I patted his cheek. “Fine. You probably earned it by being such a gooddaddy.”
He groaned at my innuendo, but then his phone buzzed. He frowned when he read the text, and before even looking up, he stepped back and murmured, “It’ll be a late dinner for Franny and me. Valerie’s coming over.”
My world screeched to a halt. The record scratched, time stopped, and my bubble popped. “Everything okay?” How could I ask anything else? The wordsAre you still going to sleep with her?weren’t exactly appropriate considering he didn’t know I would listen to them before in the first place.
Plus, this was supposed to be casual considering there was a contract in place. I knew that. I’d told myself that time and time again, even though I was playing pretend that this was the perfect relationship half the time. “No worries. I’ll just eat here, or Archer and I can go grab—”
“Eat dinner here. I don’t see why he’s needed.” Of course he didn’t. His jealousy was warranted, but mine wouldn’t be.
So, I let him walk away and let the unease fester under my skin for the rest of the day. Franny and I took care of Wednesday, and I pretended my heart wasn’t in my throat while we had a tea party with the fluff ball.
When Rosy came to collect Franny, she eyed me warily and mouthed, “Talk later?”
She knew what I knew. Valerie was back.
As the sun dipped low in the sky, I sulked back to my bedroom and stared out at the trees. I’d have a life after this, one I could rebuild with my sister from a huge payday, but I wouldn’t have Franny. Or Jameson. Or whatever this imperfect life was.
And I hated myself for wanting it, for wanting something that was out of my reach. For wanting someone to want me the way I wanted them.
I’d wanted my parents to love me the way I loved them too. But that didn’t happen.
A sense of needing to belong hit me so strong that I found myself dialing my mother’s number.
Two rings. It’s as far as I always got before the call was ignored.
So easily, I was dismissed. So easily, I didn’t fit into their life.
I needed that reminder, and a reminder from Jameson too.
I could have covered the vent. Or gone to shower, but I sat there listening after I’d told Archer I didn’t need company and had eaten dinner by myself.
Sure enough, her laughter bubbled up through the vent, and she murmured his name affectionately. Immediately, my body tightened.
This was wrong. Completely and utterly wrong to be listening to them. I got up and stomped over to the bathroom to undress. I threw my clothes off angrily, frustrated that he was about to do what he always did with her. I could hear it in her tone, in how her laugh dropped low.
I shoved my panties down just as I heard his deep voice command something. I slammed the bathroom door because I knew that tone. Instead of turning the shower on, I snatched a towel to wrap around myself and headed back through that door so I could listen for just one more minute.
Maybe I’d hear something that would totally turn me off so I didn’t have to think about him with other women anymore. Hopefully, he’d call her a terrible name and that’d be the end of it. Sitting on my bed, I leaned toward the vent on the back wall.
“I know it’s been a while for us since you’ve been busy … but absence makes the heart grow fonder and all, right, Jameson?” She had that familiar rasp to her voice like she was ready for him to have his head between her legs, ready for him to take her roughly the way I was used to hearing.
“Does it, Val?” His tone sounded especially cruel tonight, probably because he’d missed having her like he always did. Heseemed to enjoy commanding her in a way he never did me. “I’m not sure you missed me at all after I found out who you spent your time with a week and a half ago. After hearing that information, I’m quite sure I didn’t miss you at all.”
“Jameson, what do you mean?”
“You went to Trent’s the night I turned you away. Did you not?”
“I … Oh, Jameson. I’m so sorry about Trent. Please. I shouldn’t have ever talked with him. Just choke me, okay? Put your hands on my neck and shut me up if you don’t want me to talk. Come on. I want it. Please. Want me over your desk again? I’ll turn around. I’ll be quiet.”
There was silence, and it stretched so long that I imagined he might have been doing what she asked. I could only imagine if it were me, how he’d bend me over, how he’d stare at me, how he’d grab me right before he entered me.
But it wasn’t me down there in that office.
It was another woman.
I ran to the bathroom and turned on the shower to scorch my skin, to try to gain control of the anger. If he wanted someone else, I didn’t need him, I told myself.
Instead, I could get myself off. I plunged my fingers inside myself as pleasure but also jealousy coursed through me. I hissed at how easily my fingers slipped in. My emotions pumped adrenaline through my veins and unhinged some part of me that I couldn’t control. I almost growled when my thumb moved over my clit in the same way he would have done for me, and then I moaned at the feeling of imagining his fingers instead of mine pumping into me.
