“Satisfactory?” I cried through gritted teeth. “Bill adores me, and everyone knows it.” I faltered, completely flustered. “He’s an amazing husband who treats me—”
“How?” David leaned in and looked me full in the face. “How does he treat you?” he demanded, his eyes boring into mine. His voice lowered into a rumble. “You have no idea what I’d do with you.”
My legs sweat against the car’s gummy leather, and I shifted, transported back to the theater, when the red velvet seats had pricked my thighs, David’s presence clinging to me.
He was too close.
Too comfortable.
And the way he looked at me and saw everything—hadalwaysseen everything, from that first glance—was too much.
It threatened everything I’d built. Not just my marriage, but all the little stitches I’d put in place to hold myself together.
“You want to know how it feels to belong to a man like me.” David licked his lips. “Admit it, Olivia, and I’ll make it happen. We met too late—but we can still do something about it.”
I gaped at him. “What—what are you saying?”
“You’re made for me, Olivia. And I’m made for you. If you run away like you’re about to, you’ll always wonder what kind of love we could’ve had.”
“Don’t be r-ridiculous.” I had love already. And if I didn’t, it was because I didn’t want it and all thebullshitthat came with it. I fumbled to escape from the seatbelt. “We’re done.”
“I assumed as much. Here, let me,” he said coolly and slipped his hand down between my thigh and those sticky leather seats. His hand lingered against my bare skin, at the hem of my dress, and my pulse pounded. He bent closer so that I could almost touch my lips to his neck. His faint, earthy scent left me dizzy and pining for more.
His fingertips grazed along my outer thigh as he searched for the release, and it was all I could do not to spontaneously combust from desire. My breath caught in my throat.
Do not squirm, do not squirm. That’s exactly what he wants.
He pushed the button and the seatbelt jumped into my shaking hands. David leaned back into his seat and stuck his chin in his hand, looking back through the driver’s side window.
I pushed the door open and hurried back out to the sidewalk, but I couldn’t bring myself to slam the door. After taking a breath to collect myself, I said, “Maybe you were right yesterday. Maybe any type of relationship is impossible.”
He looked over at me with an unreadable expression. “And maybe I’ll skip tonight,” he said.
I froze. Everything I’d done the past few weeks had been for this article, and David was at the center of it. “You promised you’d be there.”
“I did. But you’re testing my control, and I can’t make you any more promises.”
I gaped at him. “What does that mean?”
He locked his golden-brown irises on me. “When you find yourself alone and aching for something nobody around you can give you, when everything feels too heavy, and you want someone else to shoulder the burden—don’t you dare look to me.”
Hecouldshoulder it—and he would if I asked him to. That was the problem. “I won’t,” I promised.
He cocked his head. “You say that, but you don’t mean it. If I see in your eyes all the things you’re too scared to admitone more time, then it’s on.”
“What’s on?” I asked breathlessly.
“I will fight for you with zero regard for the destruction I leave behind. It will make the war over Helen of Troy look like a child’s game. That’s why I can’t come tonight,” he said, “unless you look me in the eye right now and tell me you don’t want me. And you fucking mean it.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” I said and slammed the door.
Oh,God. He’d fight for me? At just the thought, excitement pounded my heart as I stormed off—and indignation shook my body. How dare he question my marriage, give me an ultimatum, and assume he’d be the one I’d go to when I felt the most alone?
He’d been lying to himself since the moment we’d met eyes at the theater. This was lust, nothing more. It could not conceivably or plausibly be anything more.
“You’re made for me, Olivia. And I’m made for you . . .”
As insoulmates?
