Page 89 of The Shifting Sands Beneath Us

Rose

“Where are we going?” I asked as we headed away from the office building, but not in the direction of my apartment.

“Home.”

“Um…that’s the other direction.”

“I need to go to my apartment,” he said, taking my hand and tucking it against his body. As if I needed a reason to touch him.

“I can’t go to your apartment. I literally have nothing there.”

“I don’t have anything at your apartment either,” he shot back.

Twisting in my seat to face him, I pointed to the clothes, or lack thereof, that I was wearing. “Do you see this? I don’t even have a dress to wear. You tore everything. And these underwear have to go.”

He shrugged, his eyes lighting up with humor. “That’s fine with me.”

“Seriously, you have to take me home. I’m not spending the night in that cold, lifeless museum exhibit without comfortable underwear.”

“Is it really that bad?” he asked, his face filled with humor.

Cocking my head at him, I resisted the urge to slap him. “I don’t know. Think about the beach house, and then think about the apartment you live in.”

“Okay, you could be right on that account. It’s not where I would have chosen to live.”

“Then why are you there?”

“It was in the contract. It was the one thing I missed in the fine print.”

“What did it say?”

“That you and I were to reside in that apartment for the duration of our marriage.”

My jaw dropped. “You expect me to live there?”

“Only for a while. I’m sure if we buy a house in the right area, my father will concede the issue.”

Concede the issue.Even the way he talked was completely different than at the beach house. How was I going to get through to him? Every time I thought we made some headway, he threw another curveball at me.

“I don’t want to live there. I like my apartment.”

He sighed heavily. “I like your apartment too. In fact, anything that my father hasn’t chosen is preferable to that apartment. I would stay in a one bedroom shack with you if it meant pissing my father off. But there’s not a lot of wiggle room at the moment. You can redecorate.”

I shook my head, still baffled that he was going with the flow on this stuff. “Okay, apartment aside, I still need to get my clothes, so can you please have us turn around?”

“Darren,” he said loudly. “Let’s go back to Mrs. Langston’s apartment. We’ll pack a few things and then head home.”

“Yes, sir.”

Packing things wasn’t much better, but at least I would have clothes. I’d miss my apartment, the coziness and warmth of it. The first thing I would do is redecorate that hideous space.

After packing a suitcase with a week’s worth of clothes and anything else I might need, I said goodbye to my apartment. I almost grabbed a few beach reads, but thought better of it. There was no point in contaminating the romance books I loved with that hideous, unfeeling apartment.

I wasn’t sure that I needed to move out. After all, James and I hadn’t really come to any kind of understanding of how our relationship would work. But maybe that was the point. Nothing would get solved if we weren’t living together.

“Does your housekeeper come tomorrow?” I asked as we stepped into the foyer of his apartment.

“Not on Sundays, which kind of stinks because then I have to do all the cooking myself.”