She sits. Too close. Her knee presses my leg. Her perfume is strong, cloying. She is the opposite of Peighton whose scent is soft and warm and faintly sweet, like her skin is always remembering summer.
The woman twirls a lock of her blond hair. Her voice is breathy.
“You look tense. Want a massage?”
I twitch.
My jaw jumps. I hate that. I never used to twitch when women hit on me. Before Peighton touched me. Before the voices grew so loud that they attach to females like magnets.
“I am married,” I tell her.
She glances at my ring. Shrugs. “So am I. To Rupert.”
Then she undoes the top of her bikini. Her breasts spill out, glistening under the sun. A direct invitation.
A flash of Peighton hits me. Her smaller breasts. Pretty nipples. The way my own men stole glances at her cleavage in that tight dress. The flicker of her smile for them.
Heat floods my chest. My hand curls.
I stand abruptly. The chair scrapes.
The woman looks startled. I don’t care. My body moves before my mind catches up — away from her, toward the stairs, toward the shadows where the sun cannot mock me and where the ghosts in my head feel less exposed.
I take out my phone and call Micha.
He answers quickly. Obedient. Loyal. “Yes, boss.”
“Give the phone to Peighton,” I say.
A beat of silence. Then, faint shuffling.
My pulse drags. I should not care this much. I should not need her voice in my ear like oxygen.
I don’t want her to know this side of me.
But yesterday — in the car — when she came undone for me, her little body arching, her breath breaking... something insideme clicked back into place. For a moment, the world was silent. My mind was at peace. My darkness slept.
But afterwards, she was too quiet. Not glowing like the first time I had her. Not flushed and playful. Something in her had dulled. It bothers me. Deeply.
When her voice comes through the line, I freeze.
“Hello?”
She sounds distracted, like she has somewhere else to be. Someone else to talk to.
“How are you?” I ask.
The words surprise even myself. I do not ask such things.
“I’m fine,” she says, flat and distant. “Busy.”
A cold prickle slides down my spine. That is not a wife. That is someone closing a door on me.
Images flicker fast: another man’s hands, laughter not meant for me, her walking away without looking back.
“I gotta go,” she grumbles.
My breathing sharpens. Anger replaces panic. It’s easier to hold.
