“I’m right here,’’ my wife answered for my mother as she reappeared. Apparently she was kneeling next to her to find a bottle of red wine.
My eyes drank her in quickly. I couldn’t let myself stay fixed on her for long with my mother here, but it was enough to make my blood run faster through my veins again. Her hair was swept up in some messy knot on top of her head and a few tendrils brushed her high cheekbones. Her makeup was light and classy, like always, but it was her mouth that distracted me for a moment. Her plush lips glistened, as if she had licked them. In a moment of weakness I let myself remember what they looked like all swollen and wet from my kisses.
When my cock started to stir again in my slacks, I walked to the kitchen bar and sat on one of the high stools. My mother was back to the oven to check whatever was inside. While her back was to us, I sent a questioning glare to Lila.
Her answering frown and tension in her shoulders didn’t bode well. It appeared she was still angry after our brief phone call that morning.
“I invited your mother for dinner since Sunday lunch is canceled,’’ she finally elaborated as she got ready to uncork the wine.
“Give me that,’’ I said and stopped her with a hand on top of hers holding the bottle of Merlot 2003. She passed me the bottle and the corkscrew as my mother came back toward us with a weak smile. I hated it when I saw the sadness in her. I knew that sadness was her close friend since that morning at the beach all those years ago, but it made me ache when I was the one hurting her again and again.
“Don’t blame your wife, mon garçon,’' she said and gave Lila a smile full of warmth, the kind she only offered Megan and me, and used to give Max. It was worrisome how easily she welcomed Lila with open arms and her heart on her sleeve. “She offered a dinner one of these days so I could still see you without our usual Sunday lunch and I imposed myself tonight.’’
“You didn’t, Sylvie,’’ Lila countered immediately and once again I was taken aback how honest she sounded. She truly liked my mother and it shouldn’t please me quite as much as it did. “We’re happy to have you here tonight, aren’t we, Mathis?’’
The question directed my way called for nothing but a ‘yes’ so I nodded and busied myself with the bottle of wine, swallowing my lust for my wife and the tension I needed out of my damn body. “Glasses?’’ I asked evenly and watched out of the corner of my eyes Lila’s eyes narrowing on me with annoyance.
“On the table. Haven’t you seen the table is set?’’ she replied coldly, implying with her tone she thought of me stupid and or just plainly insufferable. It was sick, but it made me want her more. Her fire, the way she never let my coldness and distance deter her was like an aphrodisiac to me.
My hand clenched tighter around the bottle and I set it down on the kitchen bar with the corkscrew with more force than necessary. The metal of the device clinked noisily against the hard surface. “I had better things on my mind, dear wife.’’ I leaned over the top of the bar to get closer to Lila’s ear and away from my mother who went back to the other side of the kitchen to work on some salad. “Like you spread wide for me on this very kitchen counter or the dining table. I can be low maintenance when it’s called for.’’
Her gasp was music to my ears. I didn’t stop the smirk on my face as I turned around and went to the dining room table where I poured each of us a glass of Merlot.
“Shouldn’t we invite Megan?’’ I asked to further the conversation, but without the interest people would expect. My mind was already going in different directions, from calculating how long I would need to wait until I could sink into my wife’s tight pussy again to my asshole of a father to Moran’s company and Tober’s.
I took off my tie and threw it on the armchair on top of my coat abandoned there a few minutes before and grabbed two of the glasses to bring them to the women in the kitchen.
“I called her but she has a date,’’ Lila said and nodded in thanks when I handed her the glass.
I did the same with my mother and slightly tensed when she offered me a gentle kiss on the cheek. Gestures of affection like that always made me cold from the inside, like hammers working on my icy heart to try and smash it more than it already was. It’s been like that since Max died. I didn’t deserve affection or tenderness, even less when it came from the woman who had lost so much because of my recklessness.
“A date?’’ I cringed and turned back to get my own glass. I would need that wine if I were to discuss my little sister’s love life. “Is she seeing someone?’’
“She said it’s a first date, but she didn’t sound like someone who was that excited about it.’’
I took a sip of wine and glared at my wife over the rim of my glass. I heard the amusement in her voice at the lack of enthusiasm on my part and I didn’t appreciate how she always seemed to enjoy it when I wasn’t the one in control of every aspect of a conversation. Also, as much as I had lacked as a big brother since Max’s death, I wasn’t comfortable thinking of my sister as a woman who met men.
I unbuttoned two buttons of my button-down and discarded my suit jacket on the back of the chair I always occupied at the dining table. “Did she tell you who it is?’’
“Mathis,’’ my mother scolded me, shaking her head at me. “Your sister is entitled to her privacy, just like you’re entitled to yours.’’
I arched an eyebrow at her and slowly took another sip of wine. “Really? Then you and Megan aren’t the ones harassing me since I announced my engagement to Lila.’’
She waved me off with an elegant move of her hand that made the stones on her rings shine under the lights of the apartment. “It’s different. We never thought you’d get married and a marriage is not the same as a first date.’’
“I don’t know anything anyway,’’ Lila added and opened the oven to pull out a steaming plate of pot roast and potatoes cooked in sauce. My taste buds salivated at the sight of one of my favorite meals inspired by my grandmother’s recipe on my mother’s side. “Is it good?’’ she asked my mother who nodded.
“Parfait! You can bring it to the table. I’m finished with the fruit salad.’’
Lila’s eyes stayed on the heavy plate in her hands and I carefully followed her every step, already envisioning the disaster if she tripped and the steaming contents spilled on her, starting with the thin and delicate flesh of her cleavage on display in her blouse and cardigan.
“Stop looking at me like that,’’ she muttered as she walked past me and set down the heavy pot and took her seat.
I stopped mid-sip at that thought. She had a seat. In my home. It only took a few short days to think of her as a part of this apartment, as if she already had her own routine around here. That thought distracted me from my biting come back and I was lost in thought, my eyes trained on the picture on the shelf near the TV in the living room. I couldn’t make out the picture of Max and me from my seat on at the table, but I saw the simple frame and it was enough. It centered me and chased away the strange thoughts and even stranger emotions mounting inside of me. I felt my face hardening, my stare icing.
“Mathis?’’ my mother called me, my name a question on her lips as worry marred her still beautiful face in spite of the years, the grief and sadness weighing down on her.
“What?’’ The bite in that single word made her recoil and earned me a kick in the shin from my wife. I’d have felt more pain if she had been wearing shoes, but the fact remained that she kicked me. Nobody kicked me. “I apologize, Mom. It’s been a long day,’’ I forced out, the apology difficult to get out.
I wasn’t the kind of man who would never admit his faults, but I wasn’t the kind to offer apologies either. I moved on. It’s been a sport for me; moving on.
I fucked and moved on to the next woman nearby.
I bought a company and moved on to the next one.
I fought with my father and moved on to the next one.
I pushed away my family and moved on in my lonely and sterile life.
“I understand,’’ she said quietly and stared down at her plate now full after Lila served her. It pained me to see her like this. If there was someone in my life I didn’t want to hurt, it was my mother. I blamed my father for hurting her by being an asshole to his kids and mostly me because I knew how it pained my mother, but I was no better.
I had no idea how to make it better. Usually, I’d just brush it off even if I hated seeing her like this, but somehow here and now in my apartment sharing a dinner with her and my wife made everything harder to swallow. Back when I was a kid I always knew what to do or say to make people laugh or smile. I had lost that ability, and if I was honest, I rarely smiled myself.
I shared a look with Lila who seemed as distraught over my mother’s evident sadness, but where she sent a compassionate look my mother’s way, she only glared at me and then arched her eyebrows as if saying ‘do something’. I didn’t know what to do and I wasn’t the kind of man to often feel that way in my life. I was always, or almost always, in control.
Not so long ago this apartment was mine alone and I could let go of the front I never seemed to be able or willing to strip off outside of these walls. I could break down here, or at least I used to be able to do so if I needed to. Now, only my study was my sanctuary and even there, Lila invaded my space.
Lila had invaded so much of my life in so little time.
I cleared my throat and clenched the cutlery tightly between my hands as the first signs of an anxiety attack started to come. Not now.
“It’s fine. I know you like your own space when you’re finished with work. I shouldn’t have—‘’
“No,’’ Lila said, butting in and catching my mother’s eyes. Her gentle smile was truly breathtaking, quite literally. Her face was so different from when she looked at me. There, she was open, soft and gentle, but it didn’t make the fire, the life in her eyes shine any less bright. If anything, it shone brighter, only a different tint. “You’re always welcome here.’’
My mother’s smile for my wife was strained, but thankful all the same. That should be my cue to say something, but instead I shoveled food in my mouth to keep myself busy and stiffly nodded once. That was the best I could do when everything in me screamed that I should find a way to reclaim this apartment as mine, as my safe house, the place where I could be weak if I needed. Lila was taking everything from me — from my sanity, my independence, to my need for air and solitude.
Silence stretched as we ate until nothing was left on our plates or in our glasses. I poured us each another glass and tensed more and more as nothing was said. Silence when I was the one imposing it was fine, I even reveled in it as way of control over the other parties present, but silence like the one upon us was different.
“Would you help me with the plates and pot, Mathis?’’ Lila asked me with a voice that didn’t leave any room for anything but yes.
Without a word and with a frown deeply set, I stood up and grabbed the pot in the middle of the table as Lila piled up plates and cutlery under the distracted scrutiny of my mother nursing her new glass of wine.
As soon as we were in the kitchen my wife put down everything she had in her hands in the sink and put her hands on her hips, eyes sending daggers at me. She walked to me and poked my chest so hard I winced when her nail bit into my skin through the thick fabric of my button-down. Those should be registered as weapons.
“What the hell?’’ I cursed under my breath, glaring at my spitfire of a wife and rubbed at my chest.
“You’re an asshole!’’ she yelled at me in a whisper, her lips pursed in disgust. “How can you disrespect your mother like that? Do you have any idea how lucky you are to have a mother like her?’’
“Shut up, Lila.’’
I turned around, messing with the spoons and bowls and the fruit salad on the kitchen island, but she didn’t let me off the hook for long. She wasn’t the kind of person who gave up easily.
“You don’t turn away from me.’’ She grabbed my arm and tugged until I turned around quickly, making her stumble, but I didn’t make a move to stabilize her. I was too busy glaring at her in warning. I felt it, that darkness all encompassing. I felt it lurking, gaining terrain. I felt it spreading its ugly wings, chasing off the flutters of some other creature’s wings flapping in my stomach. Devastation, dark memories and so on were things I knew well and yet at that moment it could have put me on my knees as I stared deep into her cornflower blue eyes.
“What do you want from me, Lila? Money and my cock aren’t enough for you?’’
She took a step back, her eyes wide for a moment as if I slapped her. As soon as I said those words I regretted them, but why should I? Lila was a hired wife, temporary in my life.
“You make it so easy to want to hate you, Mathis.’’ Her voice wasn’t a whisper anymore, just distant and laced with something I couldn’t name.
Her eyes took me in a moment longer and then she turned around, exchanged a few words with my mother and only her heels back on her feet and the front door opening and closing clued me on the fact that she had left the apartment. I was still in the exact same place in the kitchen, my heart beating fast in my heaving chest. I leaned against the kitchen island and let my head fall between my tense shoulders.
“What did you do, Mathis?’’ my mother asked from the bar.
One quick glance over my shoulder proved to me that I truly perceived disappointment and concern. That mix directed at me only made me want to get out of my own damn skin even more than I already wanted.
“Nothing.’’
Her answering sigh was more telling than anything she could have said, but it didn’t stop her there. “You can’t spend your life pushing people away and hurting them when you feel they’re getting through to you. It’s not a life, mon garçon.’’
“Because this isn’t my fucking life,’’ I whispered so quietly on a painful exhale.
“What did you—‘’
“Nothing. I said nothing,’’ I retorted and rubbed at my eyes, hoping it’d dissipate the pinpricks in them. “Did she tell you where she went?’’
“No. You two have a strong character. I’m sure she went for a walk to calm down.’’
I kept my eyes on my hands tightly gripping the edge of the kitchen island. I watched the veins in my forearms bulging. I stared at my white knuckles contrasting against my fair skin.
“I should go, but mon garçon, keep in mind I’m just a phone call away. I really want you to remember that you don’t always have to deal with everything on your own. I’ll always be there to listen to you.’’
My back stiffened some more as the pinpricks intensified in my eyes. The thickness of her French accent told me that she was battling with her emotions, but she wouldn’t let herself be overcome by them. Her strength resided in the fact that she was able to control her emotions without completely pushing them away. I couldn’t.
I breathed out, listening to her heels on the floor as she retreated back to the entryway where her coat probably was. I waited until the front door closed after her to let out a broken breath that sounded more like a pained gasp. I released my grip from the edge of the kitchen island and leaned on my elbows, my head a breath away from the top of the kitchen island as my knees buckled under me.
My life was a mess and I didn’t know what to make of the mess. I didn’t know what to do, what to make of what I felt after willingly hurting Lila for no other reason but because I needed an outlet for that damn surge of tension inside me.
Lila was from Carter Manor and money was the cement of this marriage, but she wasn’t after my money or my cock. She was her own person and didn’t deserve my shit. For the first time in years, in what felt almost like a lifetime, I cared about the kind of impact I had on someone else’s life. Simply put, and to a certain extent, I cared about Lila. I didn’t know why or in what capacity, but I cared enough to feel the need to go after her and find a way to apologi
ze without actually saying the word.
But once again, Lila wasn’t that kind of woman.
She didn’t want sex to forget my shit. She didn’t want me to distract her with an overpriced gift. She didn’t want me to bullshit my way out. In fact, she probably didn’t want me in her life at all if she had a choice.
LILA
It was funny how I had spent so many years fighting to get off the streets, a roof over my head, somewhere to call home — to the point of going to the extreme and going to Carter Manor and ending up now at night in Manhattan, walking in my expensive shoes and clothes and not wanting to go home — out on the streets.
I didn’t want to go anywhere near the man who gave me his last name, stripping me of the one thing I held from my family, the only thing I had from a time when my life wasn’t so screwed up.
I slipped my frozen hands in my coat pocket and closed my fingers around my phone. With my every step, my Dior purse bumped against me, punctuating my steps regularly, adding another layer to the melody of my nightly walk in a charade of escape from my own life. My melody got lost in the mess of sounds from the city with the cars honking, the curses thrown out car windows and laughter from people walking around.
Life was a mess and should be loud. It was best if surprises were part of it and if it called out for you to always better yourself, challenge yourself, but my life was something else entirely. Being in an arranged marriage was based on myself being nothing more than a compliant wife. I didn’t have anything that was all mine, nothing I was proud of. I had achieved nothing.
Then, it shouldn’t have hurt when Mathis said I already had his money and sex and shouldn’t ask for anything more. I shouldn’t have been surprised he went there. He had never pretended to be anything different. He had the merit of always being honest, even when it bit and hurt. No, what I expected, happened.
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