by Ali Parker
His hands were grasping at the hem of my dress, guiding it up a little, fingers sinking into my thighs as he groaned against my mouth.
“I’ve wanted you out of this dress since the minute I saw you in it,” he growled. “You look just like you did that first night. Except I get to remember it this time.”
I moaned softly, and he kissed me again, this time rougher than before, the tiny mist of stubble on his chin rubbing my face raw. I could already imagine what it would feel like between my thighs, running down my body…
All at once, the limo pulled to a halt, and we sprang apart like a couple of horny teenagers caught in the act.
“Shit, we’re here,” he muttered, and he quickly fixed himself so it wasn’t too obvious to everyone looking that we’d been making out in the back of the car. He thanked the driver, gave him a huge tip, and then practically lifted me out of the back seat so we could head up to the apartment together.
I had never seen that look in his eyes before, never once in my life. It was like he would have taken me right there against the building if he could, like the desire was so intense, it was clouding his circuits a little. And what turned me on more than anything was knowing this was what had been running through his brain the entire night, that all that time he had been playing the good, decent man, he had been running over exactly how he was going to get me naked in his mind.
He opened the door, and we tumbled through, and he was tugging at my dress again at once.
“How do I get this thing off?” he demanded. I laughed and turned my back to him.
“The zipper here,” I told him, pointing, and he ripped it down like it had personally offended him and then slid his hands beneath the fabric, guiding the dress away from my body with a groan of approval. I closed my eyes, and for the briefest moment, I thought I could almost remember that first night, the first time he had stripped me down when this had been enough for us to believe we wanted to get married to one another.
But the dress fell away and so did the memory, and I turned around to kiss him again. He lifted me off the ground, and I wrapped my legs around him, all but naked, as he carried me toward the bedroom. And I knew I was going to be in for one hell of a night.
44
As soon as I woke up, I knew.
I could feel her tucked into my arm, the weight of her pressing against my body, and I closed my eyes and leaned back to let that hazy half-sleep take me once more. I just wanted to lie here with her all day long, to go over in my head every single moment that had happened the night before and how damn good it had been, but my stomach was grumbling. I needed something hot and greasy to help stave off the effects of the few glasses of champagne I’d had the night before.
I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened when we’d arrived back at the apartment. I’d desired her before, obviously—badly too—but nothing like what had happened between us then. I felt as though someone else had swung in to inhabit my body as I took her, as I touched her, but she seemed to enjoy it. I could still remember with a vividness the way she’d tipped her head back as she came, my face between her legs, the way her body shook and trembled as she guided me up on top of her and begged me and begged me to fuck her. Fuck, I was getting hard right then and there just thinking about it.
But she was fast asleep, and it had been a long night for the two of us, so the best I could do was let her sleep for a little longer. I was sure as hell going to lie here and enjoy her presence next to me. I slipped down the bed and looked at her as she slept, peaceful, and I felt the swell in my chest that told me precisely how I was feeling.
I loved her. It was that simple. And I knew it as clear as the bright sunlight pouring through the window next to us as I sat there and stared deeply into her sleeping face. Her makeup was smudged all over, her lipstick still staining her mouth and black rings around her eyes where she had failed to remove her eye makeup the night before. Her hair was a mess, but I desired her with a fierceness I had never felt before. Even sober, even lying here in bed the morning after, I still needed this woman in a way I would never be able to put into words. I closed my eyes and let them run around my head: I love you, I love you, I love you. I had never said them to anyone and meant them like that before, with that dark, deep intensity that throbbed somewhere deep in my very core at the thought.
I rolled away from her and sat up. I needed a minute to myself. It was the first time I’d even really allowed myself to think about those words, to consider them with regard to me and Amaya, but I knew they were true. Last night, every time she had drifted away from me, I had found myself pulling her back. I needed her next to me, always. By my side. My woman. My wife.
I went to the kitchen to make us both some breakfast, and I couldn’t stop smiling as I started cooking up some toast and eggs for the two of us. I really did do it backward, huh? I married a woman, slept with her, and then fell in love with her. It was a complete mess, but it was a complete mess that seemed to have wound up in me actually falling in love for the first time in my life, and I was more than happy with that.
I was in such a good mood, actually, that I didn’t even flinch when there came a knock on the door so loud, it made me jump. I had no idea who it could be. Maybe Amaya had ordered something for delivery, and this was it arriving? I wiped my hands with a towel and headed over to answer the door. As soon as I pulled it across, my father came tumbling into the apartment.
“She’s not here, is she?” he demanded, and I furrowed my brow at him.
“Who, Amaya?” I asked. “She’s sleeping. I was just making us breakfast.”
“No. Karen.” He shook his head, and my heart dropped. Shit, I had a feeling this was going to be some seriously bad news.
“No, it’s just the two of us in here,” I assured him. “What the hell happened?”
“She’s been cheating on me all this time, Kris.” He turned to me and used the nickname I hadn’t heard from him in nearly a decade. I knew this was bad.
“What the fuck?”
“All this time, and there was another man on the side.” He shook his head, and I could see he was close to crying. I had never seen him cry before in his life, and the real horror of the situation began to settle in as I realized I might have to deal with my bawling father first thing in the morning.
“Holy shit.” I ran my hands through my hair. I couldn’t believe this. After what he had been telling me just a few days ago, about how in love he was and how he wanted the same thing he had for me. And then, like that, the whole thing came apart at the seams. I couldn’t believe it. This was insane.
“I’m divorcing her, obviously,” he said, and he sank back against the door and stared off into space. “She’s going to go after half of everything, but still.”
“Can’t you throw it in that she’s been fucking someone else this whole time?” I suggested, and he flinched at my use of the word, and I cursed myself internally for not thinking about how badly it would hurt him. He shrugged and shook his head.
“I just want this done with as soon as possible,” he admitted. “I can’t handle this. I really thought, after your mother, I thought this was it, you know? She was so good with the family, and she seemed so happy.”
I thought back to those encounters I’d had with Karen, and I felt my blood boil in my veins. She had treated all of us like family right off the bat, and it had all been a lie. She hadn’t just hurt my father. She had hurt all of us, and she was going to pay. She wasn’t going to see a penny of my father’s money, no way in hell, no not if I had anything at all to do with it.
“Come on, my office.” I pulled the food off the stove and headed through to my workspace. “We’re going to figure this out. Right now.”
It was the best I could offer him in the face of what was happening. I had never much been one for dealing with high-level emotion, so I could at least make sure he wasn’t getting taken for a ride when it came to the divorce proceedings. I was silently fuming, already going thr
ough all the ways in my head that I could tear this woman apart for what she had done, but there was something else there too.
As we started going through the nitty-gritty details of what their divorce would look like, I found my mind straying back to Amaya, to the two of us in that bed this morning. How sure had I been that this was love? I had felt it with a burning certainty, but now that I looked back, I had no way to be sure. I had never been in love before, not really, and perhaps this was just lust, desire, possession. Everything that had happened between us had been so damn messy that maybe my feelings were just some culmination of that.
Even if it was love, look at where that had landed my father. Heartbroken. I had never seen him this way before, not truly. I had seen him hurt, sure, but not to this extent. For the most part, he was the one doing the breaking-up when it came to his relationships, and he had never been the one to have the trigger pulled on him. I had no idea how he’d found out, but it had only been the night before, and he still appeared to be in the process of reeling at the discovery. This was where loving someone properly had left him, trying to piece his life back together, so distraught that his usual bulldog business instincts weren’t even kicking in properly.
And it was turning my head. I could feel it. I hated it, but I couldn’t deny it. I wanted my father to be happy, and I wanted myself the same way, and that seemed to be shutting down anything close to love before it happened. Whatever I had with Amaya was dangerous, a ticking time-bomb waiting to explode and finish off the two of us at once. I could hardly breathe thinking about it.
I could hear Amaya moving around the living room, but she didn’t come to the office, much to my relief. Eventually, my father planted his hands on the table and let out a long sigh.
“I think I need some space.” He nodded, and then he slapped me on the shoulder. “Thanks, son. You’ve been a big help today.”
“Anytime,” I muttered, and I ushered him out of the apartment. Amaya had returned to the bedroom, probably understanding this was private and that she would do well to stay out of the way. She emerged when he was gone and found me leaning up against the door letting out a long sigh of disappointment.
“Is everything okay?” she asked nervously. I shook my head. I couldn’t even look at her at that moment. I couldn’t believe that only an hour or so before, I had lain in bed next to her and realized I loved her.
“I need to get out of here,” I muttered, and I turned to head out the door, grabbing my keys and my coat as I did so. I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew I couldn’t be around her any longer. It was too dangerous. My father had proven that. No matter what I felt for her, it wasn’t worth ending up like him, brokenhearted and alone. I was getting out while I still could, and I left Amaya standing in the apartment, looking after me, and tried to ignore the notion that leaving her behind was walking away from a piece of myself too.
45
When it started to get dark and he still wasn’t back, I allowed myself to begin to worry. This wasn’t like him, never had been. He was always carefully in control, and that meant knowing where everyone was at any given time in relation to him, yet I hadn’t heard from him all day since he’d stormed out of the apartment when I’d walked in on him and his father.
I had heard them arguing in his office. In fact, that was what had woken me. I had reached over in my dozy state to touch him, to greet him good morning, but he wasn’t there. I frowned and listened to the voices outside, and I could hear they were aggravated.
I climbed out of bed and paused outside the door, and sure enough, I could hear the two of them going at it. I couldn’t make out every single word of what they were saying, but I was pretty sure Kristo’s father was getting a divorce. I was stunned. When I had seen him and his wife together, they had always seemed completely in love with one another. I had no idea what could have happened to tear them apart, but I figured this was for Kristo to deal with and not for me to listen in on, so I went to grab myself a coffee and something to eat and left them to it.
I nibbled on the slice of toast I had made and found I didn’t have much of an appetite. At first, I thought it was just a mild hangover from going a little too hard the night before, but it soon revealed itself as something else. I didn’t want to overthink things, but I felt as though we’d made a few good steps forward the last few days. The fundraiser the day before had been the biggest one, when the line between fiction and reality seemed to slip and slide and threaten to drop away entirely. I could have been sure that when he touched me, there was more to it than just a show, and when we got home, he’d proven once and for all that I was right. He wanted me, badly, as badly as I’d always desired him, and nothing was going to change that. We’d fallen asleep in each other’s arms when we were done, and I couldn’t keep the big-ass smile off my face, my skin prickling where he skimmed his fingers up and down my spine to soothe me as I dozed off next to him.
But this, a divorce in the family, especially with a couple that the two of us had spent time with in the past, was going to be a kick in the teeth. I didn’t want to overthink it, but I had a feeling it had spooked him, enough that he’d run out that door as though the thought of being in this apartment with me for another split second was terrifying to him.
I had tried to keep myself busy through the day, but it was hard when my mind was somewhere else entirely. Eventually, glancing around to make sure he wasn’t going to come back and catch me in the act, I ducked into his office to see if there was anything in there that could give me a hint toward what the hell was going on with him.
I gingerly went through the papers left out on his desk, but they all seemed to be related to the business or just notes that he had taken and forgotten about—a name with a number here, a quick sum there. It was odd, like getting a look into the inner workings of his mind. I felt like I was invading something, seeing something I should never have seen, but I went on.
Eventually, I went into one of his drawers, and I finally saw a name I recognized on them—Landon. I pulled it out, expecting it to be a copy of the contract he’d held on to for future reference, but as I looked at it, I realized that the Landon wasn’t referring to me but Jolene. I leafed through the papers quickly, and sure enough, it seemed to be the paperwork for setting up a trust for my sister. I raised my eyebrows. This was new. He hadn’t mentioned anything like this to me.
I carefully returned the papers to where I’d found them and started to look again—more papers with my name on them but nothing I could make any sense of. I stuffed them back in the drawer and turned to march out of the office, checking my phone as I did so. Still nothing from him. Where the fuck was he? What was he doing? Who was he with? When I’d signed up to be his wife, I had no idea that it would involve me hiding out at his apartment fretting about him like this.
Suddenly, the door opened, and I jumped. I hurried through to the living room, but my heart dropped when I saw someone I didn’t recognize.
“Who are you?” I demanded as the man walked into the room.
“I’m Neil Castle, Kristo’s lawyer.” He extended his hand to me, and I remembered seeing that name somewhere on the paperwork I’d just been looking at. I shook his hand and shrugged apologetically.
“If you’re looking for him, he’s not here,” I told him. “I have no idea where he is, actually. He left this morning, but he hasn’t been back.”
“No, I understand that.” The lawyer cut me off. “He called me and told me to meet him here. He’s on his way, from what I can gather.”
“Right.” I pressed my lips together and did my best to hide my annoyance that Kristo had bothered to call his lawyer and send him down to the apartment before he had reached out to me. But there were so many questions pulsing at the front of my mind that I could hardly keep them all straight. What was his lawyer doing here? Where the fuck was he? Why had he sent his lawyer down here first?
“Can I make you a coffee?” I offered, feeling useless. The lawyer shook his
head and glanced at his watch.
“I’m not going to be here long,” he replied, and I felt a little shiver of panic run up and down my spine. How did he know that? What the fuck was going on? When was someone going to catch me up here? I felt stupid, out of the loop, like I was some kind of idiot child who everyone was protecting from the reality of whatever was going on right here and now.
Suddenly, I heard the sound of a familiar car outside, and my heart leaped when I realized Kristo was finally home.
“That’s him,” I told Neil excitedly, but the lawyer’s face didn’t even twitch, as though he had been expecting him right at this very moment.
I could hear Kristo parking and coming up the stairs to join us, and I felt the soles of my feet prickle with—was it excitement? No, that would have been too simple. It was something else entirely. I was ready to forgive him if he would let me, but I had a feeling he wasn’t going to.
He came through the door, and I felt my heart loop with relief in my chest when I saw he was all right. But then I noted the expression on his face. I hadn’t seen that one before. Anger, sure, but something else, too, something deeper. I felt as though the bottom had just dropped out of my stomach, and I wanted to go to him and take his hand and ask him what the hell had been going on and where the heck he had been all this time and what he was doing setting up a trust for my sister. But I stayed rooted to the spot, silent, instead. Alarm bells were ringing in my head, and I had a bad feeling that whatever was about to happen, it was going to change everything for good.