When Old Love Comes Due

Pierce Whitaker had been in London for two weeks.

The night he got back, he didn't let me sleep until almost two.

When he finally rolled off me, I was too wrecked to move. It was a few minutes before I noticed the box on the nightstand. Empty. That had been the last one.

I grabbed my phone to reorder. That had always been my job. In four years, Pierce had never once given it a thought.

I had the cart open and my thumb over the button when he reached across me and took the phone.

"Hold off on that."

I blinked at him.

He didn't explain. He settled back against the headboard, went into my shipping settings like he'd done it a hundred times, and deleted my address. Then, while I watched, he typed in a new one.

I didn't recognize it.

"Whose place is that?"

"Rhys Carrow's."

He said it the way he'd tell me where he'd parked.

It took a second for the words to mean anything.

"Why would I ship them to Rhys Carrow?"

He looked down at me, and one corner of his mouth lifted.

"Ren. How long have you been with me now?"

Under the sheet, my fingers curled.

"Four years."

"Four years." He laughed under his breath, the way you'd laugh at a phone you'd meant to upgrade ages ago. "That's a long time. Somebody else should get a turn."

My stomach dropped.

Before I could say anything, he tossed his own phone onto the comforter next to me. The screen was still lit, a text thread open.

Rhys Carrow: The Harbor Yards contract is yours. Lend me Maren Hollis for a while.

Pierce: Done.

Two lines. I read them until the screen went black.

"Don't look at me like that." Pierce glanced over. "He's not going to hurt you."

My throat felt tight. "Why me?"

"He asked for you by name."

"That's not what I meant." My voice kept getting smaller. "Why did you say yes?"

He looked at me like I'd asked something stupid. He was stretched out against the headboard, loose and easy, the way he always was after.

"One woman for a sixty-million-dollar contract. Do the math, Ren. I come out ahead any way you slice it. Why would I say no?"

Whatever excuse I'd still been making for him died right there.

I went cold all over.

Ten minutes ago, this man had his mouth against my ear, saying my name like it meant something. Now he was handing me off to someone else like a spare set of keys.

He hadn't even asked me first.

Maybe, to Pierce, I'd never been someone you asked. I was something he had. You kept a thing like that around while you liked it, and when you got bored, you traded it for something better.

I sat up slowly.

When my feet hit the rug, they bumped the gift bag I'd left by the bed. There was a slim box inside.

I'd ordered it for him two weeks ago. A hand-stitched leather strap for the vintage watch he wore every day. Before he left for London, he'd mentioned that the old strap was starting to crack. Just once, in passing. I'd remembered. It took weeks of searching and a favor from a watchmaker I knew to find the right one.

I'd been planning to give it to him tonight.

No point now.

I reached down, pushed the box deeper into the bag, and folded the top over.

"Okay."

Pierce frowned. "Okay? That's it?"

I looked up at him. "What do you want me to say, Mr. Whitaker? You already decided. Did I get a vote?"

The amusement slipped off his face for a second. He wasn't used to hearing that tone from me.

For four years, I'd been easy. He didn't like being asked where he was going, so I stopped asking. He didn't want anyone to know about us, so in public I treated him like a stranger.

If he called drunk at two in the morning, I drove across town to get him. If his ulcer flared up, I sat up with him all night.

When he was in a good mood, he'd pull me in and call me Ren. When he wasn't, he'd tell me to get out.

I never held any of it against him.

Four years ago, Pierce paid the last of my mom's surgery bills. She didn't make it. But I was twenty-two and drowning, and to me he was the man who'd thrown me a rope.

Then the gratitude turned into something else.

"Can't pay me back? Then stay with me."

So I stayed. Four years.

No title. No promises.

Pierce always said nothing turned him off faster than a woman who made things complicated. So I made sure I was the least complicated thing in his life.

After a while, even his family noticed the difference. The other women who'd drifted through Pierce's life were pretty and agreeable and looked good in photos, and that was about it.

I was the one who could talk a furious investor down. Who could rescue a client dinner that was going sideways. His friends used to joke that I wasn't his girlfriend so much as his chief of staff.

Turned out the useful ones get traded too, once they've been around long enough.

Pierce watched me for a few seconds, then smiled again.

"Come on. Drop the attitude." He held out his hand. "Come here."

Any other night, I would have gone.

Tonight, I stayed where I was.

His hand hung there in the air. The smile drained away.

"Ren, don't sulk." He paused, and his voice went soft, almost coaxing. "It's done. We might as well make the most of the time we've got left."

I looked at him. "I'm not sulking."

I picked my clothes up off the floor and got dressed, one piece at a time.

The line between his eyebrows deepened.

I tied the last strap before I looked at him again.

"Since I belong to Mr. Carrow now, you probably shouldn't touch me anymore, Mr. Whitaker."

Every trace of that lazy, easy look vanished.

"Wow. You're really getting into character."

I held his gaze. After a moment, I said quietly, "I learned from the best."