Chapter 5

UNEDITED

Let's go forward to the present time.

"Hold on." Clarissa interrupts. "Did you say you were her husband?" She asks Nikolai.

"Yes." His hooded eyes didn't shift from his ex-wife as he calmly responded. "Not surprising she still hasn't mentioned the fact."

Baylee shakes her head. "No no-no-no. You need to go."

Nathan rolled his eyes and didn't hesitate to leave without any goodbyes. He maneuvers around Niko and Clarissa and shuts the door once outside.

"It was a mistake." Guilt-ridden, Baylee looks to her big sister.

"Was it?"His demeanor was so calm and yet you knew he meant business. Niko forces her attention back on him. "Sneaking into my bed was too?"

"Enough of this." She grabs his hand and pulls him out the front door and onto the porch. It was a large area surrounded by gold railings and had seating. She paces back and forth in distress. "I can't believe you just did that. Ooh my god oh my god oh my god." She had her palm covering her forehead as if she was checking for a fever.

"You're an adult Baylee." He folds his arms and leans up against the side of the house. "I don't think anyone will care as much as you think."

"I just."

"Made a lot of hypocritical statements." He says for her. "So I've heard."

She stops and gazes at him regretfully. "Why would you do this to me? Why would you come here?"

"Tell me something, were you ever planning on telling them, or was it a plan to leave me all along?"

She shakes her head. "None of this matters. We're divorced."

"It matters to me. Tell me, was it always your plan to leave? Is that why you kept your condo like you never left."

"Oh, the condo... You wanna talk about my condo. The condo wanted me around okay, it's the place I stayed all the nights you left me alone.

"Why? Did I leave you homeless?" He challenges.

"It didn't feel right being in that place alone okay..."

"That place? You mean our home?"

"It didn't feel like a home to me. You were barely ever there."

He sighs heavily. "I had to work."

"Oh god." She covers her ears. It was her father's words again. "Please stop."

He moves the few feet between them and pulls her hands down. "Baylee, if I wasn't working, I was with you. When I was working, I was thinking about you. If all I got at the end of the day was to hold you while I slept that was enough for me. It was enough for me to just be coming home to you at night."

She realizes he still had his hands around her forearms and moves them away. "If you truly love someone how can that be enough."

"How can it not? I know I was busy, but that was just temporary. I was learning, you know that my father was training me. And besides that, that was my journey. A wife isn't just the person you show love to or spend time with, she is your actual life partner, she is there to support you, to be there through it all. Just as a husband is to do the same. It's not just about spending time together, affection or attention all the time. I understood when you couldn't or wouldn't be home."

"Okay enough." She puts her palm up and creates distance between them. "After three years you want to have this argument? You could have said all of this then. It's irrelevant now. Just leave Niko."

"Not before you tell me why you came to me last night."

She drops herself on a sofa and puts all ten fingers through her hair, clearing it from her face. "I was having a weak moment. And if I remember correctly, you weren't complaining then."

"I'm not complaining now..." He admits and for seconds they lock eyes.

She felt a twang in her belly, something she really didn't want to feel. It was hard enough to move on from him the first time. "I have to go." She stands and tries to walk away.

He tugs her back. "Baylee..."

"Let go of me." She pulls her arm free and continues to walk away.

"I should have fought for you." He lets it be known as his hands enter his pockets.

She halts and slowly turns back around to face him. "It's too late... work was always more important to you. No matter what excuse you wanna make about journeys and whatever an actual life-partner is. That's how I saw it and still see it."

"That's untrue, nothing was more important than you."

"If that were the case then we would still be together."

He was quiet for a moment but never taking his soft eyes off of her. "You really believe that… that we would still be together?

"What?" She was taken off. "What do you mean?"

"Baylee, that night, I didn't think you would leave. I thought you'd yell at me for a while and we would find a way to resolve it and move on. When you filed for divorce I truly thought that you no longer loved me, and maybe you were looking for the first excuse out. But... Last night..."

She releases a breath. "Last night was great. But that's all it was. A great night."

"Things are different now, I can make you the priority that you deserve to be. I can give you all the attention that you need."

Eww. She cringed on the inside. Somehow he made her feel like a desperate old woman. "I don't need attention nor do I want it.

"Yes, you do. Or you wouldn't have come to me last night."

"Stop bringing up last night." She snaps. The pitch of her voice elevates. "Last night
was a huge, fat, gigantic, mistake. I should have chosen a different man. A man that would get it in his thick skull, that it's just sex. We both had our fun, don't complicate things."

"Don't complicate things? Are you kidding me? Things are already complicated between us. And you did that... last night." He brings it up again.

"Just stop!" She shouts.

He silenced.

"It's over Niko. I shouldn't have come to you last night. I'm sorry. And FYI, I shouldn't have to be made a priority like some appointment in your calendar book, I should have been one already."

With that, she opens the door and goes back into the house without looking back at him or saying goodbye.

~~~

When she went back to the kitchen her sister was gone. She goes seeking and finds her in her bedroom closet. There were piles of clothes and shoes on the floor and scattered around. "What are you doing?"

"None of my clothes fit anymore." Reaches on the top shelf and pulls down a box. "And I feel like it's time for a change. I want a whole new look for a whole new me, You think you could help?"

"You want my help? Are you sure about that? We are the complete opposite in taste.

"That's exactly why." She opens the box and throws the shoes inside in the shoe pile. "I want your help. I don't know what I'm doing."

"Are you sure this isn't about Jacob? Are you trying to get his attention?"

"I can't make him love me."

"So what is this really about?"

Clarissa turns her back on her sister and busies herself with pulling more boxes from the shelf. "I don't want to be someone that you can stop loving."

"Oh no." Baylee puts her arms around her sister and hugs her from the back. "I hate that asshole for making you feel this way.

"It's.." Clarissa begins but was cut off.

"Don't defend him." Baylee spins her around, pushes her at arm's length, and lifts a brow at her seriously. " If there is something wrong with anyone, it's him." She wasn't good at this kind of stuff so she hoped she said the right thing. "Now," she puts her hands together. "Let's do this."


Clarissa smiles. "You're not getting away that easy." Her hands rise to her hips. "Who is Nikolai? And how can he possibly be your Ex-husband?"

Baylee's shoulders drop. "He's Lola's brother, daddy's workhorse. We started dating when I was away at college. I was young and naive, made some stupid decisions, and then corrected them with a divorce. That's it." She now distracts herself with the mess on the floor. She picks up a dress and holds it out to scan over it.

"How could you hide that all these years?"

"It's not something I'm proud of." She admits. "I, Baylee Alden let a man weaken me," She states in a sarcastic yet serious way. "He made me believe that our marriage could last, the mistake I claimed I would never make...I made. I was embarrassed, and the truth is, that it was just too painful to talk about.

"Did you love him?" Clarissa sits on the floor Indian style and begins folding clothes.

"Yes..." Baylee joins her. "The way I started feeling about Conner did have me questioning that for a while but..."

"Let me cut you off right there. The way you feel about Conner is lust, attraction. You feel for him in your panties in my opinion."

"Do you have to say it like that?"

Clarissa giggles. "It's true. You don't even know Conner."

Baylee's stomach sank instantly with the reminder of her stupid deeds. "I did something stupid last night."

"Sneaking in your ex-husband bed?"

"No." She looks to the ground. "Stupider than that."

"You had time to do more?"

"Come on." Baylee takes a shirt that her sister was folding and tosses it. "I'm serious...I went to Conner's and tried to have sex with him."

Big sister's eyes shoot open. "You didn't."

"I did.. and he rejected me. Which, I completely deserve and am thanking god for. I couldn't live with myself if it actually happened.

Clarissa puts her arm around her. As soon as she did, Baylee presses her face into her sister's shoulder and cries. It was very rare for her and In no time, it was like it didn't happen, she wipes her eyes and clears her throat. "Let's go shopping before the kids come home from school."

So that's what they did, and while shopping, Baylee picks out most of the clothes. It was things her big sister would never even try. Short, tight, holy, and heels.

After buying out the stores, they went to the hair salon. Clarissa's wavy brown hair was cut to touch the tops of her shoulders and her hairdresser added chipped side-bangs to add some sass. When her look was completed, and she glanced into the mirror, she didn't recognize herself. It was as if 10 years had been taken off.

"Beautiful woman to sexy vixen." Baylee winks at the mirror.
~~~~

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