Chapter 7 – Cora #2
As soon as he leaves with Pearl, I get started straightening the kitchen, and I would have been out of there before he got back, but the container of flour slipped through my fingers and went everywhere.
The broom wasn’t cutting it, and it took me forever to find a vacuum, so when Adrian reappeared in the kitchen, it looked like I hadn’t done anything.
While he was upstairs, he took the opportunity to change.
He came home in his usual suit and tie, but now he’s wearing a pair of low-riding sweatpants and a dark gray T-shirt that hugs his pecs and biceps.
He must be planning to work out. He only dresses this casually when he’s going to spend time on the rowing machine.
Leaning a hip against the island, he watches me sweep little bits of dough from the counter into my palm.
He’s still the handsomest man I’ve ever seen in real life, despite the dark smudges he’s sporting under his eyes, and the worst part of this is that he knows I love him in his workout clothes.
He’s posing there all nonchalant because he knows I’ll look.
Before, I’d play along and bend over at the waist to pick up a dishrag from the floor or blot spilled sugar with my finger and lick it clean. I’d lure him to me, and he’d come, smirking, with his dark eyes smoldering, and I’d feel like a fairy princess in a dream come true.
What did Delaney do to get him to come to her? How naked did she get before he deigned to sit his ass on the sofa so she could ride him?
His handsome isn’t charming anymore. It’s mocking. It’s a waste.
He keeps leaning there, though, watching me. If he’s waiting for me to speak, he’s going to be waiting a long time.
Eventually, he reaches into his pocket and drops something onto the island. My eyes instinctually dart to the counter. Another key fob.
“I’d be obliged if you didn’t give this one away,” he says.
“I don’t want it,” I say immediately.
“What changed?”
I’ve been angling for a car of my own for years.
Adrian and I had a running, friendly argument about it since Pearl was born.
I felt isolated out here in the country with Adrian spending so much time in the city, and I thought I’d feel better if I had my own ride.
I could go to the library, the farmer’s market, that kind of thing.
I’d never had my own car. I was lucky I even knew how to drive. I probably never would’ve been taught if one of my foster moms hadn’t wanted me to pick up and drop off the other kids from school.
I don’t ever beg Adrian for things, but I did joke and tease him a lot about buying me a car.
He thought it was safer for me to be driven by a professional, and since there was always a driver available to take me wherever I wanted to go, he didn’t think I had a point about a car making me feel less isolated.
He wouldn’t buy me a car to make me happy, but he’ll buy two so I’ll stop being mad. That’s asshole math for you.
“I don’t want anything from you,” I say, wetting a washcloth to wipe down the mat.
“Cora,” he says, stalking over, stopping inches away to lean against the counter, facing me.
He’s too close. I can smell his deodorant, the kind in the orange stick that he wears when he exercises.
He has different deodorants for work and evenings out, which blew my mind when we got together. Three deodorants for one man.
I focus on scrubbing the mat. He lifts my chin with his finger. I jerk my head away. He sighs, but he doesn’t step back.
“We have prospective clients in town from Delhi. There’s a dinner tomorrow night with the wives at Le Vignoble. I’d like you to come.”
“Pass.”
His eyes flash, but otherwise, his expression remains calm. “You know it’s part of the deal,” he says.
“Hard pass.”
He rests his hand on top of mine, stopping me mid-scrub. “Cora, we have to find a way forward.”
His warm hand envelopes mine completely. I used to love pressing our palms together to compare the sizes of our hands. He’d fold his fingers over top of mine, and I’d feel so safe, like I’d made it to home base in tag.
“We can’t,” I say softly, staring at our hands. “You ruined it.”
“No,” he says, lowering his head. I glance up. The flash in his eyes has become a simmer. His face isn’t calm anymore. It’s grim. Determined. “We’re going to get past this.”
“No, we’re not. There’s nothing to get past. We have a deal. I didn’t understand that before, but now I do.”
He swallows, and my gaze is drawn to his throat.
I’ve always been fascinated by it. I’d never really noticed a man’s Adam’s apple before, but in those early weeks, when we were first talking, and I was too intimidated to hold his gaze for long, my eyes would always drop to his neck, and I’d watch that bump rise and fall as he spoke or swallowed.
I missed it when his collar and tie covered it up, and I felt like he’d let me in on a secret when he unbuttoned his shirt or wore a sweater.
I’ve obsessed about every part of him at some point—stared and daydreamed and fantasized—and he’s always just been satisfied with his purchase.
My heart cracks all over again, and it feels like my entire self is spilling out.
I lift my hands to my chest, an instinctual gesture to hold what’s left of myself in, and Adrian’s hand comes with mine.
He slides his palm up my neck to cradle my jaw, and his touch feels so familiar, so natural, that my broken brain doesn’t register alarm until his lips are pressing against mine, and they taste the same, they feel the way they did when I believed he loved me, and I was happy, and I thought I’d ended up home safe in a real family, despite it all.
My lips part to say no. His tongue slips past my teeth, hungry and insistent, and my stupid heart leaps and shouts, he wants you. I whimper. He drags me to his chest.
All the hapless, busted love swirls up inside me like a dust storm.
I clutch his biceps, digging my fingers deep in the muscle, holding onto him for dear life, opening my mouth for him, my skin tingling, coming to life as every nerve in my body remembers this—the rightness, the sweetness, the delight.
And then my memory vomits up an image of Delaney’s bare pussy pumping up and down on his dick.
I shove him. Hard. He’s too strong to budge, or I’m too weak, so I do it again, and after a beat, he takes a step back. I’m panting. The pulse in his throat hammers against his skin.
“I’m not going to your stupid dinner,” I say and begin to toss things into the sink—the rolling pin, the measuring spoons, the butter knife. I flip on the faucet so I don’t have to hear him. “Take Delaney.”
“I want to take you. I want to take my wife.” He says wife angrily, like I owe him something, and I’m refusing to pay up.
I throw a dish towel over my shoulder and turn on him. “Make me an offer then.”
His brow furrows, his face darkening.
“Give me a number. If a baby is twenty million dollars, how much is a cheap fuck? What’s the Blue Book value of a new Rennard SUV?”
“You really want me to pay you to eat dinner with me?” Anger and contempt and something else, something raw and unfamiliar, war in his voice.
“Yeah. Let’s deal with each other plainly, Adrian. What’s three hours of my time worth?”
“You hold the cards, Cora. You set the price.”
“Wrong. You’re the one who made this about money.” I glare at him with all the hate in my heart. “You know what? Never mind. I changed my mind. There isn’t enough cash in the world.”
He clasps his hands behind his head in exasperation and stalks away, but before he gets far, he whirls back around. “Is this really what you want for the kids? You really want them to grow up in this?” He gestures between us.
It’s unfair. It’s bullshit, but it’s a direct hit. No, this isn’t what I wanted for my kids. As a matter of fact, my entire life, I swore I’d never have children, even though I loved kids, because I’d never subject any innocent person to the kind of shit this world casually deals out on the daily.
But then I met him, and he was kind and strong and he loved me.
I felt it in my bones. And for the first time in my life, I dared to hope that I could have what other people have and don’t even think twice about.
He wanted to marry me. He built us a big house in the country with a formal garden and a fountain and a boathouse on the river.
We had a little girl, and then another, and they were never going to know what it felt like to go to bed hungry or clean up their mother’s works from the coffee table or jam the back of a chair under a door handle to slow a drunk man down.
They have their own rooms. Their own beds. Brand new matching outfits and new shoes before their toes even need the room.
They’re happy. They sleep like fat cats on a sunny window ledge, oblivious to the world. And they’ll always be okay because they have two parents who love them, who love each other, and who will keep them safe no matter what.
Except they don’t.
I sway on my feet. The pressure in my head is swelling, roaring in my ears, pushing at the insides of my eyeballs.
I need a moment, a second to clear my head, but Adrian just keeps going. “Pearl is a smart little girl. She’s going to catch on sooner or later. Don’t you think you owe it to her to at least attempt to resolve this?”
Resolve this? When did his tune change? Whatever happened to “I suggest you find it within yourself to move past this?”
My eyes catch on the butter knife lying in the sink. I wish it were a butcher knife.
“I know you want what’s best for the girls, Cora. Please. Let’s talk.”
I wish the water was loud enough to drown him out. I wish he’d shut his lying, asshole mouth.
I reach over to the wall and switch on the garbage disposal. It purrs, and that’s better, but I can still hear him.
“I’m not going to go away,” he says. “You’re going to have to deal with this.”
No, I don’t.