Beside him on the bed, his wife sighed heavily, contentedly, then rolled toward him to place a dainty hand on his sweat-soaked chest.
Tensing, he grabbed her wrist.
For all this thoughts of benefit versus failure, he still desired his wife more than he’d ever desired any woman—ever. If he let her touch him, they’d go for round three, and he didn’t have timefor that. Twice was enough for his purposes; it was up to her to make use of the…aftermath.
“I’m headed to the office,” he ground out, pushing her hand away as he swung his legs over the side of the bed and walked toward the bathroom. He called over his shoulder, “I won’t be home tonight, so don’t plan dinner.”
His wife’s soft voice drifted into the bathroom behind him. “Gideon? It’s…Sunday. Can you?—”
“Something’s come up,” he responded, already knowing what she was going to say. She wanted to spend the day with him, doing couple bullshit like walking through the farmer’s market for produce they could have delivered within the hour, or visiting a vineyard for a wine tasting for a wine that was worth less than the Romanée-Conti he already had in his wine cellar at his thirty-acre estate in Schroon Lake. “I’ll call you if I’ll be gone longer. Make whatever plans you want, just don’t include me.”
He knew he was being an asshole, but his patience with her was wearing thinner and thinner by the month.
Month by month by month, as the readout on the pregnancy tests always came up negative.
Inside him, that fucking beast snarled at his casual dismissal of his wife, its mate, but he jerked the leash, silencing it.
He really needed to get a handle on his madness.
“Alright,” his wife replied, her voice still soft, but this time the hurt was there, too. “I’ll go see Cora and the kids.” A gentle smile softened her face, a look he was familiar with.
Cora was his brother Adrian’s wife, and they had two kids together, Pearl and Winnie. Gideon’s wife, a maternal female, through and through, liked spending time at their penthouse playing with them. She was often called on last minute to babysit, which Kendra didn’t mind, despite often having an already overfull schedule.
Kendra was a caregiver, someone who always looked after others—it was one of the reasons he’d chosen her for his wife. It wasn’t the only reason; she met many of his requirements for the wife of Gideon Maddox.
His wife couldn’t just be anyone—hecouldhave anyone, and that was why an arrangement was preferrable. It kept out the less desirables looking to root themselves in his life and make a mess of the order he’d spent decades arranging just so.
If she’d live up to her end of the fucking bargain, she’d have her own kid to fuss over. And it wasn’t like she was infertile or taking birth control, so there was something else wrong with her that medical science couldn’t detect.
Maybe God just doesn’t want you to reproduce….
Maybe God had sent him Kendra to keep him from filling the earth with more Gideon Maddoxes.
Their bloodline was already tainted with his father’s many sins—the sins of the father passed on to the sons….
He could still hear his father’s voice—that motherfucking asshole—in his head.
“You’re just a useless piece of shit—not even your own mother wants you, and that’s why she left!”
Maybe the family curse had been passed down to him, and would eventually ruin any children he sired.
Or maybe you just picked the wife with a useless womb.
Biting back a curse, one he knew was unfair, he hurried through a shower, wiping away the sex sweat and scent of his wife’s pleasure.
He carefully dressed in a dark blue, nearly black, suit, tailored to his boxer’s frame, handmade Italian shoes, silk tie, obsidian cufflinks, and a tie pin with a diamond so big it dwarfed most engagement rings.
He studied himself in the mirror, taking in his attire, the work he’d put into his physique, the way his black hair hung just right, and the way his green eyes gleamed.
He wasn’t a vain man, simply a self-aware one. He knew his worth, what he was owed, what he earned, and what he deserved. Not once in forty years had he ever failed to obtain what he wanted; his decisions precise, his risks minimized, his choices impeccable.
So why did it feel like his choice in wife was the biggest mistake he’d ever made?
And why didthatthought make the beast snap its teeth?
Chapter Three
Sunday, then Monday and Tuesday, flew by in a flash—she’d been up to her eyeballs in writing, illustrating, planning two charity events for children, and overthinking about pregnancy—and now it was Wednesday.
