She waved for the check. “That’s convenient. How was your adoptive family?”

  The waitress came, and I quickly left some money on the table. “Great. They’ve always treated me like one of their own. Part of me feels guilty that I even came here, but either way, I promise he doesn’t charge family.”

  We got up to leave, but Kerry had her head down and her arms crossed. “I’m not his family.”

  That was true, but maybe she would be more open if one of her problems was solved. I checked both sides of the street before we crossed. “No, but you're my friend. Let me ask him if he can help.”

  As we stepped off the curb, she stayed next to me. “Okay. I’d rather focus on figuring out the next steps in my life without my ex.”

  “Stay as long as you need.” I dug out my keys. “I have to get to a job. I’ll be back soon.”

  She walked me to my truck at the bottom step of the apartment complex. “Sounds good.”

  Every part of my soul wanted to break all my plans and help her. She rushed up the stairs, and I wondered in that moment if there was more I could do.

  Once she disappeared from sight, I hopped into my truck and headed to the job.

  The morning’s conversation replayed in my mind. There was more to Kerry’s story, but she didn’t trust me. I refused to push, but I wanted to help. Then again, she had no idea who I was.

  Once I was on the road, I called my brother, Jeff, who answered on the second ring then laughed. “How’s it going? You’ve got the whole family worrying about you and this crazy quest of yours with the vow to not use your or their money.”

  “It’s temporary.” I followed my phone map. “And I’m not calling about me.”

  “What’s going on, then?”

  Jeff had accepted our parents’ money without any question of his own worthiness, and he’d been adopted too. However he’d never questioned his past or being accepted. He seemed happy never to look back. I gripped the wheel tighter. “I’ll get my answers, but for now, I need your legal help for a friend who needs a divorce.”

  “A woman?”

  Heat rushed through me. “Yes. Her name is Kerry Jackson of Greenville, North Carolina, but she’s not from here.”

  “And you need her to be divorced so you can date her.”

  My shoulders tensed. “It’s not about me.”

  “Sure, it is.” My brother probably smiled. “You’ve always had a strict moral code, which is one of the things I love about you. And a married woman would be a huge red flag.”

  “I don’t have a strict moral code.” Our adopted father was known as the Tehran Wolf of Wall Street, so all my life, I was treated as a kingmaker more than an analyst. Then he left his Wall Street roots to pursue tech that only catapulted our family from billions to trillions, though I was only in fourth grade when our finances became legendary.

  “You’re the angel in the family. I’m the opposite, and I’ll free this woman so you can keep your hands clean.”

  “You’re not anywhere close to the devil.” I wouldn’t succumb to his teasing. Kerry was a friend in need. “She’s staying with me for now, and I’ll send her contact info. Call her and get the paperwork done as soon as possible.”

  “Trust me. I’ll have her single so you feel better about yourself.“

  “Don’t.” I interrupted. My morality didn’t matter. She was a friend. “Look, I have to go.”

  “Call me later. Good luck. We all want to see you soon.”

  I wanted the same thing. The hardest part of my plan was that the Norouzi family was tight, and my siblings were also my best friends. I needed to finish my mission as soon as possible.

  Step one was to get money to buy a house, and I’d gotten a start. Helping Kerry was a bonus. I imagined a life where she worked with me.

  4

  Kerry

  Walking to the local market and back hadn’t taken long. I’d bought a five-dollar bottle of white wine, and just the thought of having a glass thrilled me.

  For days, I’d been sleeping with one eye open, but with a key in my hand and no one screaming at me all day, I felt free. I’d kept going in spite of my setbacks because I refused ever to go back to Romeo, who wasn’t scary physically but was cold, closed, and only talked about himself to the point where I could have been just a puppet. He’d never allowed me to respond with anything more than a murmur.

  I’d put up with Melissa Morris because even though she was loud, in the end, she was just as demanding as Romeo had been. Warren was an unknown, but at least he was kind, and the warmness in his gaze sent a thrill down my spine that I couldn’t blame on my lack of sleep.

  I ached to know what it would feel like if his lips kissed me and my body was his.

  In a different life, we would both be naked and fully enjoying each other until we needed to stop for dinner and then return to tasting and touching each other. I would have bet money that his hands alone could make me forget myself.

  I didn’t even remember the last time my husband had touched me—not that I’d ever wanted him like that.

  Warren was getting under my skin, and he didn’t even want me as more than a friend, but that was all we could ever be.

  I planned dinner and put the ingredients in order. I glanced out the window and realized the day was half gone.

  I’d wandered the grocery store aisles multiple times and wasted time, unsure if I had ever made a good decision. Warren would be home soon, and I hadn’t looked at a single help-wanted ad all day.

  I needed to fix my schedule. I put the wine in the fridge then washed the vegetables. My phone vibrated.

  I glanced at it. Other than Romeo, no one had called me in months. I’d half wondered if my ex had canceled my account, though I was still on my parents’s plan, as I’d never bothered to change it despite being married for three years. I’d planned to get my own when I was finally on my own, and it suddenly became a priority once I got a job. I turned the water off and saw my mother’s picture, so I answered it.

  Instead of “hello,” she said, “Come home.”

  If I did that, Romeo would find me, and my parents would invite him in while I was sleeping, which is exactly what had happened three months before.

  Home wasn’t safe.

  I shook my head. “No. I’m okay.”

  My mother sighed. “You left your husband on the highway. You’re clearly distraught.”

  No, I’d walked off at a gas station and disappeared as fast as my feet could carry me.

  He’d obviously spoken to them. I wouldn’t have been surprised if all of them had made a plan for me. But my freedom was going to stick—I wasn’t making the same mistake twice. “I’m actually pretty good despite you not supporting me getting a divorce.”

  “I didn’t understand.” She paused. “Look, let me buy you a plane ticket.”

  They were absolutely working together. I swallowed and glanced at the ceiling. There was no way I was ever going back without a divorce certificate, a job, and a place to call my own. I needed to grow a spine and stay strong. “Mom, I’m handling my life.”

  “I’m worried about you. Are you taking your meds?”

  “I never needed them. I’m happy and don’t want to live my life with my head in a cloud of indifference.” I closed my eyes, and it wasn’t the onion that needed to be cut making me choke up. No one had ever listened to me or what I wanted, and I knew they wouldn’t start all of a sudden. “Why do you want me home? Because you care or because you want to send me back to Romeo so you can continue telling everyone your daughter married a doctor?”

  “I’m worried about you. Quitting medication is dangerous, dear.”

  “I didn’t need pills before getting married. You know that. And I’m capable of making my own decisions, just as I did in college.”

  “Your father and I paid the tuition.”

  “And I’m grateful. I earned good grades, and my friends all went and got jobs.”

  “You don’t need to be a slave.”

  There was no way working was worse than living with Romeo. I swallowed and stayed focused. ”I’m not going to take anything else that puts me to sleep and makes me forget I hate my life,” I said quickly. I had spent two years of my life medicating the pain away, and I wasn’t doing that anymore.

  Besides, pills made it harder to think about what I wanted or how to fix my life. I needed a plan like the one Warren had.

  Romeo’s friends wrote prescriptions as if drugs were candy for me. Maybe I would have been okay to sit there for one more house party, smiling alongside the other trophy wives, but that was over. I was done having a cloudy mind. And if I showed any weakness, they would get what they wanted. I wasn’t going back to that.

  I said goodbye, hung up, then threw myself into cooking, the only thing that ever made me feel calm. A few minutes later, I let out a sigh then began to sing a wordless melody, swaying as I worked.

  First, I fried chicken strips until they sizzled, flipped them in the frying pan, then set water to boil for pasta. As I finished, I was almost dancing.

  Once the meat was almost done, I started on the sauce. I danced as I diced onions, avocados, and peppers then added them to a small pan with evaporated milk, humming a faster tune.

  Soon, dinner was almost done, and I grabbed the shirt Warren had left out for me as I used my phone to search the job boards.

  I needed a résumé and a clue if I wanted to avoid being a maid. I made an appointment with my old university’s career services center for the next day—I needed all the help I could get, and a well-written résumé could make a huge difference.

  I felt almost happy, which was odd.

  Just as the pasta finished cooking, I heard a key in the lock. I held my breath and stopped humming as Warren came in and our gazes met. My knees went weak, but I hid that behind the counter.

  He closed the door behind him. “It smells good in here. Where did you get the food?”

  I walked, read ingredients that were on sale, and chose based on how little I wanted to spend. For the first time in a long time, I hadn’t been ordered to serve a husband or guests. I smiled. “I told you I’d stay on budget, but that meant cooking. So I grabbed a pepper, a lemon, an avocado, a small chicken, pasta, and evaporated milk. I figured you had a long day, and dinner cost less than ten dollars this way—fifteen if you include the wine.”

  He put a twenty on the table. “Here. You cooked. And it looks better than anything in a restaurant.”

  I shrugged and ignored the money. Unlike my parents or my ex, Warren clearly wasn’t flush with cash, either. I walked our plates to the small table and said, “I have to eat too.”

  He pivoted but didn’t move. “Take it, please.”

  As I walked to the refrigerator, I moved my hips a bit more than usual, and I hoped he noticed. As I grabbed the wine, I said, “That’s probably the first time in my life any man has said please to me.”

  He came up next to me, and goose bumps grew on my arms. I took a breath and told myself he was a sexy, handsome man. He grabbed the glasses and silverware then walked beside me to the table. “That’s strange, Kerry. My mother trained us all to immediately offer a ‘please’ or ‘thank you,’ as politeness mattered to us.”

  “I like that.” It was the first time I remembered anyone helping me set the table, either. I was usually alone unless summoned. I took a seat. “That’s good training for her future.”

  He laughed. “With my father and eleven boys, she was sometimes a general and sometimes a saint, but everyone loves their parents. It might make me sound weak, but they encouraged us to find our passions.”

  The warmness in his words buzzed through me. It would have been nice to be part of a family like the kind on TV and in movies and books, where everyone loves each other. He poured the wine for us, and my pulse zipped. “No. My parents never encouraged me.” Helpful and nice was a deadly combination. “I always wanted siblings to talk to growing up. I was an only child.”

  He picked up his silverware and ate the first bite of the meal. I held my breath and waited for his reaction. It wasn’t much, but I’d thrown myself into its preparation and hoped he liked it.

  His eyes widened, and he smiled at me.

  My skin tingled with his approval. In another life, that might have been enough to make me happy.

  As he finished his bite, he asked, “What about you? Did you figure out a work plan for yourself?”

  “No,” I said quickly then stuffed food into my mouth. “And I swear I won’t take another day like this. I needed to decompress and took too much time in inaction.” I tensed and looked down. I had no money, so not looking for work was the worst thing I could have done.

  He ate like he was totally fine, so I finished chewing my own meal. Soon, I relaxed. When I was sure I could, I asked, “How was your job today?”

  He leaned closer. “Too short, and these small jobs won’t help the big picture. I need a better plan.”

  “I’m sure you’ll figure that out soon,” I said then devoted myself to eating.

  He sat back. “I thought about you today too.”

  “Likewise.”

  Then we both ate. The silence filled me more than the first food I’d eaten that day.

  As we finished our meal, I picked up my wine. “I wanted to do something nice for you, but honestly, I’m out of practice with having company to talk to.”

  He took the dishes from the table. “Part of me always wished I had more me time. Even as an adult, with eleven brothers, some of whom are now settling down and getting married, there is always a reason for togetherness.”

  I tilted my head and wondered if he intended to clean up. He grabbed the pan from the oven, too, and started the wash. He took my plate from me and washed the dishes.

  “It’s not that my soon-to-be ex didn’t have friends over.” Once the faucet was off, I said, “It’s just that I’ve never been expected to speak.”

  “I can’t imagine having you around and not wanting to get your thoughts.”

  “That’s sweet, just like you.”

  “I’m not sweet.”

  “Neither is sugar,” I said with a laugh.

  We walked back to the table together, and I picked up my wine.

  He said, “Well, in my mind, I think I came to a solution where we both win and get what we want.”

  I waited, tensed and frozen in place. He couldn’t know my goals—I didn’t even know them. Maybe I had been naïve to think I had a reprieve from being used. My skin zipped as I asked, “Solution?”

  He pointed to the kitchen counter. “Well, you have a phone with service.”

  “You know I do.” Normally, sex discussions didn’t begin with stating the obvious. I had to trust my instincts, at least the ones that didn’t want to see more of him. We were never getting naked together. For the time being, I relaxed my shoulders. “What are you leading up to with the obvious?”

  He sipped his wine and stared at me. His lips thinned as though it tasted bad, which it did. It wasn’t good at all, but I wasn’t sure how to shop clearance wines. I’d never thought about the cost of the one thing no one had ever questioned me about, as good, proper wives could at least drink their days into oblivion without consequence .

  He put his glass down. “I need to start booking general contracting jobs in the area. I was thinking that if you can make the appointments and the schedule, I can do more jobs and less searching for them.”

  I trusted him, and the deal sounded great. But I wasn’t stupid, and there had to be more to his plan. Helping him that much wasn’t in the cards for me. I needed to stand on my own two feet, not find a partner. I had to find a way to pay for myself, but I nodded. “That’s true.”

  He folded his hands on the table. “So how about you get the agent fee of fifteen percent for every job you get for me. I’d like to have five or six jobs in a day. I charge two hundred an hour, minimum, and I can fix just about anything in a house. The rent here is six hundred a month, so that would make up for whatever minimum wage might be, and we would be helping each other.”

  Two hundred a day was a thousand in a week if he took five jobs. Fifteen percent would be fifteen hundred a month minimum, but if the deal included room and board, then it was a start. I could get him more than five hours of work booked. My heart leapt. I would be able to afford a lawyer and provide for myself.

  I stopped and folded my hands around my waist. Working with Warren meant I would depend on him too much. My mind flooded with questions. What if he got sick? What if he had some horrible flaw? What if whatever was between us dissipated?

  I needed to not get carried away. I wouldn’t take the deal. He didn’t need to solve my problems—I did. Handouts wouldn’t help me, and his offer felt like charity meant to solve my issues for me.

  It wasn’t as if he knew anything about me. I sipped my wine and silently agreed that it tasted gross. “That’s a lot to charge people, since you don’t even own a ladder.”

  He blinked and stared at me like he needed to convince me. “Mrs. Morris paid me for the chandelier, and my equipment is arriving any day. I’m new, but working with my hands was something I did all my life.”

  He must have wanted to prove he was capable. He wasn’t a doctor like my ex, but I was sure he made a decent living, even if something had happened to him to land him in Greenville. We were strangers to each other, so I sipped my wine and then said, “Must be nice to know how to fix things, but I’m not a project like a chandelier or a broken windowpane.”

  “You’re more a treasure than anything else.” He sipped his wine. “Besides, I want to buy a house. I figure with you on board helping me, I can find that place sooner.”

  At least he had a plan. I needed to figure out mine, I supposed. Friends didn’t use each other. I would help him for a few days while I worked on my résumé. “So you’re offering me a job when you can do that yourself and keep all the money you earn?”

  He shrugged then sipped. “Your help makes it easier to fit in more jobs. I’m in for seven in a day right now if the schedule allows, since I won’t be spending time on the computer. And besides, I thought you needed to get money fast.”