He’ll do what I want. It’s going to piss me off that he’ll succeed where I failed, but he’ll probably get Cora to agree to have dinner with me. It might taste like shit, but it’s a win. It’s forward momentum.
I suppose I should call Michelle and have her set up a business dinner.
11
ADRIAN
It’spast midnight when I get back to the house. I’m being a pussy, but I didn’t want to deal with the immediate blowback from Cora when Chambers called her, so I stayed late at work.
Delaney used the opportunity to drop by my office with Chinese. She took her suit jacket off, and her top was basically lingerie. She was visibly pissed when I told her to put her clothes back on and leave the food on my desk.
I need to come to some sort of amicable parting of the ways with her. I’ll deal with that once things are sorted with Cora, and I can focus again. Right now, the sleep deprivation is wreaking havoc on my filter and my temper is too close to the surface. I’ll end up saying something that’ll land the company straight in litigation.
It’ll probably end up there anyway. Delaney is the type to demand a pound of flesh. Meanwhile, Cora wants nothing more than to put me in her rearview.
Instead of staring past me like I’m see-through, I wish Cora would fight with me. She’d feel better if she punched me in the face. I would too at this point.
I figure Cora will be asleep when I get home. Shecrashes pretty soon after she gets Winnie down, so she can get as much sleep as possible before her night feed. When I check the camera in the nursery, though, Cora’s not in bed, and there’s light showing under the closed bathroom door.
My heart leaps into my throat. Gruesome images from horror movies burst into my head—razor blades and blood, pink water overflowing a bathtub.
I bound up the stairs and race down the hall.
She said,not too bad. I believed her. Why? I don’t believe anyone.
She’s fine. I’m overreacting.
No matter how angry she is at me, she’d never leave the children.
She’s mopey and bitchy and not eating, but she’s sleeping fine and caring for the kids and keeping up with her hygiene. Farhadi would have told me in no uncertain terms to get her help if he thought she was really at risk.
He would, right?
Does anyone tell me the hard truth unless it benefits them?
Heart racing, I force myself to slow down when I get to the nursery. The last thing I need to do is wake the girls. I enter the room slowly, softening my steps. Winnie is sleeping in her crib. Pearl is in her bed. Both of their chests gently rise and fall.
I jog across the room, straining to hear sounds from the bathroom, but the doors are solid-core.
I turn the knob, stopping myself at the last second from rushing through the door when I hear hippie music, the kind massage therapists play. Then I hear a splash, and suddenly, my lungs can inflate again.
Cora glares blearily at me from the tub, her knees drawn to her chest. There’s a red wine glass on the ledge, and two bottles of my best Madeira sitting on the floor. Her hair is upin a messy bun, and her skin is rosy from the hot water or wine or both. Relief floods my body as blood surges to my cock, and in an instant, I’m so hard, I’m dizzy.
“What are you doing here?” she snaps.
She doesn’t scream at me to get out, so I shut the door behind myself. “I saw you weren’t in bed.”
“Stalking me on the cameras?” She wrinkles her nose and reaches for her glass, exposing the top of her right breast. It’s plump and blue-veined, heavy with milk. I love her tits when she’s nursing, but she can’t stand to have me touch them. I think she’s embarrassed that she leaks.
I try not to watch her nurse. I’m terrified I’ll pop wood, and that’s just fucking wrong. The other day with the marshmallows was different somehow. Maybe because I’m so tired, my mind didn’t go there, so I actually watched her feed Winnie for maybe the first time. She does it so naturally, like the baby is an extension of her own body. If she worries that she’ll accidentally hurt the baby, she doesn’t let it faze her.
I could never. Even Pearl’s still too small and delicate. Every time I pick her up, I’m afraid I’ll misjudge my grip and make her cry.
“You can get lost at any point,” she slurs, thunking the glass back onto the ledge.
I cross over to her in two steps, sink to my knees next to the tub, and grab the glass before it can teeter onto the floor.
“Hey. That’s mine.”
