Chapter 12 Sort-of Date
TWELVE
SORT-OF DATE
ANNALIESE
I’m the one who wrote out the marital agreement, plus the prenup, using everything I picked up working at Eric’s law firm.
All it needs to be formalized is to have a notary stamp it with their seal, but for all intents and purposes, it’s a contract that sets out the terms for our marriage of convenience.
Our fake marriage.
About three weeks into being Mrs. Sebastien Reynolds, I realize that I forgot the most important clause.
I never agreed that I wouldn’t fall in love with him.
Oh, I promised myself that I wouldn’t. I fucking swore.
After everything that happened with Eric, I never wanted to fall in love again.
I could do cooking. Cleaning. Fucking. I could be a pretty face on his arm, no personality, doing exactly what my husband wanted just like my former lover trained me to do.
But that was when I expected my fake husband would be treating this arrangement just like that.
And, true, I should’ve suspected something was off when Sebastien insisted on us going through a real wedding with witnesses, but I couldn’t deny that our fake marriage would have more standing in the Order if, you know, we actually had one.
Anything for Miranda. That’s what I told myself. Anything for my sister.
I haven’t heard from Eric. The fact that he’s still blocked helps, but he knows where I live. He pointed it out the last time he summoned me to his house. He could come here if he wanted to, and I’m so damn glad that he doesn’t want to. So far, my plan is working.
Except for the teensy tiny hitch in it.
I’m falling for my husband.
I don’t want to. I keep trying to step. I don’t even know when it started.
When that charming grin of his had me going breathless.
When I looked at him poured into his black jeans, muscle tee, and leather jacket and couldn’t stop endlessly reliving that night we shared at the Last Prayer.
When his touches—as casual and careful as they were at the beginning of our ‘marriage—started to feel like promises against my skin.
When he called me ‘love’ almost as though he meant it, knowing that he can’t…
It’s stupid. No. It’s dangerous.
Eric will kill him. If he finds out that I really did marry for love—no matter why I proposed to Sebastien Reynolds in the first place—he won’t take it well.
I honestly think he might be able to forget an Order-approved marriage of convenience.
But for me to love someone that isn’t him?
I don’t even want to think about how he’ll react.
Especially since there’s no way that Sebastien will ever love me.
I promised I’d be the best fake wife possible. So far, he’s been the best fake husband I could hope for.
He knows about the intimacy clause in the contract; he pointed it out himself. And yet… he hasn’t pushed for any sort of it despite what happened between us at the Last Prayer. His touches can be possessive, but never disrespectful.
I know why. Of course I do. I might not have grown up in the Order, but I’ve been part of the secret society’s way of life long enough to understand.
Miranda only confirmed it. My husband is a regular at the Court.
That means that he’s known to sleep around, both with the Used and whoever will have him…
like I did when I was looking for a distraction.
Sleeping with the Used isn’t considered cheating in his world.
Even if this marriage isn’t fake, I know who I married.
A high-ranking Order member, no matter how much Sebastien seems to want to distance himself from it…
I’d have no right to expect fidelity from him.
He was raised as an Owed. I doubt the idea of being loyal to his wife is anything those men know how to do.
Eric is a prime example of that.
And yet… when I’m alone at night, wondering where Sebastien and what he’s doing… who he’s doing… I replay what he told me after the evening he signed the contract.
I don’t do fake.
So what is this then?
We have dinner multiple nights a week. He makes an excuse to stop by my apartment at least every few days.
He says it’s to make sure everyone knows I’m his, but I saw him chatting with my next door neighbor the other day.
Kimmie and Paul aren’t involved in the Order, so why did it matter if they knew I was in a relationship?
That I was married?
I mean, the ring on my finger gives it away, but for Kimmie to congratulate me and gush that my husband is adorably sexy… I hate that I was jealous. Kimmie is more than a decade older than me, happily married to Paul, and they have four kids. I shouldn’t be jealous.
Damn it, I’m jealous.
But I can’t be. And just like I told myself that I won’t fall in love with Sebastien, I insist that I’ll prove that I’m not jealous. I’ll follow the contract to the best of my ability, sticking to the same ‘marriage of convenience’ refrain.
This is a professional partnership, and nothing more.
And I manage to do that until one Friday night, three weeks after our wedding, when I haven’t heard from Sebastien in two days and I let the bubbling jealousy erupt like a volcano.
I don’t even know what triggers it. I’m used to being in my apartment alone.
Sebastien hasn’t asked me to come home with him since I proposed to him, and even when we have dinner, he drops me off at my door, the perfect gentleman.
It shouldn’t bother me that it’s eight o’clock, my dinner is sitting heavily in my stomach, and my mind is providing unnecessary images of my husband kissing some faceless woman before offering her his hand, then leading her to a quiet spot so that he could fuck her the same way he fucked me once.
I shouldn’t. I know better. I should grab a glass of wine, dull my jealous ache, and go to bed early—
I grab my phone. Taking a deep breath, I scroll down to H in my contacts and press the only one there.
It rings once.
“Love.” His voice is warm, and my stomach flip-flops. “Was just thinking about you.”
I called him. I proposed to him. This is my idea… and hearing him call me ‘love’ like that hurts more than it should. Not when he can’t ever really mean it. “You shouldn’t call me that.”
Or tell me you’re thinking about me when all I’ve been doing lately is obsessing over you.
“Shouldn’t,” he echoes cheerfully. “Still going to.”
Damn it, Annaliese. Why does the way he say that soothe something jagged inside your chest? I shake my head, then find myself blurting out: “Just thought I’d call to say ‘hi’. I mean, if that’s okay.”
“Of course it is. It made my day, hearing your voice. What’s up? Is something wrong?”
I’m not surprised that he asked me that. After all, I only badgered her into this marriage for protection. “No. I was bored. Though I’d see what you’re doing.”
Instead of telling me it’s none of my business, Sebastien actually answers me. “About to head out. I was supposed to meet with Dallas, but he bailed on me so I figured I’d go get a drink by myself.”
A drink.
With who?
How many Used women will throw themselves at him tonight?
“Where?” I ask. It comes out before I can think better of it.
There’s a beat. “Why? Planning to join me?”
Holy shit. I wasn’t expecting that answer, but if he’s offering… “If you’d like the company, I wouldn’t mind getting a drink.”
He exhales softly, and unless I’m imagining it, he sounds pleased. “Great. I’ll come pick you up. Twenty minutes okay?”
I glance down at myself, my heart already thudding at the idea of going on a sort-of date with my husband—even if it’s one I basically invited myself on. “Yeah. That’s okay.”
“See you then, love,” Sebastien says, hanging up before I can chide him for using his pet name for me again.
The moment the line goes dead, I toss my phone and hop up from the couch.
This isn’t just dinner with Sebastien at an Order-run dinner.
I’m good at those; my relationship with Eric made me a pro, even if all of our dinners were kept to the shadowy corners and backrooms where he kept me hidden.
But drinks? There’s no way not to compare this to the night we first met, and if I suddenly want to relive that night more than anything, I can’t help it.
I walk over to my closet, tug the door open, and freeze.
Looking inside, I see rows and rows of dresses. Soft colors, pinks and creams and lavenders. All of their necklines high, the hemlines low, none of them climbing higher than my knees. I see silks and chiffons and purposely curated elegance.
The outfits that Eric bought for me are probably still at his house; if not there, then a landfill.
Even so, when I moved out, I built a wardrobe that he would’ve been proud of.
Not on purpose. Totally subconsciously. That’s what so many years of being trained by your much older lover gets you, I guess.
He wanted the perfect Offering.
The perfect mistress.
That’s what I became, but now I’m neither. I’m Sebastien Reynolds’ wife, and as I reach for one of the dresses out of habit, I stop halfway as a memory rushes back to me.
It’s Sebastien. Either the first night he picked me up for dinner or the second…
he’d knocked at my door, and when I let him in, he cast his gaze over my clutch, my proper dress, my chignon, and my understated makeup.
He smiled, but then he said in a soft voice, “You don’t have to try so hard for me, love. ”
It was at that moment that I realized just how hard I tried for Eric.
My hand drops. I frown, disregarding the dresses in my closet. Then, with a spark of inspiration, I slam shut the closet door, dropping to my knees to grab the under-the-bed storage tote I shoved under there.