“The accident Ronin had when he was a child, the electrocution?”
She nodded. We’d spoken of it only briefly.
“He had a near-death experience …”
I proceeded to tell her everything—the trips to the hospital, the inability of doctors to figure it out, his visit with a parapsychologist, even the opioid addiction.
She gasped, flinched, reached for my hand, and cried. I reassured her nothing was her fault. Everything was an accident. A very misfortunate string of circumstances.
“You believe him?” she asked. Her blank stare fixed on the partially eaten plate of food in front of her.
I poked with a fork at the remnants on my own plate. “Yes. He just … he knew too much about your pain. But then …” I shook my head.
“Then what?”
Setting my fork aside, I dabbed my mouth with the white cloth napkin. “Over the weekend, he went for a hike and this feeling of being strangled stopped him in his tracks. He thought he was dying. I think he even started to black out. I’m not entirely sure. But then it stopped. He tried calling you. Did you know that?”
Lila pulled up her sleeve and glanced at her watch. “I’m so sorry.” Her voice shook a bit—or so I thought. Again, another shade of gray I couldn’t decipher. “I’m out of time. I have to leave in a few minutes to get to the meeting. Can I walk you out?”
I twisted my wrist to check the time. “Shit. I’m sorry.” We had talked for over two hours. “I need to head back home too. Sue has a class tonight. She teaches painting at one of those wine and art places groups of friends drink and paint.” I stood as Lila stood. “Thank you. I can’t even begin to tell you how badly I needed to share all of this with you. I just hope you know it’s not your fault in any way, and Ronin is fine.”
Well, he was sort of fine. I hadn’t totally wrapped my head around the strangling sensation he had over the weekend. Adrianne Craig distracted me from that. I didn’t tell Lila about Adrianne. Too much truth for one day.
“Thank you for opening up to me.” She hugged me. “I really wish you would have told me this a long time ago.”
“You know why I didn’t.” I stepped back, taking both of her hands and giving them a firm squeeze.
She returned a sad smile and several tiny nods.
“Let’s do a couples’ thing sometime. I’m anxious to put all of this behind us.” That was true. I was also anxious to see how Graham and Lila interacted. It had been a while since I’d seen them together. I also needed Lila to prove to me that she could keep everything I told her a secret.
“A couples’ thing.” Her lips pulled into a firm smile as she gave the tails to her scarf a little tug to tighten the knot. “I’ll mention it to Graham when he gets home.”
“Will he be gone long?” I asked, making my way to the foyer.
“No. Actually, he returns tonight. It was just a one-day trip.”
“Perfect. Let me know what he says.” I opened the door. “Love you, Lila.”
“I love you too.” She stepped just outside the door and watched me until I got into my Jeep. Then she lifted her hand in a tiny wave before I pulled out of the circle drive toward the gated entrance to the estate.
I felt like the world had been lifted from my shoulders … or at least five of the continents and an ocean or two.
Lila
Ten seconds after Evelyn headed back to Aspen, a car picked me up to take me to my afternoon meeting. Following the meeting, the car returned me to the Porter estate, where I shared one of three sprawling mansions on the million acres of land. It felt like a million acres. A million acres of freedom that turned into a million acres of prison.
What happened to my life? My marriage? My husband? As much as I loved Graham, I hated our new life and the duties it bestowed upon us. I hated Governor Porter, but I still loved the man who swept me off my feet. In spite of everything, I found myself searching for the tiniest of reasons to excuse his behavior—his cold demeanor that he blamed on the stress of the job mixed with the expectations of his family.
Some days I felt the pressure of the vise wrapped around his life. Those were the easy days, the days I bent over backward to please him … to make his life a little easier. Other days … well, I didn’t even know that man who wore the platinum band I slid onto his finger five years earlier. Life changed us. It weathered us. It tested our resilience and our humanity.
I was due for my annual physical, but I couldn’t go. Not yet. Instead, I settled into my oversized leather chair in the corner of the bedroom—my bedroom—and opened my laptop in search of explanations.
Conditions that cause bruising.
Unexplained bruising.
Blood disorders.
Clotting disorders.
I searched and searched until I found the only logical answer. Tears filled my eyes. I hoped I would never have to tell Evelyn, but I knew I might. So I had to be prepared, armed with knowledge and the ability to give her hope that I would be okay.
“I have leukemia,” I whispered to myself, wiping away my tears. Then I proceeded to learn all I could about this cancer, a cancer that was rarer in forty-somethings, but not impossible.
Easy bleeding.
Bruising.
Weight loss.
Persistent fatigue.
Fever and chills.
“You’re not ready for bed.”
I jumped, shutting my computer, and glanced up at Graham paused at the threshold to my room, loosening his red tie. He always looked handsome in a suit and that red tie I gave him for his birthday. I didn’t expect to see him. My assistant said he was at the Governor’s Mansion. I rarely stayed there, but he used it as an occasional “getaway.” Probably from me. So when she told me he was there, I made the assumption (actually hoped) he’d decided to stay the night and get some work done.
“It’s not even seven.” I tucked my bare feet beneath me, still wearing my navy skirt suit and silk scarf—my long hair in loose curls down my back and around my shoulders just like Graham liked it.
He took calculated steps toward me, completely untying his tie, letting it drop to the floor before working the buttons to his starchy white shirt. I tried to forget my internet search, not that it mattered because I couldn’t hide anything from my husband. He elicited a warring of emotions from me. An icy tingle slithered along my spine, making every muscle rigid, while the warmth in my heart fed on the way my pulse reacted to his proximity, the way it always had done. That never changed. It was how I knew we weren’t broken.
“Did you miss me?” He smirked, shrugging off his shirt, revealing his defined torso—abs for days beneath a thin smattering of dark hair on his chest.
I was the envy of so many women. Every day I reminded myself of that.
“Nice scarf.” He knelt in front of the chair.
I returned a nervous smile, hoping the man before me was the man I loved. Graham untied the scarf, sliding it from my neck as slowly as he’d slid off his tie just seconds earlier. The scarf floated to the floor. Gentle fingers swept my hair off my shoulders, exposing my neck.
With the same feather’s touch, he traced the bruises. “It’s nothing …” His lips replaced his fingers, kissing my neck. “You’re fine. Right?”
I wanted to believe him. Could denial become truth if we just believed hard enough?
“I’m fine,” I murmured, closing my eyes.
“Want me to show you how much I missed you?” he whispered next to my ear.
Was he asking me for permission? Governor Graham demanded me. Pre-marriage, pre-Governor Graham asked … begged me to surrender to him. I no longer cared about the bruises. I wanted that Graham. Maybe it was naive of me to think the bruises were an accident, an isolated incident, but I needed to cling to even the tiniest shred of hope.
“Yes.” I threaded my fingers through his dark hair, ridding it of its orderly confines. I wanted messy, desperate Graham.
He removed my jacket and blouse. A low growl rattled his
chest when he saw my light pink lace bra. His favorite.
“Take it off,” he ordered.
I swallowed my fear, convinced that I held a bit of control in that moment. I needed to know I still had some control. “You take it off.”
Graham arched a single eyebrow, but I couldn’t tell if it was playful or scornful. That had become a hard read for me. A hard line of sorts. When he didn’t say anything, that icy feeling along my spine overtook the warmth in my chest.
“I …” I cleared the nerves from my voice with a tiny cough. “I had lunch with Evelyn.” There was no good reason for me to say that to Graham, except he seemed to relax whenever we talked about Evelyn.
His arched eyebrow disappeared as I’d hoped it would. “How is Evelyn?” He reached behind me and yanked the straps to my bra. I knew the hooks had to be broken or bent.
I swallowed hard. “Good,” I whispered, trying to keep from showing my concern.
“I like good.” He didn’t touch my breasts. He just … inspected them with a tiny frown before lifting his dark eyes to meet mine. “On your knees, facing the back of the chair.”
I rubbed my lips together, the lower one quivered a bit, so I bit it, shrinking under his scrutinizing gaze. Shifting my body, I knelt on the chair, pressing my breasts against the soft leather as my hands gripped the back of the chair.
Graham worked my tight skirt up my hips. “What was Evelyn wearing today?”
I narrowed my eyes, not daring a glance back at him. “W-why are you asking me that?”
He fisted the back of my thong and ripped it into two pieces. I flinched; it wasn’t the first time he’d destroyed my panties. It was just the first time he did it while asking me about Evelyn.
“She’s always wearing shitty clothes that barely match. I just wondered how terrible she looked compared to my beautiful wife today.”
“Ung!” I bit the back of the chair as he shoved three fingers, which felt like his whole damn hand, into my vagina.
“Jeans?”
“Uh-huh …” I pinched my eyes shut.
“Figures.” He chuckled, working his fingers deep inside of me. “Worn T-shirt?”
I returned a barely detectable nod, desperate for him to touch me in a way that made me wet, in a way that softened the slide of his fingers inside of me. Talking about Evelyn’s clothes didn’t do it for me.
“Was the tee tight? Did it show off her little tits and those diamond nipples of hers?”
“Graham … please …”
Please stop talking about Evelyn. Please touch me like you love me. Please …
“You, baby…” he withdrew his fingers “…you sucking Evelyn’s puckered little nipples is still my favorite memory. It gets me so … fucking … hard …” He spread my cheeks and planted his mouth between my legs, bringing me to a quick orgasm as tears spilled down my face. I knew he wasn’t thinking of me as his tongue teased me, as he used the product of my pleasure to lube my backside, as he unzipped his pants, as he fucked me where there was zero chance of me getting pregnant.
I closed my eyes, disappearing to a different mind space, and I wondered who would submit to him in that way after I took my last breath.
CHAPTER FIVE
Ronin
“I feel guilty.” I teed up on the eighth hole of the Aspen Golf Club. “Evie has the day off. She’s been begging me to take some time off, maybe take a vacation. Yet here I am, playing hooky this morning for eighteen holes with you. These four hours will cost my bank account a solid week in Orlando, wearing Mickey ears and shopping for princess dresses.”
“You’re living the fucking dream, man.” Graham pulled out his driver after I landed one straight down the fairway. “I’ve made so many mistakes. Missed so many opportunities.” He took a practice swing. “I became the man I said I’d never become—my father.” Graham out drove me, as usual. But I out skied him. That shouldn’t have mattered, but it did to me.
“Your dad was never in politics, was he?” I asked.
“No.”
We returned our clubs to our bags and hopped into the golf cart, followed by two of his security detail in the golf cart behind us.
“But he sold his soul to live up to the family name. He married a woman who didn’t know the first thing about raising a family, so they hired other people to do it. He fucked around on her, and she turned a blind eye to it.” Spinning the tires at first, we sped off down the fairway. Graham ignored the cart path and the club rules to stay on it.
“Please tell me you’re not fucking around on Lila.”
He shot me a side glance and a smirk. “No. She’s much too accommodating for me to feel the need to wander.”
His answer soured my expression, so I turned away to hide it. I knew all about guys being guys. Talking the talk in front of other guys, then going home to a wife who pussy whipped them. I wasn’t sure if Graham was one of those guys. For some reason, I doubted it.
“Evie thinks Lila will be a great mom. So even if you think you’ve turned into your father, Lila is definitely not your mother.”
“Yeah, well, just between us, I think Lila has some health issues in that department. I can’t seem to knock her up. And trust me, it’s not for lack of trying, and it has nothing to do with my swimmers. But don’t say anything to Evelyn. Lila’s still in denial. Until she comes around on her own, it’s best to not broach the subject.”
I climbed out and plucked my iron from my bag. “I won’t say a word. Knowing Evie, she’d offer to be a surrogate.”
“Wouldn’t my screwing your wife make things awkward between us?”
I stopped, halfway to my ball, and glanced over my shoulder.
Graham grinned. “I’m just fucking with you. We don’t need a surrogate. The politically correct thing to do would be adoption. People love that shit.”
If I bought into Evelyn’s belief in parallel universes and their connection to lies, then in some other universe Graham was fucking my wife. I wasn’t stupid. He looked at her like he owned a piece of her. I wasn’t sure if it stemmed from their close friendship, all the things his family had done for her and her family, or that nauseating fact that he managed to get into her pants in college.
“Fuck …” My ball landed in the sand trap.
“Lila mentioned Evelyn’s desire to take a trip or do something together. I can take some time off around the Fourth. Have you ever been to the Hamptons? The kids would love playing on the beach and swimming in the pool. There’s golf, tennis, ATVs … and shopping for the women.”
I returned my iron and waited for Graham to take his next stroke, a good twenty yards ahead of me.
After another perfect placement, he sauntered toward me, not gloating one bit. An interesting thing about Graham Porter … he could play golf with anyone, but he liked playing with me. Why? I didn’t know. I was an average golfer on my very best day. Graham played like he could have walked onto the PGA tour but chose politics instead. However, he never gloated about his game. In fact, he often offered helpful tips with my swing or my grip on the club.
“Evie mentioned doing something together. I guess I assumed she meant dinner sometime, not a family vacation.”
“Four to five days at the most. The kids will love the fireworks there. Won’t cost you a dime. We fly out on my jet. No hotels to pay for. Plenty of food and entertainment. How can you say no?”
Easily. N-O. Probably not so easily said, once I ran it by Evie, unless Lila already told her. I didn’t want to be rich like the Porters. Our three-bedroom, two-bathroom log cabin filled with two kids, my beautiful wife, and five years of memories left me content. Not wanting for anything. Yet, I always wondered if Evie envied the fancy stuff. The posh party Graham threw her for her birthday, the private jets, the all-expenses-paid trips with her two best friends … my ski patrol salary didn’t come close to giving her that life. When I chose to be a paramedic and then work for ski patrol, it never occurred to me that I would have any great need to make a lot of money
. Simplicity suited me just fine.
“It’s a generous offer, Graham. I appreciate it. I’ll talk with Evie tonight.”
He slammed the accelerator and veered off to the right, again … nowhere near the cart path. “I can call her if you need me to sell it.”
“I don’t need you to sell anything to my wife.”
Graham grinned. “True. I don’t sell her things; I just give them to her. Like the building. I know she thought I overstepped some boundary, that it was too much, but it wasn’t. We’re friends … family really. And family takes care of each other.”
Scratching my cheek, I asked the question I hated to have to ask, but I had no clue. “What building? What are you talking about?”
“Whoa!” He stopped so quickly, I had to brace my hand against the dash. “She didn’t tell you I signed over the deed to her building so she wouldn’t have to worry about rent or anyone else making the decisions about the building?”
My anger started to boil. I wasn’t even sure who was feeding it at that point. Graham? Evie? Myself?
“She didn’t mention that yet. How kind of you. I’d have to agree, it’s a bit too kind. She can’t accept it.”
“Oh …” He hopped out and handed me my pitching wedge. “I didn’t give her a choice. It’s ridiculous and completely ego-driven to not accept it. I don’t need the building, the rent, the hassle. I know, if the tables were turned, she’d do the same thing for me.” He nodded to the sand trap. “You’re going to have to get some air on it or it will roll back into the bunker.” Again, without sounding judgmental or condescending, he coached me on my golf game like a friend or brother.
I understood Evie’s frustration with his personality. One minute you wanted to break his nose, the next minute you found yourself begrudgingly mumbling the words “thank you.” Still, she should have told me. I didn’t appreciate feeling like the uninformed husband. It gave Graham the appearance that we kept secrets from each other. That thought made me cringe. I had kept my fair share of secrets from Evie, but I did it to protect her.
The Life You Stole Page 4