Leaving at Noon

Sunday Night Dinner Club

Book 4

Leaving at Noon

Jess Dee

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The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

Leaving at Noon

Copyright © 2015 Jess Dee

ISBN: 9781311797261

Edited by Jennifer Miller

Cover art by Valerie Tibbs

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means—accept in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission.

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Leaving At Noon

Sunday Night Dinner Club, Book 4

Theo and Zoey Hughes have got it all. The ideal marriage, a gorgeous house, brilliant jobs and a steadfast group of friends. So why is everything falling apart at the seams?

Zoey loves her husband, but recently she’s stopped liking him—and if their fights are any indication, Theo’s feeling the same way. The future that once glowed bright before them has lost its shine.

There’s no choice. Zoey has to walk away. She needs to take a break from her marriage before it implodes, leaving nothing but fragments of their once-perfect life together.

Letting Zoey close the door behind her is the hardest thing Theo’s ever had to do. Now he’s faced with a choice: watch his wife leave him and everything they’ve built together, or go after her and remind her why they fell in love in the first place.

Warning: When a hot-blooded alpha male decides he wants his wife back, you better believe nothing is going to stop him. And if he has to seduce her to succeed, well, let’s just say his blood isn’t the only thing that’s gonna be hot about this story.

Acknowledgements

With thanks to Jennifer for always being there to praise the strengths, identify the weaknesses and unfailingly offer support. You’re the best!

Table of Contents

Leaving at Noon

Acknowledgements

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Dinner at Eight

Table for Two

About the Author

Other Titles by Jess Dee

Chapter One

My marriage is in trouble. Zoey Hughes didn’t look up as she uttered the words, their formation scratching her throat and burning her lips. She couldn’t bear to see the sympathy in the blue eyes staring at her in the bathroom mirror.

She gripped the edge of the granite-adorned basin and kept her gaze fixed on the white porcelain, struggling to hold back the emotion that clawed at her chest.

So it would seem, her friend replied softly.

He hates me.

He adores you. You’re his whole world.

Zoey snorted humorlessly. That might have been the case once, but it definitely wasn’t now. You know you shouldn’t be in the women’s toilets?

Thank God the ladies’ room at Chelsea’s, a popular Sydney restaurant where she, her husband and their friends met for dinner every three weeks, had been empty when she’d barged inside.

I’m tight with the owner, Levi Barret assured her. I think she’ll give me a free pass on this one. To prove his point, he shifted, and Zoey heard a click.

Bless him. Levi had just locked the rest of the world out of her pain.

What’s going on with the two of you, Bozo? he asked.

Zoey stared at the basin, wondering what she’d say. The ladies’ room might have seemed like a good place to escape in the heat of the moment, but it was hardly an appropriate setting for a heart-to-heart. But then, was any setting appropriate to admit that the most important relationship in her life was falling apart?

You’ve been miserable for months, Levi said gently.

She wasn’t the only one. Lifting her head, she met his gaze reflected in the mirror. So has Theo.

He nodded. Yep.

Her chest clenched. He’s spoken to you about it? Lucky Levi. Her husband hardly spoke to her anymore.

Not a word, Levi vowed.

Then how do you know?

Levi raised an eyebrow in answer.

Her shoulders slumped. It’s that obvious?

The two of you look unhappy. You speak to everyone but each other. Hell, you’ve started ordering separate drinks. That says more than words ever could.

Shit. Zoey had tried so hard to pretend everything was fine, but their friends had picked up on their hostility.

We haven’t shared a bottle of wine in two months, she said bleakly. Theo orders beer, I order a cocktail, and it’s like our tradition never existed. Sharing wine was her and Theo’s thing. It had been since their first date, way back in uni days. A symbol of the intimacy that had formed from the beginning. He doesn’t seem to care.

That’s what this is all about? Wine?

Zoey shook her head. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. She pressed her lips together, worried that if she said any more, the lump in her throat would overwhelm her, and she’d start to sob.

There was a dam of tears inside her, struggling to escape.

We’re collapsing, Lev. Theo’s p-pulling away from me. Our marriage is crumbling. Her hands shook violently. And it’s ripping my heart in two. I… I don’t know how much more I can take.

With a soft sigh, Levi closed the distance between them. He hugged her from behind, wrapping his arms around her stomach and pulling her back into his chest, pressing a soft kiss to the top of her head. I’ve gotcha, Bozo. You’re okay.

The comfort he offered was too much. Zoey couldn’t hold back her grief. Tears leaked from her eyes, and the dam walls buckled.

W-we don’t talk any…more. Her chest heaved, sobs echoed off the bathroom walls, and she battled to speak above a hoarse whisper. We haven’t had a conversation in weeks. All we do is…is fight. About…everything.

Levi held her tighter.

The argument tonight? The one that had sent Zoey rushing into this bathroom in a desperate need to escape the unpleasant vibes. It was stupid. There was no reason to get into it. There never seemed to be a basis for their arguments anymore. They’d just fallen into a pattern of fighting for the sake of fighting. He…he’s my best friend. My whole world, and lately, I don’t know him. He d-doesn’t know me. It’s like we d-don’t wa… Jeez, she struggled to say it. Hated admitting it out loud. We d-don’t…want to know each other anymore.

That was the heart of her problem. The source of her pain. Theo, her husband, her life, the man she loved, no longer wanted to know her—and sometimes, she felt the same way about him.

Zoey dropped her head in her hands. She couldn’t speak. Her throat had clogged up. Breathing through the tears was hard enough. Surviving the agony of her failing marriage was almost impossible.

Who was she, if not Theo’s other half? What was her life if he no longer wanted her, and she didn’t have him in it?

The man who knew her better than anyone, who knew her every secret and dream and hope, now stared at her through a stranger’s eyes. He spoke in a voice she didn’t recognize.

Gone was the intimacy. The bond that had connected them for over eight years had snapped. We sleep on opposite ends of the bed. When she could sleep. Lately, she spent endless hours prowling their house in the dark. And I never see him. I leave before he gets up in the morning, and he comes home so late, I’ve stopped waiting up for him.

They’d consciously begun to avoid each other.

I miss him. So damn much. She yearned to wrap her arms around his neck and pull him close so she could feel the length of his body pressed against hers. Remember not only how it felt to hold him, trust him, rely on him and love him, but how it felt to be held, trusted, relied on…and loved.

There was a time we could spend hours on end together, content to be with each other and no one else. We…we’d talk and laugh and argue about everything and nothing. She hankered for their shared laughter and the comfortable silences, when words weren’t necessary. When just being together was enough. She even missed their fights—the passionate ones that ultimately ended in hot, sweaty make-up sex.

Now there’s a-a gaping hole in the mattress between us. A huge, bottomless pit that neither husband nor wife tried to cross. Even when he’s with me, it’s like he’s not there. And sometimes when he is there, I wish he wasn’t.

She gulped in shuddery breaths and turned to stare beseechingly at Levi.

Jeez, what did she expect him to do? Fix things? Wave a magic wand and make her and Theo all okay again?

His expression was grave. What went wrong?

The question left her floundering. She didn’t want to answer. Not if it meant acknowledging that all her insecurities—the very ones Theo had helped her come to terms with years ago—had come back to bite her on the ass.

I… I did, Zoey stumbled. She wasn’t brave enough to blurt out the full truth. Or my work did. I put all my time and energy into the clinic, and left nothing for Theo at the end of the day. It all escalated from there.

Work had precipitated the hideous downward spiral of their marriage. But it was only a part of their issues.

Now it doesn’t matter what’s happening, we’re always angry. And if we’re not fighting, we’re ignoring each other. Tears spilled down her cheeks in a steady stream. Everything’s falling apart at the seams, and I don’t know how to stop it. W-we’ve drifted too far apart. Instead of trying to find each other again, neither of us can be… She swallowed. Neither of us can be bothered. It’s easier to pretend he’s not there. Simpler to argue than to make an effort to be nice.

The searing passion that once defined them was gone, leaving only wintry, spiteful interactions.

Unfailingly, their mutual hostility left Zoey with a cramping belly and a breaking heart—regardless of who spewed the poison and what was said.

Tonight, it left her sobbing in a friend’s arms in a public bathroom. Her heart was shredded. The most dependable factor in her life had fast become the least stable. The foundations of her marriage were fragmenting.

I don’t know what to do to fix it, Lev. She inhaled a shuddery breath. And worst of all?

Levi’s expression was pained. It gets worse?

Zoey nodded. Every bone in her body ached. I… I love him. He’s everything to me. But…

But?

"But I don’t know if I want to fix it anymore."

Theo grabbed the drink in front of him and drained it in a single sip. He tasted neither the beer nor the lime wedged in the bottle. The heaped bowl of risotto proved to be just as bland, which was surprising. The risotto was the best dish on Chelsea’s menu.

Regardless, he continued to fork in one mouthful after the other. It was easier to focus on something he could manage than something he’d lost control of months ago.

His gut twisted, acid burning him with every swallow.

The worst part of the situation? He had no idea how to get a handle on it, when he wasn’t sure how things had gotten so fucked-up in the first place.

Yeah, Zoey had focused almost all of her time and attention on the Well Women clinic, but that wasn’t an issue for Theo. He was used to her working hard. Hell, Zoey was a doctor. They’d been together through her clinical studies, internship and specialization. Theo knew all about her long hours and sleepless nights.

Besides, when he wasn’t pissed at her, he was dead proud of his wife. She wasn’t yet thirty and she was making a difference to women all over Sydney.

He felt the gazes of his mates on him. Knew the shocked silence was all his doing. And Zoey’s. But he couldn’t handle the recriminations now. If he couldn’t deal with his wife, how could he face their friends, looking at him, judging him?

He forced his lips out of their grimace and slowed his mindless eating.

Deep breath. Don’t let this fuck with your head.

Yeah? Easier said than done. His head was already fucked-up. A jumble of pained confusion and frustration.

He’d watched Zoey disappear into the ladies’ room, even heaved a sigh of relief as she’d stalked away. Being with her lately rubbed him up the wrong way. It rubbed them both up the wrong way.

Yet somehow the relief of her departure didn’t provide him with respite. Zoey’s spine had grown straighter with every step she’d taken, which meant only one thing. He’d hurt her with that last comment.

The straighter she held herself, the worse she felt.

The bitch of it was, he couldn’t even remember what he’d said to make her walk away. The words—designed to hurt—had formed, and he’d tossed them carelessly in her direction.

What he did remember was the not-so-subtle slur she’d slung at him seconds before, while talking to Liv and James—but only because it had been complete and utter bullshit.

You want to know what we did this weekend? she’d asked Liv. Let’s see. I worked yesterday morning and spent the rest of the time reading. Great book. You should read it. She’d picked up her phone and opened an app, presumably to show Liv the book. As for Theo… She’d shrugged and cast him a disinterested glance. I have no idea. This is the first time I’ve seen him since Friday morning.

They’d slept in the same bed on Friday and Saturday night. And walked past each other fifty times over the last two days. Yeah, he may have spent the weekend watching cricket—in another room—but they’d seen each other plenty. Spoken? Not so much. Okay, not at all. But they’d seen each other.

He needed another beer.

Theo raised his gaze to find the waitress, but his view was blocked. Troubled brown eyes stared into his.

Ava Torres was in his space, shoving her face right up close. A soft palm covered his hand, preventing him from signaling for a drink.

You know, Hughesy, she said as she wrapped her fingers around his, it took me over a year to admit to any of you that I had a problem.

Theo squared his jaw. Any reminder of Ava’s problem sent his blood pressure rocketing—and thanks to Zoey, his blood pressure was already sky-fucking-high.

Ava had been abused by her soon-to-be ex-husband and hadn’t told any of them. Theo’s helplessness and guilt at not having helped her—at not having known—still gnawed at him, just like it ate away at all of their friends.

It was the toughest year of my life, she went on. I can only say this in retrospect, with the whole hindsight-and-twenty-twenty-vision thing, but I should have spoken about it before everything got out of hand. I should have let you all in on my secret, so I could get some help.

Hell, yeah, she should have said something. Any one of the Dinner Club—that was what the friends called their group—would have bent over backward to keep her safe.

"All I’m saying is you should talk about whatever’s happening with Zoey. If not to everyone here, now, then to one of us, sometime soon.