Chapter 8 #2
“At least two nannies and a dedicated night nurse if there’s going to be a new baby,” Cheyenne started her list. “Another driver who only handles the school runs and sports and all the other extracurriculars for the kids. A household manager who makes sure that groceries are ordered, rooms are cleaned, landscaping is done, bills are paid. A dedicated assistant or even a nurse who keeps an eye on Addie and supports her.”
“That’s...a lot,” I said, taken aback by how many people it would take to replace her. “Cheyenne, I had no idea it was that much work.”
“It’s funny,” she said with a sad little sigh.
“I’ve always wanted to be a mom. Like—even when I was a kid, I had a dozen baby dolls I took everywhere.
I made up all kinds of pretend scenarios about taking my babies to the doctor and to the grocery store.
I had a little baby doll school. I babysat at the country club gym.
I always volunteered at church with the littles, even before Addie and the babies. ”
“And now?” I asked carefully.
“I think I would have to be married to a very particular type of man to ever agree to have my kids,” she admitted.
“Let’s get real, Elona. My family is loaded.
We can solve our problems by throwing money at them.
But you know what I’ve learned? Money can’t solve all the problems that come with raising kids, and if your husband is a loser, it’s hard, lonely, thankless work. ”
She was right. The two of us were proof enough that money wasn’t a substitute for loving, nurturing parents. She had her demons, and I had mine.
But we had grown up with incredible privilege, and we were heavily insulated from the realities that many of our peers endured.
We weren’t being smothered by student loans.
We didn’t worry about paying rent or affording health insurance.
We weren’t drowning in credit card debt.
We weren’t afraid of layoffs. We didn’t have to send out a thousand resumes to get five job interviews.
There was a tradeoff to having money, but I doubted either of us would have chosen the alternative.
“So, what’s going on with your family? The wedding still on?” She obviously wanted to change the subject, and I was happy to share my little slice of hell.
“Everything is happening right on schedule.” I reached for my mimosa and polished it off. “At least, that’s what Dafina tells me. She’s so far removed from it all that I don’t even think she knows what colors the tablecloths will be.”
Cheyenne made a face. “That’s so weird.”
“The whole thing is weird. If you had seen the prenuptial agreement!” I rolled my eyes. “It was total garbage. Dafina was prepared to sign it without even letting a lawyer read through it. I got four pages in and started making phone calls to every attorney I know.”
“That bad?”
“I’ll spare you all the gross stuff he tried to put in there about frequency of sex and how many babies they’d have.” I shuddered with distaste. “All that was bad enough, but he was even more insulting with the stinginess.”
“A creep and a cheapskate!” Cheyenne shook her head with resigned amusement. “Men really are giving us more reasons every day to stay celibate.”
Her mention of celibacy triggered a shameful twisting in my gut. Ever since the dinner party, I had been plagued with dreams and thoughts that were anything but celibate. Downright slutty, actually.
Smutty. Nasty. Dirty.
About him.
Luka.
My enemy.
Except, in my twisted fantasies, we weren’t acting like enemies.
There was definitely a hate-fucking flavor to them.
I’d drained the battery on my Rose toy four times in the last week alone to those fantasies.
Mostly of me sitting on his face, forcing him to apologize for every last crime he’d committed against me with his tongue.
I squeezed my thighs together, fresh heat throbbing between them as I remembered the wild fantasies I’d conjured. Luka tied up and completely at my mercy. Luka begging me to touch him, to give him relief, to let him come. Me silencing him with my hot, wet—.
“How’s your brother?” Cheyenne’s voice interrupted my filthy thoughts.
“He’s fine.” My voice was huskier than usual, and I cleared my throat.
Hoping she couldn’t tell what I had been thinking, I glanced at my phone.
The screen was down so I wouldn’t be tempted to read anymore messages during our brunch.
“He’s trying to get me to help him with a business deal.
Something to do with a data center, I think. AI or crypto. He hasn’t said.”
“Another one?” she asked with a laugh. “Hopefully not as goofy as that crypto scheme he had a few years back?”
“This one isn’t goofy. It’s grounded in reality. And, in Skender’s defense, he did make a lot of money from that crypto job.” I didn’t tell her that I was ninety percent sure he had made that money illegally. I couldn’t prove it, and frankly, I didn’t want to know the facts.
“Did he invest that money? Save it?”
“Some of it.” I poured some fresh squeezed orange juice from the carafe into my empty mimosa glass. “He gave me a little to manage for him.”
“Smart move.” She broke a crispy strip of bacon into smaller pieces. “You’ve made me some serious money in the last two years.”
“The market made us money. Not me,” I demurred. “I think that ride is coming to an end, though.”
“If the amount of vape cartridges piling up in my dad’s office are any indication, I think you’re right.”
“I’m sure he’ll be fine.” As far as I knew, most of the money her dad managed was from sovereign wealth funds. Saudi Arabia. UAE. Qatar. Kuwait. He worked his magic investing all that oil money here and slashed a tidy profit right off the top.
“I hope so.”
There was something in her tone that made caught my attention, but I decided not to ask any further questions. Whatever her dad had going on with money from that part of the world, the less I knew the better.
“Have you met the girlfriend yet? What was her name? Lydia?”
“Lia, and no I haven’t met her yet. He’s being so weirdly secretive about her.” I didn’t share Dafina’s theory about the girl being a honeypot, but I was a little concerned that he seemed so hesitant to let us meet, even on a video chat.
“Well, to be fair, your family is a little crazy, Elona.”
“True,” I agreed with a laugh.
“He’s almost done with school, right?” Cheyenne asked in between bites of bacon.
“Next spring,” I said. “I’m planning to be there for his graduation.”
“I’ve never been to Bologna. Maybe I’ll tag along.”
“Like there’s any chance I wouldn’t invite you.”
She laughed. “Well, you didn’t invite me to Albania for the wedding.”
“I don’t even want to go to the wedding. I’m not about to drag you along to that nightmare.”
“Maybe you’ll get held up in Shanghai on your business trip,” she suggested with raised eyebrows. “Lose your passport or something like that.”
“Don’t tempt me,” I muttered. “I’ve considered it, but I can’t leave Dafina to face this alone.”
“She’s not planning to stay there, right? She’s not actually going to do the whole married wife thing?”
“As far as I know, the plan is for her to marry, do the deed and get on a plane back to Houston.”
“It’s all a bit medieval,” Cheyenne remarked with revulsion.
“It is,” I agreed. “But there’s no way around it. She does this, and it’s over. The treaty contracts are fulfilled. Everyone gets what they’ve been waiting for since the day we left Tirana.”
I just couldn’t shake the feeling that what our enemies had been waiting for was a chance to wipe us all out, once and for all.