“I swear to God, if you try to babe me right now, our entire deal is off.”

He shut his mouth. The word deal left a sour taste. That’s what his entire marriage had been reduced to.

“What is wrong with you, Gavin? You’re acting like a lunatic! This is how you plan to win me over again?”

“I’m sorry—”

“What if the girls saw you hit him? Do you know how much that would scare them?”

No. He hadn’t thought about that. She was right. He was acting like a lunatic. A slimy-bellied worm wanker, came the whispered reply. Great. Lord One-liner had now surged past helpful tips into Shakespearean insults.

“What right do you have to march back into my life after a month of the silent treatment and decide to go caveman on a guy just for kissing my hand?” Thea seethed. “Do you seriously trust me so little?”

“I trust you, Thea. It’s him I don’t trust.”

“Oh, that is so insulting.” Thea pressed a hand to her forehead dramatically and adopted a breezy Southern Belle accent. “I’m just a fragile little damsel in distress who can’t take care of herself around such strong, virulent men. Save my virtue, dear husband.” She leveled him with a gaze. “This little jealousy act might impress me a little more if you hadn’t left me.”

“You kicked me out, Thea.” Why the hell did everyone forget that part?

Perhaps because you left her long before that, you lily-livered bastard.

Thea shook her head and stormed toward the door.

“Thea, wait,” Gavin said, reaching for her. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m being an asshole.”

With a steadying breath, she walked out, leaving him alone with the voice of Lord Shitty Timing. Worm wanker? Seriously? What the hell even was that?

When Gavin finally emerged from the study, he ran headlong into a line of stern faces and crossed arms at the end of the hallway. Apparently, several more people had arrived while he was in the study. And apparently, none of them were too happy to see him.

Del, Yan, and Malcolm glared like he’d just been caught watching soccer. Del gave an angry jerk of his head toward the stairs to his basement. “Downstairs. Now.”

“I need to find Thea.”

“She’s with the girls. Go.”

With a resigned sigh, Gavin followed the men down the stairs to Del’s finished basement. He rounded the corner and stopped. Mack sat on the couch, an ice pack pressed to his cheek.

Gavin turned around. “No. No fucking way. I’m not talking to him.”

Del grabbed his arm. “Mack has something he wants to say.”

“Your wife is hot.”

Gavin growled. Del smacked Mack upside the head.

“Just kidding,” Mack said. “I mean, not about her being hot. Your wife really is hot.”

“I’m going to fucking kill you.”

Mack stood. “I’m sorry that I caused a problem between you and your wife that did not need to happen. I just can’t help it that I have natural charisma.”

“For fuck’s sake, Mack,” Del complained.

Mack looked at the floor. “Sorry.”

“There,” Del said, looking back and forth between them. “Better? Everyone friends again?”

“We were never friends,” Gavin said.

“Chill, man. I won’t touch your apple again.”

“Sit down, Gavin,” Malcolm said, motioning toward the couch. Gavin obeyed and braced for an ass-chewing that he knew he deserved.

“What just happened up there?” Del demanded.

“Well, Del. You might have heard that my wife and I are trying to work through some problems right now.”

“Judging by the look on her face when she left the study, you’re doing a pretty shitty job of it,” Yan said.

Gavin sank against the cushions and stared at the ceiling, sullen and obstinate.

“It’s been one day,” Del barked. “How can you fuck up already?”

Mack snorted. “Have you met him?”

“Give us an update,” Malcolm said calmly.

“I think I’m going crazy. I keep hearing a British accent in my head telling me to say and do things.”

“It happens to all of us eventually,” Mack said.

Gavin lifted his head to see if he was joking. Mack’s expression suggested he wasn’t. “You hear the voice too?”

“It’s your subconscious,” Malcolm said. “At some point in this process, every one of us has had to fight a British aristocrat in our brain that identifies things we would otherwise prefer to ignore.”

Perhaps because you left her long before that, you lily-livered bastard. “So I should listen to him?”

“Unless he starts telling you to kill people, yeah,” Del said.

Gavin thought about blaming Lord Tight Pants for punching Mack. But that one was totally his own fault. As was his worm-wankery this morning when he asked her if she ever masturbated.

Gavin leaned forward to prop his elbows on his knees. He dropped his head into his hands. “She keeps pointing out that this is only until Christmas. I don’t think she’s going to really give me a chance.”

“Look, man.” Del sat down across from Gavin in much the same pose as the night when they found him drunk and despondent in his hotel room. “We could help you a lot more if you would just tell us what really happened to break you guys up.”

Gavin stood. “Not going to happen.”

“Fine,” Malcolm said. “But just remember this. The point of all this is to court her, Gavin. Not seduce her.”

“What’s the difference?”

Mack snorted again. “It’s a fucking miracle you got married at all.”

Gavin flipped him off.

“The difference,” Malcolm said, “is to make her want you, not prove how much you want her.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Hell. That was what the next two hours were for Thea. Unmitigated hell. After fleeing the study, she helped Nessa finish the cooking and pretended she couldn’t hear the other wives and girlfriends whispering behind their glasses of wine.

I heard they broke up.

He punched Braden Mack!

Did he really move out?

But just when Thea thought things couldn’t get worse, a high-pitched female voice rose above the rest.

“Hello? Where is everyone?”

Thea crossed herself and uttered a prayer. God grant me the serenity to not slap the shit out of her.

“We’re in the kitchen,” Nessa called.

Rachel Tamborn, former model, professional WAG, and arch-nemesis to all nonconformers, swept into the room on click-clacky stilettos and in a cloud of expensive perfume that left a frustratingly pleasant ambiance in her wake. Her hair was glossy. Her makeup perfect. Her dress a skin-toned, form-fitting bandage that had the added insult of looking amazing on her. Her husband, Gavin’s teammate Jake Tamborn, strolled in behind her.

Rachel greeted Nessa with an air kiss on each cheek. “Thank you so much for having us,” she crooned. “I just couldn’t deal with either of our families this year, and I gave our cook the day off, so poor Jake was going to starve without you guys.”

“Of course,” Nessa replied smoothly. “The more, the merrier.”

Rachel pulled back and glanced around the kitchen as if she’d never seen one before. Only then did she notice Thea. Her eyes widened. Her glossy lips parted. Thea half expected fangs to appear. But then she suddenly seemed to remember other people could see her.

She held open her arms. “Oh my gosh! Hi, Thea!”

She click-clacked over and hugged Thea with the accuracy of a boa constrictor. “I’m soooo glad you are here,” Rachel said, pulling back. “I’ve missed you!”

“You’ve missed me?”

“Well, I mean, you weren’t at the last game—”

Oh, slinging arrows already.

“—and you missed our last luncheon—”

“I wasn’t invited—”

“And with everything else, I just assumed you wouldn’t be here.”

Wow. There was sooo much to unpack in there. Thea couldn’t help herself. Impulsive Thea was in control of her mouth all of a sudden. “Why wouldn’t we be here today?”

Rachel’s smile turned sugary. “Oh, I mean, you know . . .”

Thea stood firm. “No, I don’t know what you mean.” Thea stared, her eyebrows raised, daring her to finish.

Rachel finally clasped her hands in front of her. “So, you and Gavin are back together?”

Ah, there it was. What Thea had been waiting for. “That’s not really any of your business, Rachel,” she said quietly.

Rachel’s eyes widened just enough to show she was shocked that anyone would dare stand up to her. Jake cleared his throat and sidestepped his wife. “Good to see you, Thea,” he said, loosely hugging her in the way people do when they feel sorry for someone. “You look adorable, as always.”

Rachel nearly broke a tooth. “You do always look so adorable,” she said, her eyes doing a slow, disdainful walk up and down Thea’s outfit. “But this is a new look for you, isn’t it? I guess comfort really does trump style some days, doesn’t it?”

“Absolutely. Just like class trumps beauty.”

Jake winced. “Where are Gavin and Del?”

Thea gestured toward the back door. “Out back frying a turkey.”

“That’s not good.” Jake took off.

Rachel clasped her hands in front of her body and pasted a smile on her face. Thea nearly laughed because it was a purposefully fake smile. The kind where you want someone to know it’s fake, not because you want them to feel better but because you want them to feel worse. For God’s sake, Rachel was pretending to pretend.

It had always been like this with Rachel. Always. Beneath her friendly facade was an ugly underbelly of competitive wifedom that revealed itself the very first time Thea met the other wives and girlfriends. She’d innocently asked a group of WAGs what they all did for a living, and it was like someone had scratched a needle across a record.