Don't Pretend I'm Yours by Natasha Anders

Author:Natasha Anders [Anders, Natasha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pretty Little Blue Bird Publications
Published: 2023-06-05T16:00:00+00:00

EIGHTEEN

Not a sustainable situation

“Blake’s here.” Ben’s voice was muted but firm. “I think you should see her. She’s worried about you. We all are. C’mon, cupcake, you haven’t gotten out of bed since the funeral. And that was three days ago in case you’ve lost track of time.”

“I don’t want to see anyone,” Lilah said. “What are you doing?”

The indignant exclamation came when Ben unceremoniously yanked the thick, warm comforter off the bed, leaving her curled up in a defenseless fuzzy pajama clad little ball in the middle of the denuded bed.

“You’re getting up and heading into that bathroom to brush your teeth and take a shower. For your sake as well as mine. I can’t keep sleeping next to your increasingly rank body.”

“You’re welcome to sleep elsewhere,” she told him with a petulant glare, sitting up, her slowness screaming her reluctance to him.

“It’s my bed.”

“Fine!” she said, getting up and acknowledging privately that maybe she had been in bed for too long when the room rotated drunkenly around her. “I’ll move to the spare room.”

Of course, she could always move out completely, but the mere thought of that right now was too emotionally taxing.

His flat, unimpressed stare told her exactly how he felt about her response.

“You sleep with me.”

“Me man! You woman! Woman do what Man say!” she said in a deep voice, mocking him. She thumped her chest for good measure and felt alive for the first time since Gramps’s death ten days ago.

His lips twitched, but he kept his expression schooled to absolute neutrality.

“Now you’re getting it,” he said with a satisfied nod and she rolled her eyes, trying hard not to be amused by him.

“Arrogant butthole,” she complained and stalked toward the massive en-suite.

After the horrible night Gramps had died, they’d come directly to Ben’s luxurious penthouse apartment in Clifton. Her things—which had been sent over before the wedding—had been neatly unpacked and arranged in the lavish walk-in closet that she now shared with her husband. The apartment had three bedrooms and one had been converted into an office space for Ben. She absently wondered where she could set up her own temporary workspace, but immediately shoved the thought back down. That felt too much like moving on… and it felt like a betrayal to even think of the future so soon after Gramps’s death. Even though, logically, she knew he would want her to.

She stepped into the massive shower with its white and navy-blue subway tiling and dual rainforest shower heads, and once she had the streams set to massage, she sighed in absolute bliss.

She hated to admit it—she reflected as she toweled herself off—but Ben was right, she’d really needed this shower, in more ways than one. She felt refreshed, revitalized, and ready to face the world. At least for a little while. At the back of her mind and at the center of her bruised heart, was a niggling ache, like a gnawing toothache, constant and threatening to flare up into overwhelming pain at any given moment.

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