His confusion collapses into amusement. “Four years ago,” he says as though that’s relevant.
“Yes.”
Now, he’s openly chuckling. “Four years ago, I probably did have other girls hanging around, but I don’t now. I haven’t since—” He breaks off, shaking his head before dropping a line of entertained kisses along my collarbone. “I don’t need other girls. Not when I have you.”
“But your real girlfriend will—”
“What girlfriend?” His voice is genuinely baffled as he sits up straight and tugs me until I do the same. He cups my cheek, his thumb holding my face steady. “I occasionally have a date on evenings when it would seem weird not to, but they’re notgirlfriends. They’re colleagues who’re doing me a favour by showing up to some boring event.”
The conversation is going in circles. I don’t understand what he’s saying. There are other women. There’ve always been other women. Other girls. Haven’t there? “Well, whatever you call them.”
I try to turn away from him, turn around to face the screen so my eyes get relief from his intense gaze, but he won’t let me. He holds me in place so easily, barely exercising a fraction of his true strength. “Is this why you keep leaving? Because you think I have a horde of other women to keep my bed warm.”
“You do.”
He must do. That’s the one constant that I know about him. That other girls come here to service his needs on the days when I don’t. That he runs through a plethora of other woman, some staying days, some weeks. Churning through them with depraved regularity.
I haven’tseenthem but that’s because he’s discreet. His staff are discreet. Exercising caution when you’re at his level of wealth is just second nature.
Nobody sees me come and go from this place, either. His driver picks me up in the vehicle with its tinted windows and pulls into the underground garage. I walk from the car and out through the door set on the inside of the massive security fence.
It would be stranger if Ihadseen other girls over the years.
Wilbur shakes his head, his thumb tracing the edge of my jaw. “There’s no one else. There hasn’t been anyone else since we started seeing each other. I know you’ve had”—his voice struggles to find the right word—“dalliancesoutside our relationship, butwhen you’re not here, I go without.” His voice drops to a rumble. “And I’m not a man who likes to go without.”
I’m struggling to understand. This feels like a new and extravagant trick but if it is, I can’t see a way to the punchline.
Wilbur’s expression is earnest. There’s not a trace of deception anywhere on his face, in his voice, in his body language. Not that he can’t hide things from me when he wants to, he’s far better at that than I ever have been, but I can’t understand why.
I don’t care if he has other women.
I do care, very much, if he doesn’t.
If he’s telling the truth, it’s a new noose around my neck, pulling ever tighter. It makes my situation so much more serious than I thought.
If he doesn’t have replacements lined up, Wilbur will never be happy to let me go.
The idea chokes me. I struggle to find the words, so dismayed that my thoughts are in tatters. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Jesus, Emily.” He lets go of me and I turn away, hands clutching the edge of the sofa in a death grip. When I’m facing away, he pulls me back against his body, his arm like a steel bar, holding me prisoner. “I didn’t think I had to tell my girlfriend that I’m not fucking around on her with other women. That’s a given.”
“I’m not a girlfriend.” My heart is beating so hard against his arm he must surely feel it. Going faster and faster with every beat. “You pay me to be here.”
“Because if I didn’t, your dreadful mother would have forced you to live in even worse squalor than you’re used to.” He nudges his head into my upper back, his hair silky against my skin. “If I’d known you thought that for one second, I would’ve spelled it out for you sooner. I love you. I want to marry you the moment you’re done with school. I want to havechildrenwith you.”
The news is a leaden weight around my neck, pulling me under the waves. I’ve barely been able to keep my head above water as it is.
Now, I’m sure to drown.
* * *
At home afterwards,I can’t keep any thoughts in my head. Ratty and Maz snooze together on the sofa while Mum lies on the floor, a cushion under her head the only protection from the oil-stained concrete. She’s flipping through a magazine but from the slowing frequency of page turns, what she’s really doing is blissing out with a flimsy cover story.
“I’m going for a drive,” I announce on the off chance that anyone’s interested. Nobody stirs and I slip out the side door, shivering in the deepening cold.
The drive calms me but does nothing to organise my unsettled thoughts. When I park in my favourite spot, looking down over the city, I can’t bear to sit still. I pace outside the car, then climb the flaking bark of a large eucalyptus tree, inching out onto its lowest branch, then relaxing as I realise it’ll easily hold my weight. Even halfway along—over a metre from the gigantic trunk—it’s still not bending.
The few extra metres of height give me a different view than normal. The odd angle is even more calming than sitting in the car would be, though my shivering limbs aren’t so happy.
