Chapter Forty-Five
Tate: Tell Tiernan I want to see him.
Tate: This weekend.
Achilles: Am I wearing a pencil skirt and please-fuck-me-daddy lipstick?
Tate: I hope not. You don’t have the ass to pull it off.
Achilles: Then stop treating me like I’m your fucking secretary.
Tate: This bullshit needs to stop.
Achilles: You just burned down his CLUB. It’s his move.
Tate: Gia’s mother passed away. She doesn’t need to worry about this shit. Set up a meeting.
Achilles: He’s not going to let you off the hook.
Tate: I’ll hand over the damn vessels and eat the loss.
Achilles: That was never gonna cut it.
Tate: Would 200M do?
Achilles: I’ll see what I can do.
When we got back home, Gia went straight to her old room and locked herself in the bathroom.
I paced back and forth, listening to the shower spray on the other side, punctuated by her sobs. I felt a lot of inconvenient feelings, and I wanted them all gone.
Annoyance. Dread. Exhaustion. Terror. Sadness. Goddamn sadness for someone I didn’t even know and who meant nothing to me.
“Gia,” I growled every half an hour through the door, just to confirm she was still alive. She’d hiccup by way of response, and I’d return to my pacing. This went on for three hours. It was late, and she hadn’t eaten all day.
I asked her through the door what she wanted to eat, but there was no answer.
Deciding not to inconvenience her further with mundane questions, I DoorDashed from seventeen different restaurants to cover my bases.
Would she be in the mood for a double cheeseburger or black truffle risotto? Fuck knew.
Eager to relieve my wife from administrative duties, I assigned Edith, my new secretary, to deal with the funeral preparations. It helped that Edith was entirely focused on doing her job and not on trying to get me to fuck her.
At around ten thirty, Gia finally left the bathroom. She wore an ivory satin robe; her eyes were swollen and glassy.
“I bought you food,” I clipped out, unable to soften my tone. It wasn’t anger. It was anxiety. A combination of not being able to tend to my daily rituals and the looming idea of losing her.
“I’m not hungry.” She sniffled. “Cheers, though. What did you order?”
“Everything.”
She elevated a doubtful brow. Clearly, she underestimated my level of unhinged.
“I wasn’t sure what you’d like. So I ordered Italian, Greek, Thai, Chinese, Cuban, Mexican, Japanese, Vietnamese, McDonald’s, Indian, Peruvian, soul food, sushirito, salad, and a few more things I can’t recall.
” I frowned. “Pretty sure we’re still waiting on the Tex-Mex, but the elevators are jammed because of all the delivery guys. ”
She looked exhausted. I was losing her, and I had no way to pull her back to me. I was a fantastic fuck with a deep wallet, but I fucked this up so many times with her. Before we even got together.
She needed comfort and stability. Not a complete maniac who scribbled equations all over the walls and was subject to sudden bursts of violence.
I’d deteriorated in recent weeks.
“I really appreciate it, Tate. But I have no appetite.”
“Okay.” I ran my tongue over my upper teeth. Don’t fucking snap. This isn’t about you. It’s about her. “What do you want to do?”
Her usually hooded, feline eyes looked tiny after all the crying. “What is there to do?”
Think, asshole, think. What do couples do that doesn’t include sex? You watched enough TV in your lifetime. Surely, you can come up with something.
“Anything.” I snarled, but at least managed not to show my teeth this time.
“Watch a movie. Play Monopoly. Chess. Cards. Take a walk.” Take a walk?
What is she, a fucking Pomeranian? “I could take you to Paris. Maybe to London for a pint.” I could buy you the London Eye if it makes you happy.
“Look, you can fucking shoot me for shits and giggles. My pain threshold is incredibly high. Just tell me what to do.”
My wife didn’t seem impressed with my suggestions. I wondered how long I’d be able to call her my wife before she’d turn into my ex -wife. Those, I had plenty of. Only they never truly felt like wives to me. Humans, I found, were a currency, like money.
Except for Gia. But she wasn’t a human. She was a goddess.
“I think I’ll just go to bed if that’s okay.” Gia looked around her, hugging her midriff.
I stepped sideways to give her access to the door. “I have a weighted blanket somewhere. Would you like me to bring it to our bed?”
“I’d like to sleep here if that’s okay.” She licked her lips. “ Alone .”
I’d been shot before. Once. In the ass. It happened when wife number two caught me in bed with her sister. Or maybe it was her cousin. Anyway, they bore adequate similarities, and by the time I realized I was fucking the wrong person, I was too close to the finish line to stop.
I was running stark naked from the French chateau where it happened when she decided to aim a vintage rifle at me from her Juliet balcony.
The bullet not only grazed my ass, it took out a nice chunk of it.
At the time, I thought nothing could be more painful or humbling than to have my ass stitched together sans painkiller while a judgmental doctor listened to my ex-wife animatedly explain how the accident occurred.
But I was wrong.
This was worse.
Far worse.
More painful. More humiliating. More everything .
“Alone,” I repeated. “Of course. Can I get you anything before I leave? Water? Tea? Some Advil?”
She shook her head. “I just want to rest. I haven’t really slept well since they transferred Mum to hospice. I kept waking up every hour to check my phone.”
I evacuated myself from her room, stalking off to my office.
An office that currently looked like a math book vomited all over it.
Every inch was covered in numbers. I cracked open some books.
I did my equations. I tapped. I counted hardcovers on shelves.
Grains in an hourglass. Tiles on floors.
I read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in English.
And Flemish.
And French.
Nothing helped. I wanted to claw my skin off my fucking body.
It was never about my OCD. It was all the other stuff Dr. Patel diagnosed me with.
The things I ran away from. The mood swings.
The chemical deficit. What were his exact words?
Oh yeah— the antisocial personality disorder you struggle with, paired with your cognitive distortion and traumatic past, is the equivalent of sitting on a barrel full of dynamite and playing with matches.
I strongly recommend psychotherapy, keeping up with your mood stabilizers, and cognitive behavioral therapy. Consistency is key.
I was sick.
I had been sick for a very long time.
I’d had no one to get better for.
Until now.
I’d been selfish, I realized. Selfish in pursuing my revenge, in putting Gia at risk. Selfish for not taking care of my mental health, my issues, my shortcomings, and letting everyone around me bear the consequences.
I would never be a good man.
But I would be a good husband.
I logged into my email and was about to answer Dr. Patel. Then, thinking better of it, I called him. It was one in the morning, but he’d survive.
“Tate,” Dr. Patel answered on the first ring. Talk about a fucking fanboy.
“Arjun.”
Silence ensued before I managed to push the words out of my mouth. The last time we spoke, it ended with me stalking out of his office in a blaze of fury.
“I got married.”
“Congratulations.” His voice was neutral and belied his true feelings. “I’m guessing Gia Bennett is the lucky bride.”
“Yes.”
He knew, because in our last session, I’d foolishly told him why I hired her. About how I made her life a living hell.
And thought about her every time I fucked someone.
And dreamed about her every single moment she wasn’t next to me.
He pleaded with me to get evaluated for a bunch of other shit. I refused. He told me I was emotionally harassing her because I resented her for stirring emotions in me. That I was in love with her.
I told him he was high and needed to have his license revoked.
Things got… heated . I left.
I left, because I thought I knew better.
But I didn’t. And now here I was.
“I need to get better.” I swallowed. “For her.”
“For both of you,” he corrected softly. “When can I see you?”
“Tomorrow,” I said. I knew he was booked out a year, but he’d find time for me. “I’ll pay you double to meet me at an unorthodox hour.”
“No need for that. How about ten thirty p.m.?”
“Yes.”
I killed the call and fell to my knees, surrendering to the new, foreign feeling I had been trying to run away from for the past few weeks.
For the past few years.
For my entire life.
Love .