He closes his eyes for a beat and then levels me with his sharkish gaze. “When normal marital relations and family life resume.”
“What is normal family life?”
“Dinners. Breakfast. Outings. Events.” He shrugs. “That sort of thing. And my people will be dealing with Brian McDonough, not Drake Chambers.”
I set aside for a second how he says Drake Chambers with air quotes like his name is an alias. “So twenty million dollars to go back to the way things were?”
He nods curtly.
I snicker and wince, the sound too close to hysterical. “That was an expensive fuck that I interrupted.”
His eyes narrow. “You’re an expensive wife.”
“And imagine, I had no idea how much I was worth.” Something Drake said pops into my head. “Whereismy money? Where’s my payment for Pearl and Winnie?”
His lip curls in distaste. “You didn’t get paid for our children.”
I’m not splitting hairs with him. He knows what I’m talking about. “Where did my seventy million dollars go? And the money for staying with you for five years?”
“It’s with our brokerage. You are more than welcome to audit the account at any time.”
“Who is our brokerage?”
“Gordon Schwartz.”
“I want to talk to him.”
“Gordon Schwartz is a firm, not a person.”
“Then I want to talk to them.”
“You’re more than welcome. You’re not being intentionally kept in the dark. You’ve never shown an interest in financial matters before.”
“Yeah. Funny, that.” I stare at him. “I’ve really been asleep at the wheel.”
Backlit by the crackling fire, his inky hair gleams and his tan skin glows like some kind of dark romance demon lover. A ghost of a feeling twists in my lower belly. I used to catch sight of him sometimes in moments like this, when the light would catch him in a way that made him look almost godlike, and my lungs would stop working.
That’s over now. He’s not a demon. He’s the devil, and he’s trying to buy my soul.
“I don’t want your money,” I say.
He arches an eyebrow like he doesn’t believe me. I dig my fingers into my crossed arms. He thinks he knows everything.
“Whatdoyou want then?” he asks evenly, his voice betraying not a sliver of a doubt that I have a price.
I guess I did.
He could have had his happy wife and perfect family and cheap sex in the corporate suite as long as he breadcrumbed me just enough to keep me deluded. It didn’t take much—wildflower bouquets and trips to the pumpkin patch and movie nights with popcorn we made ourselves. I would’ve given him as many babies as he wanted, and I’d have never known I was accumulating a fortune at Gordon Schwartz.
But he ruined everything, and nothing can put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
“What do I want?” I laugh. “I want you to walk out of this room and never come back. I want to forget you ever existed.”
His jaw hardens, and his already cold expression grows dark. “That’s not happening.”
“Why not? Just walk away. There are a hundred—athousand—women out there who will have your babies and let you fuck whoever you want. You can Elon Musk yourself an entire fleet of genetically perfect boys.”
“I’d never walk away from the girls.”
