“No one’s asking you to,” Macon said, calm confidence wafting off of him like Axe body spray on a teenage boy. “Nothing needs to change on your end of things. Continue on as the foundation’s executive director and write the books on the side. You get the best of both worlds.” He paused and grinned at her. “All you have to do is say yes.”

Chelle walked home in a haze. It was like she’d left the coffee shop, blinked, and was back home with Groucho and Mary happy yapping at her ankles while Sir Hiss watched from his spot at the top of the bookshelf. Her mouth was open to call out to Nash when she remembered he wasn’t here anymore. She’d kicked him out, and he’d gone, which was exactly what both of them had needed to happen. Their partnership had reached its logical conclusion, and she was damned if she’d let another man make life decisions for her.

Fine. He may have done her a solid by sharing her book with Macon, but she wasn’t ready to actually agree to that. He had done it without her permission. She’d thought he’d changed his take-charge mansplaining ways, but he obviously hadn’t.

Yet, a stubborn voice inside her head whispered.

God, why was everything so confusing, and why did she miss him wandering through the house as he held conference calls, his voice booming down the hall and interrupting the flow of her writing? Why did she keep standing in the doorway to his room, staring at his bed? Why had she picked up her phone at least half a dozen times in the past day, ready to call him but chickening out at the last minute?

The whole marriage thing had just been a means to an end. Sure, she’d fucked up and gotten close to Nash—maybe even thinking she’d fallen for him, but that couldn’t be real. Pacing through the living room, trying to get ahold of herself as her thoughts spun out, she automatically veered a few inches to the left to avoid the coffee table. But the table wasn’t in that spot anymore. Nash had realized she’d bumped her shin on it on a near-hour basis and had moved it over.

Staring at the coffee table now six inches to the right of where it had been, her throat clogged up with emotion again. Damn it, she would not start crying again. What she needed was a massive distraction, an escape, a hole to open up in the middle of her living room and suck her into another world.

Wait.