Not that any of that matters because my fiancé is home and I wasn’t expecting him for another couple of hours.
He must have gotten out of work early.
I snort at that thought.
Lewisneverleaves work early.
We’ve been together two years and I can’t remember a single time he left work when he was supposed to, let alone early.
He didn’t even come out to Sabine Woods with me when my dad was shot because he had clients scheduled that weekend, so he transferred enough money to cover travel and necessities into my account—I didn’t need it, but that was his way of making up for not going with me—and checked in with me daily until he got his vacation time situated before coming out to join me.
Which wasn’t until the following weekend, by the way.
Rolling up to my house at five-thirty in the afternoon on a Thursday to see his car already here is definitely weird. It also ruins my surprise, plus if I can’t get my face under control—there is no mistaking the fact that I’ve been bawling for the last twenty minutes—it’ll open a can of worms I don’t want to get into because I haven’t exactly told Lewis about Sam.
Like, at all.
Nothing.
Lewis doesn’t even know there ever was a Sam.
I am in so much shit.
With a few deep breaths, I park behind Lewis’s Porsche, then flip my visor down and open the mirror.
“Jesus,” I grumble when I see the mascara streaks on my cheeks, the smudged and messy eyeshadow and liner all over my face. My eyes are puffy and red, my nose is pink, and I absolutely look like I was crying my heart out on my way home.
There will be no hiding this from Lewis, but I sure as hell am going to try.
I lean over the passenger seat and open the glovebox, digging around for anything to make my face better before coming up with a few wet wipes that have nearly dried out. I scrub at least one layer of skin off my cheeks then do the same to my eyeballs, and hopefully the freezing temperature and light snowfall will mask everything that’s wrong with me right now, and my fiancé will just think I’m cold.
Once I give up and accept the fact that a confrontation over the way I look is unavoidable, I get out of the car, grab my groceries and info from the realtor, and try to compose myself as I enter the house.
“Lewis?” I call out from the doorway. “Lewis, are you home?”
“Be right out!”
I stomp the snow off my boots and set everything down on the bench as I move to hang up my coat.
It’s still so weird to me that he’s home early.
Typically he works until seven, and is home by seven-thirty if he doesn’t work late. If he does, he’ll send a text to give me an idea of what’s going on.
That’s something else that’s odd about this.
Lewis Weston is incredibly routine.
He does all of the same things, at the same times, and generally never wavers from that. Even his late days at work are routine to a degree in terms of how long he stays, which is never past nine-thirty. Lewis always shoots me a text to let me know when his schedule changes, in addition to the phone call at lunch and twojust checking intexts he sends mid-morning and mid-afternoon. My fiancé wakes up at the same time every day, works out for an hour, eats breakfast, packs his lunch, then leaves by 7:45 to go to the office. Two years and the guy hasn’t changed it up once.
“Hey, sweetie.” Lewis smiles as he walks out of the bathroom toweling off his sandy blonde hair.
I arch a brow at him. “Hi… You’re home early.”
And he’s wearing a plain black t-shirt and pajama pants.
So bizarre.
He meets me in the kitchen and leans in to kiss my cheek as I set down the bags. “I decided to hit the gym after lunch and ran into a former client while I was there. We played racket ball for a while, then I decided to come home and surprise you.”
