She smiled easily. “These things can be such a bore, but your family, and your husband in particular, make for welcome company.”
I cuddled closer to Devlin. “Well, I might be biased, but I’ve always thought so. In fact, I think I’m the luckiest woman on earth.” I reached for a more intimate kiss, which surprised Devlin, but he indulged. As I pulled away, I was treated to the cold black depths of her glare. She looked like a shark about to swallow all of us whole.
“Marriage certainly does agree with you, dear,” she allowed, albeit begrudgingly. “So many changes in such a short period of time. I don’t know how you do it,” she added with a sickly sweet smile.
I decided to go for the kill. “Yeah, there were a lot of changes, with a lot more to come. We’ve got this new line of clothing, a new home, a new life,” I added as I squeezed him tight. “Soon it will be time for the next step. And I can’t think of anything better than having Devlin’s baby.”
The minute my eyes met Devlin’s, whose green depths warned I was skating on thin ice, I knew that Caz had been telling the truth about the pregnancy scare between them, which meant he was possibly telling the truth about everything else.
That Devlin looked like a hunter caught in his own trap only made my paranoia worse. Both the angel and devil on my shoulders were shocked silent by these new events.
Suddenly it made sense why I wasn’t getting pregnant. The universe knew something I didn’t. Apparently I had been living a lie for four months.
“A baby is a big responsibility,” Suzanne cautioned. “And you certainly don’t want to ruin that cute little figure you have now.”
“I’m not worried about that,” I dismissed. “Devlin loves me just the way I am, whatever that might mean. Right, honey?”
Devlin stared at me for a long moment before he finally said, “Always.”
“She lost the weight once,” Father decided. “She’ll lose it again. Children. That’s what’s important.”
I could feel Devlin staring down into my face. I knew he was displeased, but I didn’t care. If what Caz said was true, then my whole marriage had been a lie. My whole relationship with Devlin had been a lie. He no longer got to punish me for it for not believing it.
“We should really get going,” I said with regret as I pulled Devlin by the hand.
“Nonsense,” Father said. “You just got here.”
“I know but I’m exhausted and there’s still so much left to do on the house. I don’t know why but I just feel like I need to nest,” I said, staring pointedly at her. I didn’t have to be pregnant for her to think that I was. I looked up at Devlin. “Coming, honey?”
His eyes narrowed as he watched me, as if figuring out what I might be up to. “Of course,” he finally said.
We passed Caz on the way out the door. I could tell by the five second stare down they had as they crossed paths that Devlin had pieced together where I had gotten my information about Suzanne.
He sure as hell wasn’t going to give it to me. His priority was to protect her, he said it himself.
He was quiet as we drove back to Brentwood. So was I. I decided to play my cards close to the vest as well. He had one very important weekend to prove to me that our love was real and our marriage was legitimate. The only thing that mattered that weekend was conceiving our child and starting our family. He needed to put me first over Suzanne, or it was over.
We entered the house together without saying a word. Only after the door shut did he pivot and pin me right up against it. “What the hell was that all about back there, Coralie?”
My chin jutted out. “Trying to get you away from that snake so we can make a baby together. What’s wrong with that?”
His fists curled next to me. “How many times do I have to tell you that you can’t fuck with Suzanne like that? You are playing with fire.”
“Like a moth to a flame, I guess,” I shrugged. “I just have one question for you, Devlin. Do you love Suzanne Everhart?”
His eyes narrowed as he stared down at me. “I love you. How many ways to I have to prove it to you?”
“Just one. Tell me the truth. One question. One answer. That’s it.” He stared down at me as he waited. Finally I said, “Have you fucked that woman since we met?”
He pushed away from the door. “Jesus fucking Christ, Coralie.”
It was his usual reaction, so this time I had been expecting it. He got mad and deflected, without ever answering my questions at all. “Is that a yes?”
He swung back around and pushed me up against the door, crushing my mouth under his, if nothing but to shut me up. His fingers curled into my skin as he pulled me closer. He easily ripped my dress, exposing my flesh for his wandering hands as he lifted me up against the door. He released himself from his trousers just as he lifted my skirt. “You want a baby?” he growled. “Let’s make a baby.” He positioned himself in between my legs as he braced me against the door. “This is all that matters, Coralie. Do you understand? You are my wife. Now and always. And you will trust me.”
I didn’t respond yay or nay, so he thrust himself inside of me to stake his claim. I practically bit my lip in two, withholding my scream. I couldn’t give one inch otherwise he would distract me like all the times before. Instead I clamped my mouth shut. I refused to relent. He couldn’t just fuck away the problem this time, and we certainly weren’t going to conceive our child this way, even though he used all his best moves. He employed all his prowess. “Tell me you trust me, Coralie.”
In the end I found that it didn’t matter what he did or said. Because of Suzanne Everhart, I couldn’t trust my husband. It was high time he knew that.
“That would make a liar out of both of us.”
He stumbled backwards, slipping from my body. I slid down the door to my feet. Without another word, he shoved himself back into his pants, grabbed his keys from the bowl and slammed out the front door.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I didn’t chase after Dev right away. I couldn’t. I needed to hold onto my dreams just a little while longer, long enough to take a test and confirm what I somehow knew–that I was, in fact, ovulating.
This might have been happy news, but I couldn’t get Caz’s words out of my head. Every time I blinked, I saw Devlin and Suzanne fucking on his bed. On my bed. The bed he brought me to as his new bride. The apartment we had shared.
Nothing about that apartment had been perfect before, but it was all tainted now. If I found out that Devlin had never stopped sleeping with Suzanne, and that she was the client he hooked up with in Vegas when we were supposedly falling in love, it would unravel every thread of truth I thought connected us. I had fallen in love with him that next day, when he took me to see his mother, when he told me the truth about what had happened, and expressed remorse.
Had it all been a lie?
“I hated going on that date yesterday. She wasn’t you. She wasn’t fun. It wasn’t special. And for the first time in three years, all I could think about was the person I really wanted to be with, which wasn’t fair to any of us.”
Had I really given him credit for being honest with me?
There was only one way to answer these troubling questions once and for all. I had to go to that apartment and see for myself. A key that Dev didn’t know I had burned a hole in my hand, growing hotter with each passing minute.
As the clock inched closer to midnight, I couldn’t stand the uncertainty and the doubt any longer. I got in my car and I headed downtown. One of two things would happen. Either I’d find him with Suzanne, which would effectively end our marriage, or I’d find him alone, drinking away yet another argument that I could end simply by telling him I was ovulating.
I’d either be divorced or I’d be a mother. The stakes were that high.
I parked in my familiar spot. I stared at my gold reflection in the elevator as I rode up to the 15th floor. I walked the few feet towards the door, which was locked. Quickly and silently I slipped my key in the door and
eased it open.
The living room and dining room were both dark, but there was a light on in the bedroom, and I could hear music coming from the other room.
Someone was here, and I was fairly certain it wasn’t Darcy.
I walked softly towards the bedroom door, where I could hear voices. I recognized the deep timbre of Devlin’s voice immediately.
My stomach fell when I could make out the slight southern lilt of the feminine voice that spoke just low enough I couldn’t make out the words. I stepped closer. The door was slightly ajar, so I peaked in that tiny sliver.
There, on my bed, the bed I had slept with Devlin for months, was Suzanne Everhart. Her wrists were bound with a couple of silk ties, just like I had been once upon a time. The rest of her was bound by rope tying her to the bed, ass up, legs spread, rough rope crossing across enormous swaying tits, leaving rope burn gashed into her tender skin. I heard a loud smack and she cried out. This made Devlin chuckle.
Slowly I opened the door, and there was my husband, fucking this hateful cunt from behind. His hands were on her hips, bracing himself as he thrust himself into her like the powerful alpha he had learned to be. He didn’t appear to be on her chain at all. She was on his, completely prone and helpless under him. He ran his hand along her reddened backside before he delivered another forceful smack with a studded leather riding crop.
“Tell me you like it,” he commanded.
“I love it,” she cried. “I love you.”
He chuckled again. “That’s my good girl.”
My voice strangled in my throat as I watched them. I felt my heart shatter into a million irreparable pieces. Everything I thought we shared died in that moment.
“Devlin,” I finally croaked.
He swung to face me, his eyes wide with shock. He withdrew immediately, and I realized that he wore no condoms with Suzanne.
He didn’t have to. Apparently he didn’t want to.
That meant every single boy toy she had sex with, I had had sex with. I instantly turned to vomit in the trashcan by the door.
“Coralie,” he called as he wrapped himself up to chase after me. “Coralie!”
“Stay away from me!” I screamed as I ran from the room. He tackled me in the hallway and we crashed to the floor.
“Baby, please,” he begged, but I couldn’t bear to hear one more word.
“Fuck you!” I screamed as I struggled to get away from him. “How could you do this to me? You fucking asshole!”
“Coralie, listen. It’s not what it looks like.”
“Not what it looks like?! You were fucking her, Devlin!” I started wailing with my fists as I repeated that last sentence over and over again. He took every punch.
“Baby, listen to me. You have to trust me,” he started, but it was the absolute wrong thing to say.
“Trust you?! How the fuck am I supposed to trust you? You lying, cheating son of a bitch! I fucking hate you, Devlin Masters!”
“Coralie,” he implored as he held me. “Please. Please believe me, baby. I never wanted to hurt you.”
I yanked away and scrambled toward the door. He pulled me back with one strong hand, covering me with his entire body.
There were actual tears in his voice when he said, “I’m not going to let you go.”
“You have no choice!” I spit as I tried to buck him off of me.
“Baby, I love you. Please believe me. I love you.”
“Which baby?” I spit. “The highest fucking bidder?”
“You, Coralie. You. It’s always been you.”
“Then why were you fucking her?!”
A deep sob wrenched from his throat. “It’s not about us.”
“Devlin,” a voice called from the other room. “You’re going to need to untie me. Now,” she added in a voice that welcomed no argument, despite the fact she was practically bound head to toe.
It was the ultimate fork in the road. He could fight for me. Or he could go running to her. He stared into my eyes for a long moment. What should have been an easy decision clearly tortured him.
I knew my marriage was over when he dragged himself away from me and headed back to his bedroom, where Suzanne Everhart waited.
That was my chance to escape and I took it. I left that high-rise apartment, and my husband, four months after I married him.
It was over.
I was Coralie Masters no more.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I returned to my house in Brentwood that evening, but only to pack a few belongings. I couldn’t bear to stay in that monstrosity of a home that would never be filled with the sounds of our children. The egg releasing in my womb would die alone and unrealized, just like all the ones before it.
Just like me, I thought to myself.
I just wanted to go back to Bel Air, to Father, and to my old life. As unsatisfying as it had all been, it had never crushed me like loving a naughty stranger had.
I remembered how his face looked as he fucked Suzanne, the tight smile of satisfaction as he slapped her ass, fucking her hard, making her beg.
It wasn’t about the woman he was with. It was about him. Why hadn’t I seen that before?
That was the life he wanted. Clearly. He had done nothing but sabotage everything we had from the time we returned from Las Vegas.
Hell, before we returned from Las Vegas.
He had fucked her in Las Vegas.
He had never been faithful to me. Not from the first moment we met. No matter how much money I paid him.
And he had let me stay in that apartment, even though she was the one footing the enormous bill. From the moment I had walked through the front door, I knew something wasn’t right.
“Did you ever bring clients here?”
“I told you I don’t answer those kinds of questions, Coralie.”
“What could it hurt? It’s not like you’re going to do it anymore.”
“Yes, I fucked other women here. Is that what you want to hear? But they weren’t clients, okay?”
“Okay.”
Okay, I said. Okay. With that one little word I had surrendered defeat over and over again, to prove myself to someone who had never once proved himself to me. I submitted, accepting complacency, buying each and every line. I gave up my dignity and my common sense to love someone. How stupid was I?
I was blinded by my tears as I packed a couple of suitcases, working as fast as I could. I didn’t want to see Devlin again. I couldn’t see him again. I took only what I couldn’t live without, leaving behind anything that might remind me of our doomed love affair. Finally, before I left, I pulled my rings from my left hand. I held the peridot in my hand for a beat longer than necessary, losing myself in the bright green depths of the stone. It was my birthstone, but once upon a time I had hated it. Alien puke, I called it.
Now all I could see were the bright green depths of Devlin’s eyes the minute he spotted me in that doorway, catching him in the act, toppling his house of cards with one anguished gasp.
I placed both rings on the nightstand on his side of the bed. Let it haunt him the same way that vision would always haunt me.
I returned home to Petit Paradis, arriving a little after midnight. I sent a text to Gretch, so she could be aware. Tomorrow I’d have to tell everyone the truth of how wrong I’d been, how badly I had been fooled.
I supposed the silver lining was that I wasn’t pregnant, nor would I be. Devlin Masters had effectively killed every single dream.
Likewise I killed a bottle of vodka while taking a long bubble bath. It would take years of scrubbing to erase his touch from my skin. He had branded my soul, only to destroy it. Why had he done this? What had he hoped to gain? Some job at Cabot’s? A big break for his sister?
“He could have had it all without having to marry me.”
“That might be true if all he wanted was money.”
“So what does he want?”
“Revenge.”
I drained the bottle, allowing the bli
ssful alcohol intoxication take over. I nearly blacked out in the tub. Finally I crawled from the water, shriveled like a prune. I reached for my robe before stumbling towards the bedroom.
I nearly screamed when I realized that Devlin Masters sat on my bed. “Get out!”
He shook his head as he rose to face me. “You’re coming home, Mrs. Masters.”
He approached with an ominous expression. I squealed when he picked me up easily in his arms. I flailed and kicked to make him let me go, but he just held me tighter.
“Don’t fight me, Coralie.”
“Let me go!” I screamed. “I swear to God I’ll have you arrested.”
He grabbed me tightly, forcing me to look at him. “For what? For loving you?”
I fought even harder. “How can you say you love me? You were fucking another woman!”
His eyes were direct and his voice was firm. “I told you. It’s not what it looks like.”
“It looked like you were ramming your dick into her cunt,” I spat at him. “Now let me go!”
“Never,” he promised before he crushed my mouth under his in a brutal kiss.
The more I struggled, the more my robe pulled free. I was practically naked under him when we tumbled backward for the bed. He came down hard on top of me, pinning me to the mattress. “I love you,” he whispered against my mouth. “I know you don’t believe it, but I do. I always have. I always will. I would do anything for you, Coralie. That includes making our baby, right here. Right now.” My eyes widened as I stared up at him. “I found the test, Coralie. Nothing has to change unless we let it. We can still make our baby, we can still have our happily ever after.”
I gaped at him. “You really want to conceive your child on the day your wife found you fucking another woman?”
“I’ll do anything,” he promised as he held me down. “I’ll fight anyone. Even you.”
“Yeah, you’ll do everything except give up Suzanne Everhart,” I snarled as I tried to wrench away. “You kept punishing me for not trusting you, and you were fucking her this whole time. This whole time! Who did you fuck in Vegas, Devlin? Tell me!”
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