My eyebrows shot up. There was nothing quaint about this home. It was a god damn mansion and worth more than my penthouse. But it wasn’t flashy, and that’s what she meant.
“Where is Amy anyway? I’ve not seen her a lot,” wandering toward me, she sat opposite and crossed her legs, giving me a great view of her legs. Catching my stare, she smiled, and I tore my gaze away. “I hope you haven’t been neglecting her, Alexei,” she chided.
My gut twisted with sudden guilt. I hadn’t seen my wife, not since the morning after my party. I kept meaning to go and find her. She had been pretty adamant that he had needed to talk to me, but getting Violet settled seemed to be taking up most of my time.
Amy would understand, though. Violet needed looking after. Amy was a fighter, and she knew how to arrange things. If there was a real problem with anything, I knew she would tell me or just sort it out herself.
Still, I really did need to explain things better to her so that she didn’t jump to the wrong conclusion.
The thought made me turn my attention back to the woman opposite me. I need to know the details if I wanted to fill my wife in, and she deserved to know if there was any danger.
I made a mental note to increase security around her.
“Violet.”
“Yes, my love?” she asked, and I shook my head. She kept doing that, calling me her love, and part of me wanted to react to it, but then I remembered I was a married man. Amy might not have been my first choice, but she was my wife.
“Who is the father of your child?”
Her eyes danced away, lifting her finger to her hand. She began to chew on her manicured nails I had only just paid for.
“You need to tell me,” I said louder when she didn’t answer me, “so I can make sure Amy is also safe. If there’s any risk—”
I fell silent as she jumped up from her chair, almost screaming as she raked her nails down her face. “You care for her more than you care for me. If you hate me so much, why not just kick me out? You don’t love me anymore. You love her.”
The outburst was unexpected but not completely alien to me. She had been throwing tantrums for as long as I had known her, and that was a long time. With a sigh, I gathered her up into my arms and dragged her down onto my lap.
Her thin body was so familiar to me, but somehow it felt wrong, like she didn’t fit anymore.
“You are being a child,” I chided. “Amy is—”
Her head snapped around. Her eyes narrowed into slits. “You are in love with her?” There was shock and disbelief in her voice. “Holy fucking shit, Alexei, you—”
Catching her chin between my fingers, I forced her to look into my eyes. “Amy is my wife, watch what you say about her,” I threatened.
I didn’t know what made me say it. It wasn’t like I was actually in love with Amy, but I was responsible for her. I had been the one who had pushed for this marriage, and I had to make it work for my grandfather’s sake.
“She doesn’t have to be,” Violet said.
I let go of her like her skin suddenly burned me and pushed her offmy lap. “I am not divorcing my wife, Violet.” Standing up, I moved to the far corner of the room. I don’t know how I had missed it, but it looked like an easel was set up there, one of the ones I had was Amy. It looked like she had been working on something.
“We could be together and—”
“No.” Standing in front of it, I gazed down at the image and recognized it straight away. It was clear that Amy had painted it from memory, but it might well have been a photograph because I remembered the moment so well.
My head in her lap, our faces flushed and hair dishevelled. Amy had one hand in my hair and the other pressing a strawberry to my half-parted lips. The only thing that was different from reality was the fact that she had painted us dressed, and we had most definitely been naked that morning.
My balls drew up. I missed my wife. I missed our morning together. How long had it been since we had actually been together? I didn’t know, but it would need to change soon because—Oh damn, I missed her.
“This is—”
I felt the air behind me move as Violet came to stare around my shoulder. The atmosphere shifted and turned icy.
“What is this?” she asked, her voice full of fury. Turning to her, I took her arm and tried to move her away from the painting that Amy had clearly put her heart and soul into. Pushing past me, Violet stood right in front of it, and her face twisted as she took in every minute detail.
“Is this?” Her voice shook. “Is this how you are with her?”
I didn’t know what to say about that. Because clearly what happened between Amy and me was none of her business. She took my silence for what it was.
