How Cassie Got Her Grind Back(Divine Creek Ranch 23)(53)

The thought made her bottom clench as she got into her car though.

What am I doin’?

She glanced in the mirror—and smiled at her reflection.

“I’m a renaissance woman, and I’m seizing the day, baby!”

Ivan’s big fancy truck was already at the house when she pulled in the driveway. Her mind was in turmoil as to how to get all her purchases squared away without looking so obvious. With her heart pounding in her ears, she rushed inside and slipped the paper-wrapped package of crawfish into the refrigerator and noticed he didn’t have the base for the étouffée sautéing yet. Maybe he was on the phone out back.

Good. She hurried down the hall, to secret the box of condoms and her other illicit paraphernalia in her nightstand drawer, when the scent of her vanilla bean candles burning hit her nostrils, and she came to a screeching halt.

Well, that was a little presumptuous—

“Hello, baby,” Ivan said as he appeared in the doorway, looking ready to do battle. “You have company…or rather we do.”

She peeked in and looked to the bed, where Bill was standing nearby, zipping up his pants.

“Bill! What the hell are you doing here, and why are you undressed?” She sniffed, and over the scent of her candles, she caught the scent of her pricey body wash, bought special with a gift card from Madeleine’s. “What are you doing in my house—using my bath products?”

Bill held up a finger. “My house—still. I thought I’d surprise you with a bit of romance.”

Ivan made a snorting sound. “You were lying on her bed buck-ass naked, pulling on your pud. You wanted to get laid.”

Cassie recoiled at the mental image of him doing such a thing and was glad she’d not been here to witness it. Remembering the bag in her hand, Cassie stowed the entire contents in the bottom drawer of her dresser and rounded on her ex-husband. “Get out.”

“I have just as much right to be here. This is still my house. He came in just pretty as you please—”

“Because I told him he could. Bill, we’re going to have a discussion about the house, and that key, which I asked you to leave here last time you let yourself in uninvited.”

Bill was suddenly all business. “Yes, I think we do need to have a discussion about it. I know what I want, Cassie, and neither this loser nor his brother is stopping me from getting what I want. I want you.”

“Hmm,” she muttered. “When you found out I had to have surgery, you told me I was allowing myself to be neutered and sex would be a thing of the past. I don’t know why you thought that, but you were right in a way. Sex with you is a thing of the past. I’ve come to realize the day you served me with divorce papers was the day my life actually started. Why on earth would I possibly take you back?”

“We need to talk—”

“Maybe we do. And maybe we should have our lawyers present. This arrangement between us, regarding the house, has turned into a bad deal for me.”

Bill huffed, and the expression on his face was a familiar one. The martyr. She’d seen it numerous times over the years. “Baby, come on. Send him away. Let’s talk.” He stuck out his pouty lip, and she had the immature impulse to grab it and yank it over his head.

Ivan made a disgusted sound. “If she put up with your bullshit for nearly thirty years, asshole, I guess it’s no wonder your date dropped you like a hot potato and went on with Andrew Portman to the Dancing Pony after the reunion   last weekend.”

Cassie blinked. “She did?”

Ivan grinned but kept his eyes on Bill. “Hank told me they left together and then showed up at the Pony after we left. You blew your chance, Bill. Be a good loser for once.”

Hatred gleamed in Bill’s eyes as he stared back at Ivan and grinned. “Maybe so, but I got to pop Cassie’s cherry.”

Cassie gasped at Bill’s audacity and the magnitude of her error in judgment, leading to three decades of an unhappy marriage, sharpened into a painful ache in her chest. What kind of a person said such things? What kind of an idiot was she for marrying someone who would say such things?

Ivan shook his head. “That’s enough. You’re done here.”

It was a good thing Bill had already put his shoes back on and picked up his wallet because Ivan grabbed him by his shirt collar and frog-marched him down the hall. Bill hollered the whole way. “Get your stinking hands off of me, fucker! I’m filing assault charges! This is my house!”

“Call Hank once I get your stupid, horny ass outside. I’d be happy to explain how I found you naked in her house, without her permission, masturbating on her bed. That’d go over well at the bank once the gossip mill gets hold of the story.”