bang here. Nothing banged here. It was a very quiet, very expensive room.

"You took off the ring," I said.

He held up his hand. There was a pale band of skin where it had been.

"Seventeen days," he said. "That's how long I was married. Shortest marriage in the history of Briarwood."

"It's not over."

"It's over." He lowered his hand. "Iris. Why are you here?"

I had been asking myself that since the elevator.

I'd driven past the building twice.

I put my bag down on a box marked KITCHEN.

"Tell me one true thing about the night you left me," I said.

He didn't flinch from it.

"I'd come from her bed that afternoon," he said. "I told you we wanted different things because I was a coward."

"Yes. You were."

"I'm sorry. That's the least of what I owe you, and I know it."

I walked up to him.

He stood very still.

"I don't forgive you," I said.

"I know."

"This isn't forgiveness."

"Then what is it?"

I took the front of his shirt in my fist.

"Mine," I said.

I pulled him down by the shirt and kissed him hard.

He made a sound against my mouth like a man coming up for air.

His hands came up to my face, then slid into my hair, and the kiss turned from mine to his without either of us moving.

I bit his bottom lip.

He grunted.

"Still a fucker," I said against his mouth.

"Still a bitch." His voice was rough and low. "Good."

I took his shirt in both hands and tore it open.

Buttons hit the floor and scattered.

He looked down at his bare chest, then at me.

"That was a good shirt."

"Take it off."

He shed it and let it fall.

I put both palms flat on his chest and pushed.

His back hit the window glass with a low thud that vibrated through the room.

The cold made him hiss.

I stepped into him, still in my dress, and ran one thumb along the waistband of his trousers.

He was hard already.

I could see it through the grey wool.

"I want you on your knees first," I said. "But not yet."

"Then what?"

"I want you to watch me take this off."

He did.

I reached behind me and pulled the tie of my wrap dress loose.

The front fell open.

I let it slide off my shoulders and drop to the floor around my feet.

I stood there in black lace and my mother's pearl earrings, with the red crane lights from across the harbor flickering on my skin.

His eyes moved over me like he was memorizing it.

"Christ," he said.

"Turn around."

He turned, slow, and put his hands flat on the glass on either side of his head like he knew what was coming.

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