Chapter 17 – Adrian
ADRIAN
I wake up back where I want to be, in my bed, my wife curled up in my arms like a shrimp, my cock nestled into the cleft of her ass.
Last night flashes through my mind. Delaney strutting into the room, and the light leaving Cora’s eyes.
The elevator door shutting seconds before I got there.
My mad dash to the emergency stairs and then the screech and stink of rubber and sickening crunch as the Scorpion crumpled on that column like an accordion.
No more supercars, no more sports cars, no more Italian cars, period. Large SUVs only from here on out. Or minivans. They don’t look that bad, right? At least not from the inside.
My heart is still stuck in the back of my throat. I tug Cora closer by her hips, even though she’s already tucked tight against me. She’s dead to the world. Hasn’t moved all night since Farhadi gave the all clear and left.
What the hell do I do?
I’m sure Farhadi would insist on immediate intervention at this point, but Cora’s “no” was emphatic when I suggested talking to a professional, and there was fear—horror, really—in her eyes.
I’m not inclined to push her, even now. That leaves persuasion, but persuasion takes time and trust, and I’m short on both. Whatever’s happening with her is getting worse quickly.
I have no idea what I’m dealing with, and that makes me deeply uneasy. I’ve meticulously arranged my life so that I’m always in the know and always in control. This is not a familiar headspace for me. Not as a grown man.
The rational move is to get her treatment. There are excellent places. Discreet. Five star. I’ve heard they’re virtually indistinguishable from a spa or resort.
The girls and I could go with her, stay nearby. She could see them as much as she wants.
I’m one hundred percent sure, though, that the moment I leave her somewhere and take the children, even for the night, she’ll never forgive me.
I misread her so completely before that I blew up our life. I would never have misread a competitor so badly, not even if I had bad information. I have killer instincts. It’s the thing everyone knows about me.
The thing I know about myself.
So why couldn’t I see her clearly? What if I’m making the wrong call now?
What if I’m talking myself out of making her get treatment because I’m afraid any competent shrink would tell her to leave me? Am I that much of a bastard?
I bury my nose in her hair, inhaling her uniquely Cora scent. She smells like her yellow melon shampoo with faint notes of evaporated sex sweat and breast milk. I’ve missed it.
When I married her, I appreciated her natural blonde hair, her blue eyes and delicate bone structure. She’s a perfectly rendered woman—dewy skin, Pilates body, curvy and toned in the right places.
Now, I don’t really see any of that when I look at her. Like in this moment, her sleep shirt is worked up past her waist—Pearl does the same when she sleeps, and I have no idea how they manage it—and my eyes are drawn to the white streaks on her hips.
I love the streaks. She’d hate it if she knew. When we’re at the pool, she thinks I’m checking out her ass, but I’m admiring the streaks. They show even better when she has a tan.
She’d hate it even more if she knew why I’m obsessed with her stretch marks. I put them there when I fucked a baby into her belly. I marked her perfect body. In a way, that makes it mine. Like biting an apple.
It’s fucked up, but so am I.
So is she.
Is that why I didn’t read her right?
I run my fingertip along her stripes, lightly, listening to her breathing so I can stop if I disturb her.
For the hundredth time, why the hell did I fuck Delaney Pierson? Women come on to me all the time. I’m never tempted. I’m not led by my dick.
I was on edge that night.
Because of Cora?
Yes. Because of Cora.
Why?
She asked if I was angry at her because she married me for money, but I’m not. That’s one of the reasons I married her. I wanted a wife who was dependent on me. It was never a negative.
At first.
Because if I’m going to be honest with myself, if I’m going to stare this shit in the face, if it’s worth it to me to fix this, really fix it, I can’t cover my eyes and say I don’t know what was wrong with me that night.
I do know.
I wrap my arms around her, and she snuggles closer in her sleep.
When I married her, I wanted her locked down, and I got it. She signed the prenup. I knocked her up, and she moved into the house I built for her. She relied on me for everything.
Life was exactly as I’d planned. Pearl was born. Fatherhood didn’t come as naturally to me as I’d assumed it would, but with the role model I had growing up, that was hardly a surprise. I was conscientious, though. I spent the time and put forth the effort. Cora bridged the gap and eased the way.
And then, if I’m really admitting the truth, somewhere along the way, I noticed that she has two smiles—the polite, compulsory one and the real one.
No matter how much I analyzed, I couldn’t predict or plan for the real smile.
They were pure variable reinforcement, like a slot machine. Wildly addictive.
I got real smiles for the most random things—giving Pearl the last bite of my cookie, tapping Cora’s ass with my boat paddle while she’s standing on the dock, returning her galoshes in the right cubby in the mudroom when she accidentally put them in Pearl’s cubby.
The two types of smiles weren’t the problem. It was that I was waiting for the real ones. I was angling for them. Craving them.
And since I didn’t know what I did to cause them, I knew I’d lose them. One day. So I started waiting for that, bracing for it, but I kept making bids for the smiles, too.
Like those stupid blue and yellow wildflowers. I bought them from a Ukrainian grocery in the East Village on a whim. I told Cora they reminded me of her and waited for a smile. She thanked me and took them away to put them in water.
The next morning, on my way to work, I saw the roses I have delivered weekly on display in their usual vase in the foyer. No wildflowers.
No smile.
I wasn’t hurt or angry. That would’ve been pathetic. Besides, there was nothing to be upset about. She was mine, and she was content. I had the life I wanted. She wasn’t going to leave me. Not with the prenup.
So I drove into the city, and after a few sleepless nights in the corporate apartment, I got drunk at a work function and fucked my director of finance.
Because my wife didn’t smile at me when I brought her flowers?
I cannot be that stupid.
I can’t be that small.
But yeah—that’s why I did it. Because she didn’t love me. She only married me so I would take care of her, and one day, I’d have nothing to hold her to me anymore, and she’d leave. And I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t take another day of waiting for her to leave me alone again.
So I blew up my marriage. The worst of it, the moment that now plays over and over in my mind, is the instant I looked into Cora’s eyes as she stepped out of that elevator—I knew, although I didn’t admit it to myself, that she had felt something, and I’d killed it. I watched it die.
I’m a weak man, and I hurt her over a smile I wanted and didn’t get.
I’m not familiar with shame. It tastes like fucking ass.
My grip on Cora must tighten because she startles, her eyelids flying open. Her gaze floods with worry. I blank my face.
“Good morning, beautiful,” I rumble.
“What’s wrong?” Her whole body tenses.
“Nothing. Everything’s fine. How are you feeling?”
Her muscles slowly relax. She uncurls and winces. “Sore.” She glances at me warily. “What’s going to happen?” She’s talking about the car. The fear and dread in her voice curdles my gut.
I think quickly, trying to remember the outings I had planned for December. The family calendar has gone out the window the past month, but Michelle sets it up a quarter in advance.
“We’ll go get the Christmas tree.” I’m pretty sure I accepted an invite to that. “Do you think you’re up to that, or are you too sore?”
Her eyes have cleared. She’s rotated onto her back to stretch gingerly, but she’s not moving away from me. “I should be okay after a Tylenol and some coffee.”
“And breakfast.”
She glances over mid-stretch and smiles. It’s tight and rough and wary, but it’s real. “Blueberry muffins,” she says.
I smile back. I have no idea if it looks fake or not, or if she’d notice either way, but it’s real. I feel excruciatingly exposed, like my dick is out on Fifth Avenue. “And some protein.”
“And some bacon,” she agrees as she stiffly maneuvers herself up to sitting.
I have no business being happy. My wife is losing it, and our marriage is hanging on by a thread.
Bacon is good, though. The nitrates will kill you, but once in a while—maybe it won’t hurt.
We take the Range Rover to the tree farm. I bought the vehicle to haul my rowing shell to regattas, but it’s become something of a family car.
Cora is subdued, and she’s moving slower than usual, but she doesn’t have that awful dead look in her eyes anymore.
She’s being almost shy with me, casting me side glances and letting me do things that I wouldn’t have dared try this past month.
I help her on with her winter coat before we leave, and she stands patiently while I zip her up.
On the drive to the farm, I rest my hand on her thigh, and she doesn’t push it away.
When I get to the farm, I help her down and wrap her scarf an extra time around her neck before I extract Winnie from her seat.
By the time I help Cora settle Winnie in her carrier, Pearl has lowered herself down backward from the car, and she’s splatting in muddy puddles from last night’s snow that have filled the tire tracks. She’s amped.
As far as I know, none of us have chopped down our own tree before. The staff usually handles it.