The Life You Stole

by Ann, Jewel E.

  “You dressed me.” I eyed him while slipping on my robe, hoping my statement might distract him from seeing my tiny grimaces.

  “I did. I cleaned you up. Forced you to take two ibuprofen and sang you a lullaby.”

  I tied my robe sash and walked into his waiting arms, glancing up at him while wearing a grin. “A lullaby, huh?”

  He nodded, grabbing my ass, forcing me to grimace. He eased his grip, grinning as if confirmation of my discomfort pleased him.

  “Sadist.” I narrowed my eyes at him.

  There it was … the look. It shone in his eyes like a beacon of hope, silently begging for me to say yes. For me to let him say it—those three words.

  “Don’t.” I shook my head.

  “You have to let me say it.”

  “I will.” I lifted onto my toes and kissed the corner of his mouth while whispering, “Just not today. Now, feed me. I’m starving.”

  Ronin led me to the kitchen by taking my hand the way he took my hand the day we met, just like he took my heart. Six years later, I continued to give him both.

  “You should be hungry, after all that alcohol and … stuff last night.” He shot me a grin.

  Stuff. It was definitely the stuff that made me feel famished.

  I loved the stuff and the man serving me breakfast.

  I loved the two kids on the floor, rolling themselves up in blankets like burritos. I loved the house, my job, Aspen, the start of fall, and my life.

  On the days I wasn’t forced to think about Graham or acknowledge our past and our mutual connection to the present, I loved my life.

  Every. Single. Second.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Two dozen roses arrived Monday at Clean Art.

  “Who are they from?” Sophie clasped her hands at her chest and jumped up and down like they were for her. “I bet they’re from Ronin.”

  No. They wouldn’t have been from him. Mr. Worst Gift Giver Ever.

  Unless it was our anniversary or Valentine’s Day, which it wasn’t.

  I pulled the note out of the envelope.

  I opened myself up to you. I let you see the love—the good love and the ugly love. We will always be friends, and I will always wish it could be more. This is on me, not you. I should have said all that needed to be said before you found Ronin, before Lila came home from Europe. I’ll take you in my life any way I can have you. Please forgive me for ruining our lunch.

  XO, Your Graham Cracker

  “Well, who sent them?” Sophie prodded, trying to peer over my shoulder at the card.

  I pulled it to my chest, every word a knife into my heart. He never referred to himself using my pet name for him. “Ronin,” I answered in a weak voice and nervous smile.

  “Gah! You married the sweetest, sexiest man alive. It’s not fair.” A groan escaped with her long sigh as she went back to dusting the displays.

  “I did,” I murmured, ripping the card into tiny pieces. “I’m going to do some inventory in the back if you need me.”

  “Uh-huh …” Sophie hummed in her pouty tone.

  Tapping Graham’s name in my contacts, I brought the phone to my ear while closing the door to the back room.

  “Hey, Evelyn, give me a second …” he answered. His voice muffled in the background, but I made out the “everyone please leave the room” part.

  Graham loved me.

  Graham sent flowers.

  Graham cleared rooms to make me his priority.

  Graham could save the world, defy gravity, and walk on water … but he would never be Ronin.

  “I’m back. I take it you got my apology?”

  “I feel like you threatened the people I love. In the bathroom you said, ‘For everyone’s safety, this needs to stay between us.’ That felt like a threat. When you said I would eventually have to give you something in return and that something was me … that felt like a threat. That’s not love, Graham. Friends don’t threaten friends like that. True friends give unconditionally or not at all. I can’t accept your apology unless you take back all those things you said to me. And even then, it’s going to take time for you to earn back my trust. My trust can’t be bought.”

  “Can I steal it?” He chuckled. “If I can’t buy something or steal it, how do I get it?”

  “Good deeds.”

  “I write checks for good deeds. That’s how it’s done right? How else do you do a good deed?”

  I couldn’t play his joking game. The things he said to me in the bathroom, the way he said them to me, wasn’t a joke. He meant them. The truth could right the wrong of a lie, but nothing fixed the truth. His love was ugly and so was his truth.

  “I’ve been replaying every word in my head, formulating a plan. Figuring out what’s the worst that could happen if I told Lila she should leave you, if I confessed everything to Ronin, if I walked away from the shop and gave you back your building, if I told my sister she took a gift from the Devil. Then what? What would you do to me? To my family? To Lila?”

  After a good thirty seconds of silence, I wondered if we were still connected. Just as I started to say something, Graham said four simple words that I never expected him to say. “I would be devastated.”

  No begging.

  No new threats.

  No attempting to call my bluff.

  His reaction left me feeling my own kind of devastation.

  There were a lot of what-if’s that I imagined before confronting him, but I never expected to feel sorry for him. Not even a little. Yet, that was exactly how I felt. I imagined what it would be like to love Ronin and know that he didn’t love me the same way. Just a few weeks of not feeling like he physically wanted intimacy with me nearly brought me to my knees.

  Graham spent years pining for me from near and afar. He dug himself into such a deep hole he must have felt the improbability of ever seeing light again. But he took my best friend with him, and that still felt unforgivable.

  “I love Lila as much as I love my own sister. How am I supposed to live with myself when I know she’s in a loveless marriage? She could have a chance at true love, a family, the life her parents always wanted for her. Not some rich politician who married her to make some other woman jealous, not a second-place trophy.”

  “She’s not a second-place trophy and you know it. You know me better than that.”

  I didn’t.

  Since Graham became governor, most days, I didn’t think I knew him at all.

  “She’s miserable. I can tell.”

  “When my term is up, I’m out. She can do whatever she wants. Go back to work. Travel. I don’t care.”

  “But I want you to care!” I closed my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose. “If you love her, then you care. You don’t ask her to wait for happiness. Give it to her now.”

  “So you want me to resign?”

  “I want you to give her a family or give her the chance to return to her career now. She deserves to pursue her dreams before they’re too unreachable.”

  “What if she doesn’t want what you think she wants?”

  He had a point. I didn’t understand Lila all the time. It wasn’t just Graham who I didn’t always recognize. Lila had changed too.

  “Love her,” I whispered. “Love her with your whole heart or let her go.”

  “Okay.”

  Why, Graham? Why do this?

  He played head games better than anyone else. Okay what?

  “I have to go,” I sighed, drained of all desire to play the game any longer.

  “Are we good?” he asked.

  No. We would never be good. I would never look at him again and not think of the words he said that could never be forgotten. Him referencing how I still smelled familiar after I married another man and had two kids.

  “Just make things right.” I pressed End.

  Graham

  The only thing I disliked about my wife was her name—Lila. Not Evelyn. She resembled Evelyn, but not enough. And she tried too hard to be a perfect
wife, not like Evelyn’s fuck-you-Graham attitude.

  Fine. Technically, there were three things I disliked about my wife, but they all could be summed up in three words—she wasn’t Evelyn.

  I liked the chase.

  Lila was fun until she said yes. Damn … I loved that chase. My attraction to Lila nearly exceeded my attraction to Evelyn because Lila wanted nothing to do with me.

  The truth? I loved Lila. It wasn’t even intentional at first. But she made me fall in love with her. It just never equaled my love for Evelyn. I loved how she loved me, maybe I even loved her out of a sense of duty. The tears I cried after her accident were real. But I also hated that love. I blamed her for it.

  My wife’s blue eyes shifted to me as I stood in the doorway to her office. Her condition kept her from fulfilling some of her public duties which was fine. Out of sight, out of mind. We made excuses … like she was writing a book. She let her personal assistant go, claiming she was too strong and independent to need help.

  The spin. It was always how you spun the lies to fit a desired truth.

  Lila eased her laptop shut and slid her hands from the vintage desk to her lap. Even at home, she wore designer dresses and short skirts or the occasional pant suits.

  I took slow steps toward her desk, not missing the fear in her eyes. “No visible marks today.”

  She answered with silence.

  Easing into the gunmetal gray leather armchair opposite her, I steepled my fingers and tapped them against my chin. “I’m sorry you’re going through this. No one plans for their life to go in this direction. Yet, here we are. We can’t change what has happened, but we can go forward with the best intentions and hope for better days.”

  Lila flinched. I wasn’t a monster. Part of me regretted that flinch. Part of me took responsibility for that flinch.

  “I don’t want to be owned,” she whispered.

  “You own me.”

  She shook her head one tiny inch at a time. “Evie owns you.”

  “I didn’t marry Evelyn.”

  “Why?”

  I narrowed my eyes. The world. I gave that woman the world.

  More money than she could ever spend.

  A closet the size of a small apartment.

  Houses.

  Yachts.

  Maids.

  Assistants.

  Cooks.

  Really … if her definition of “owned” meant a life of luxury, then sure … I owned her.

  “Evelyn and I are friends.”

  Lila nibbled the corner of her lip. The problem with her? She questioned shit that didn’t need to be questioned.

  “A friend you’ve been intimate with.”

  I shrugged. “So have you.”

  “That’s not the same.” Her gaze fell to her lap.

  “Come here.” I held out my hand.

  Lila stared at it, silently defying me.

  “Come. Here.”

  After a slow sigh, she stood and made her way around the desk.

  “Closer.” I spread my legs, nodding to the open space between them.

  She held her ground.

  “How can I make things right with you?” I used Evelyn’s exact words.

  Her empty gaze shifted to meet mine. “You can let me go.”

  “I don’t think I can.” I wrapped my hand around her wrist being careful to not bruise her. Sometimes it was hard … sometimes she fought me. Sometimes she tried to deny me. Sometimes I liked it when she tried to deny me.

  In silent acquiescence, my wife let me pull her between my legs.

  “I think your cancer treatment is working.” I loosened my grip, rubbing soft circles with my thumbs along her wrists and up her forearms, common areas to see bruising on my wife. Of course a part of me felt bad for her and her situation. She didn’t ask for such unfortunate things to happen to her. And if I wanted to get closer to Evelyn, I needed to find a way to get the four of us together more often. My days of lunch and watching football with my best friend were most likely over.

  Just thinking about Evelyn made my dick painfully hard. I couldn’t stick it in her, yet, but I could find the next best thing, which happened to be standing right in front of me.

  My hands released her wrists, finding the hem of her short skirt much more tempting.

  “No.” Lila grimaced with her weak protest, and I slid her skirt up her legs. “Please … not now.”

  “Long blond hair, short skirt, tight blouse … I think you’re asking for someone to take notice. And who better to do that than your husband?” With her skirt gathered at her waist, I slid down her delicate black panties.

  “Graham … please …” She reached for her panties.

  I shot her a look. That was all it took for her to relax her hand and let me remove her panties. Fuck … nothing compared to a woman in high heels stepping out of black lace panties. “Sit.”

  Swallowing hard while wearing that stupid cringe like she wasn’t going to enjoy it, when we both knew that wasn’t the case, she eased her backside onto the edge of the desk. I unfastened my pants. Just because I couldn’t fuck her without leaving marks didn’t mean I wasn’t going to get off.

  I knelt on the floor, guiding her feet to rest on my shoulders. Why? Why did she give me that look? For the love of god, I was on my fucking knees in front of her, seconds away from pleasuring her. It almost ruined the moment. But then I imagined making a surprise visit to Evelyn’s shop. I imagined her stainless-steel benches instead of a wooden desk, her legs spread wide for me as I knelt on the soapy, gunky floor. Evelyn would give me that same look, pretend she didn’t want my tongue teasing her, until my fingers entered her.

  Lila stiffened when I kissed her there. She wriggled on the edge of the desk, but she had nowhere to go. I fought the urge to grip her hips to hold her still and force her legs farther apart as her knees attempted to collapse inward.

  No marks.

  I had to leave her without a single bruise.

  She left me with no choice, just an uncontrollable need to channel my energy and frustration into something. My eyes closed and returned to Evelyn’s lab. I wrapped my hand around my dick and let my thoughts go where they needed to go.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Lila

  He said my name.

  Graham pleasured me when I didn’t want it, but he said my name. I hated myself for clinging to that. After everything he had done, he didn’t deserve a pat on the back for saying the right woman’s name during sex.

  Still, I had nowhere to go. He trapped my best friend, my only family, and his control reached further than I could even imagine. I wanted to tell Evie everything. But I didn’t trust Graham—not as a husband, not as a friend. It wasn’t just me and Evelyn. She had a husband and two kids. I would die before letting Graham destroy her family.

  The irony of my own part in destroying Evelyn’s life didn’t escape my conscience. Her husband needed to touch me to feel good, to be a better husband to his wife.

  How did our friendship—the four of us—turn into such a toxic mess?

  I had fallen the furthest down the rabbit hole of lies. I kept all the secrets—Graham’s, Ronin’s, my own.

  After I washed Graham’s semen from my cleavage, I stood in front of my full-length mirror and contemplated my next move.

  “Long blond hair, short skirt, tight blouse … I think you’re asking for someone to take notice.”

  I no longer cared if anyone ever took notice again. Gripping a pair of scissors in my right hand, I grabbed a chunk of hair pulling it taut with my left hand while cutting it as close to my scalp as possible. Tears filled my eyes. The point of no return embraced me, swallowing the pain of each handful of hair I cut from my head.

  I had cancer.

  I could wait for it to fall out or I could cut it on my own.

  On my own …

  Graham could fuck me at will, mark me, degrade me, and wish I were someone else, but he would never own me. He would never have the final say in
my destiny.

  When the bulk of my hair rested at my feet, I padded to the opposite end of the hallway, where Graham slept and showered. In a cabinet next to his sink, I retrieved his beard trimmer and retraced my steps to the pile of hair beneath my sink.

  The trimmer hummed when I turned it on. It vibrated next to my scalp as I made slow strokes from my forehead to my neck.

  Numb.

  I felt nothing.

  The feeling of nothingness comforted me. It prevented me from blinking and kept my hand from shaking as I sudsed my entire scalp and took a new razor to it. I knew why some cancer patients shaved their heads before all of their hair fell out on its own. Dignity—they wanted something to be on their terms. They needed to control some tiny part of themselves in the midst of something so out of control.

  Everything in my life felt out of control.

  “What have you done?”

  My gaze lifted from the mess on the floor and in the sink to Graham’s reflection of complete bewilderment in the mirror. Did he sound regretful? Was that remorse on his face? The numbness blocked my ability to feel him the way I used to … before he became a different man.

  “People going through cancer treatment lose their hair. You said it yourself.”

  “What have you done?” Graham repeated, threading his fingers though his hair, clenching and tugging at it. A very unusual reaction from him.

  Lucky him. He still had hair to pull.

  He warned me that my life would change. I would not get to do the things I used to do. And he said it too … I would lose my hair from the cancer treatment. Why did he look so shocked?

  Interesting note: Sounds stayed with me, like the sound of Evelyn’s mom’s voice when she told me my parents had died.

  “What have you done!”

  Sounds … oh the sounds …

  I never forgot the click of Graham’s dress shoes against the tile floor or the high-pitched slap of the back of his hand across my face. But sounds faded faster than the slow destruction of a heart grieving death or the sting from flesh and bone colliding.

  It knocked me back several feet. It always did.