Page 121

The sentence crushed her. She’d wanted me to say it was our sanctuary, our love nest, some romantic bullshit. But it was what it had always been: a compartment. A place to keep her contained and satisfied while I lived my real life.

She started crying then. Not the pretty kind. Ugly, heaving sobs that shook her too-thin frame. I let her get it out for a minute before I spoke again.

“Maggie. Look at this place. You’ve been sitting here feeling sorry for yourself instead of taking care of what I gave you.”

“I thought you left me,” she whispered. “I thought after the gala—“

“The gala is exactly why I’m here.”

That shut her up for a second. She wiped at her face with the back of her hand, smearing mascara she hadn’t bothered to remove.

I shifted the conversation because her feelings weren’t the issue bothering me. They never were. The Halloween gala had been a fucking circus, and she’d inserted herself into it without my permission.

“Why did you approach Samantha?” I asked.

She blinked. “I never exposed us. I never said I was with you. I protected you, Richard. I was—“

“You never had permission to speak to her in the first place.”

The distinction seemed lost on her. Her eyes flashed with frustration, the first real spark I’d seen since arriving.

“I was trying to smooth things over. To keep your perfect little world from cracking. I know you, Richard. The real you. Samantha only gets the fake version you perform for everyone else. The charming businessman. The devoted husband. But you always come back to me. She gets the title. I get the man.”

She said it with such conviction, like it was some profound truth. Like she had any claim on me beyond what I allowed.

My irritation deepened. Internally, it boiled. Maggie believed she understood me. Worse, she believed she had influence. That her pussy and her tears and her declarations gave her leverage. Nobody controlled me. Not my wife. Not the Collective. And certainly not a former stripper I kept as a side piece.

The argument escalated quickly after that. She kept pushing, listing nights I’d spent here, the way I fucked her like I needed her, the promises she’d read between the lines. I let her talk because it revealed more of her delusion with every word.

She thought she was special.

I stayed calm through all of it.

When she finally wound down, breathing hard, I dismantled it piece by piece.

“Everything in your life came from me, Maggie. This house. The clothes in that closet. The food in the fridge. The money in your account. The jewelry you used to love wearing for me. Your safety. Without me, you go back to shaking your ass for singles and wondering if you’ll make rent. If I disappeared tomorrow, all of it disappears with me.”

Her mouth fell open. For several seconds, neither of us spoke. Then she snatched a perfume bottle from the vanity and hurled it across the room. Glass exploded against the wall, filling the air with the expensive fragrance I had bought her.

“I don’t want any of this shit if you don’t come with it!”

I glanced at the shattered bottle before looking at her again. She stood there breathing hard, waiting for her destruction to provoke me. I watched her without moving. The outburst confirmed what I already knew. Maggie was still performing like she did in that strip club. She just traded the stage for this house, but the routine remained the same. Seduce me. Please me. Punish me when neither earned her what she wanted.

“You need to understand your place Maggie. Once you do, it’ll make things a lot easier for your emotionally unstable ass to comprehend,” I said. “My life with my wife has nothing to do with you.”

“My place?” Her voice dropped. “What the fuck is my place?”

“Here, when I want you. Quiet, when I don’t.”

Her face contorted. She pushed herself from the chaise so quickly that my shirt climbed higher on her thighs.

“I love you, Richard!” Tears spilled down her cheeks. “I love you so much it hurts. If I can’t have you, I'd rather die.”

There it was. The final threat of a woman who had exhausted everything else. She waited for me to comfort her or promise that she had misunderstood. She wanted proof that the threat of losing her would wound me.

I gave her nothing.

Her face crumpled. She turned and left the bedroom, knocking her shoulder against the doorframe in her hurry to escape.