I didn’t know this but I liked it.

“Well, thanks.”

He jerked up his chin. Then he grinned. I smiled back. Then the cop car showed.

Ten minutes later Brock showed and I was right. The boys were in the truck looking freaked and Brock was in it looking pissed. I was also right about Vance. He made his statement, gave his card, and took off.

Ten minutes after that, Brock and the boys followed behind my car as we drove to his house.

Ten seconds after I arrived, I turned on the taps in the bath.

* * *

“Babe,” I heard but didn’t move. “Tess,” I heard from closer and I still didn’t move.

But a noise escaped my lips and it was, “Mm?”

“How long you gonna stay in the tub?” Brock asked and I couldn’t see him, seeing as I had a wet washcloth on my face, but I knew from his voice he was crouched right by the tub.

“Infinity,” I muttered.

I heard a chuckle then I heard water splash and I heard Brock again. “Water isn’t even warm anymore.”

“If I don’t move,” I told the washcloth, “I can pretend it’s still steaming.”

“Tess, darlin’, get out. You need dinner. It’s nearly nine.”

“I’m too tired to eat.”

“You still gotta do it.”

“If I leave this tub, I enter the world. Damian doesn’t exist in here. Olivia doesn’t exist in here.” Reluctantly, I lifted a hand, removed the cloth from my face, looked into his silver eyes, and suggested, “Let’s move in here. We can buy a mini-fridge, a tiny microwave, and a camp stove and we’ll be set.”

He grinned. “I think, even for you, it’d be a challenge to make a carrot cake on a camp stove.”

“Yes,” I muttered, looking to my toes at the end of the tub, “that would be a drawback.”

His hand moved to cup my jaw and force my face back to looking at his, where I saw his eyes had melted mercury.

“My sweet Tess has had a bad day,” he murmured.

“Yes, officially it becomes a bad day when you make a complaint to the police about your boyfriend’s ex-wife. Then it becomes a very bad day when you make another one about your ex-husband.”

He held my eyes as his hand moved, his fingertips gliding along my neck and down as he said, “Get outta the tub, get some food in you, and then I’ll make the day go away.”

His fingertips were still moving down. Now at my chest, they kept going. Into the water, they slid between my breasts and kept going down as I felt my heartbeat escalate.

“You’ll make the day go away?” I breathed.

“Yeah,” he whispered, his hand gliding through the water at my belly, down, and automatically I shifted my legs to give him access.