21. Tori
TORI
By the time I arrived back at the condo I was practically vibrating with a combination of caffeine and anticipation.
Unfortunately, Stefan wasn’t home yet. I couldn’t stop imagining how our conversation would go.
How he’d react, and what he would say, when I dropped the bomb and told him about the “friend” of his who’d come to see me at the coffee shop that afternoon.
He had finally started opening up to me about KZ Modeling recently.
Not necessarily the details regarding the agency’s shady dealings, but about his role in handling the legitimate side of the business.
I hoped it was a sign that he was beginning to trust me more, and that he’d continue to grow increasingly comfortable about confiding in me.
Especially when it came to Irina and what she’d meant by saying that everything had worked out.
I wanted answers now, and I wanted him to give them to me.
Sitting around and waiting for him to walk in the door was a surefire way for me to drive myself absolutely batty with nerves, so I busied myself by heating up the dinner that Gretna had made for us that evening.
When I entered the kitchen, I found it was still warm and redolent of coq au vin, a rich French poultry dish made with red wine, mushrooms, cognac and pancetta.
It was one of Gretna’s specialties, and the perfect meal for a cold autumn evening, full of carrots, sautéed onions, and garlic.
But I could barely manage to appreciate her efforts as I pulled the large pan back out of the oven, our dinner now piping hot and ready to be served. I was getting frantic.
Where was he? Every minute that ticked by made me squirm.
My phone vibrated with a text and I bolted toward it, slamming my shin painfully into the coffee table as I lunged for my cell. But it wasn’t Stefan. It was Gavin.
How’s my favorite Latin tutor hanging in there? he had texted, along with a winking emoji. Our study room at Regenstein just isn’t the same without you.
Before I could respond, another text popped up. WE MISS YOOOOOOOU!! It was from Lila. After that, a series of heart, flower, and book emojis appeared from Diane’s number.
I couldn’t help smiling. That’s ex-Latin tutor to you, Gavin, I replied. And I miss you all, too. Just trying to play catchup on my assignments at home. This semester’s whooping my ass.
OMG me 2, Audrey texted. Midterms were not kind. I need to seriously ROCK my finals.
After reassuring them all that I’d be back as soon as possible, I went back to the kitchen to warm up the dinner rolls that Gretna had made. The crusty homemade bread smelled so good, I couldn’t help dipping one of the rolls in the wine sauce and eating it as an appetizer.
I was just setting the table in the dining room when I heard a key turn in the lock. Dropping the silverware in my hand, I ran to meet my husband.
Stefan was taking off his shoes in the foyer, and I could barely stand to wait for him to shrug out of his coat and put his laptop bag down.
“I need to tell you something,” I blurted, just as he was unbuttoning his shirt cuff and rolling it up. “I met Irina.”
He froze. He’d been looking down at his sleeve, but when he lifted his head, I was startled by what I saw.
I honestly hadn’t expected much of a reaction. Stefan was excellent at hiding his emotions. At hiding everything. I figured he’d be surprised that I’d met someone from his private circle, but the expression on his face was one of shock, and…what almost looked like fear.
“Irina?” he said slowly. “I’m not sure who that is.”
He was obviously lying, but I wasn’t going to play that game. I kept my gaze focused on his face—needing, wanting the truth.
“You know her,” I told him. “She showed up at the coffee house where I’ve been studying all week and told me she wanted me to give you a message. Though I guess if you’re the wrong Stefan, I shouldn’t tell you what it is.”
I gazed levelly at him, noting the way his mouth twitched. He knew he was caught.
“Tell me what the message is,” he finally said.
Nodding my head, I relayed it. “She wanted you to know that everything worked out. She said she couldn’t get word to you anymore, but she was very grateful. She also said that you’re a good man. And that I was a lucky woman.”
“Hmm,” is all he said in response.
I watched his face very closely as I said, “Is this—did you have a relationship with her?”
There. That got a reaction from him.
“We’ve been over this before,” Stefan said, blatantly annoyed. “As difficult as it is for you to believe this, I haven’t been unfaithful.”
But he wouldn’t look me in the eye.
If he hadn’t been cheating on me, what was he trying to hide?
“Is that dinner I smell?” he said, attempting to change the subject.
As he walked out of the foyer and into the living room, I trailed behind him, refusing to play along, to just let the whole thing drop.
“Who is she?” I prodded. “And what’s the meaning of that message I was supposed to give you? What did you do for her?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Stefan said, sitting down at the table when he reached the dining room and settling his features back into their usual icy solemnity.
Why the obfuscation? He knew exactly what I was talking about.
Asking me what the message was had clearly shown me his hand.
On top of that, I had seen the mix of emotions that had played out on his face, even if it had lasted only a few seconds.
He was involved with her, somehow. There was no denying it.
“Don’t lie to me,” I told him. “I know you know who Irina is. What’s this all about?”
“It’s not your concern,” he said. His stock reply. “Now sit and eat.”
I didn’t budge from the doorway.
“It is my concern. You’re my fucking husband! Irina approached me. She found me, Stefan. How many more women are going to bring me strange messages for you? How many more are going to give me secret information to deliver?”
“It won’t happen again,” he said. “And you’re going to let it drop. Now.”
“How does this not put me in even more danger than I’m already in?” I asked. “Everyone is spying on me.”
“You’re being paranoid.”
“Says the man who told me himself that this world is dangerous and that I had to let him take care of me?” I goaded. “Well, you’re doing a bang-up job of that, aren’t you?”
Rather than engage with my fury, Stefan ignored it, setting a steaming hot roll on his bread and butter plate and then one on mine. “Can you pass the butter, please?”
He was gaslighting me. Again. But I wasn’t going to just stand there and let it slide.
“If I’m yours and no one else’s,” I said, throwing his own recent words back in his face, “then doesn’t that mean that you’re also mine? Doesn’t that mean I’m entitled to know what the fuck you’re doing with these mysterious women all the time?”
I was breathing hard, furious and running low on patience, but Stefan was just gazing at me impassively. He casually poured himself a glass of water. It only infuriated me more.
“Why won’t you talk to me?” I pushed.
Stefan stood and ran a hand through his hair. “You’re obviously not ready to sit down for dinner,” he said. “Just let me know when you are. I’ll be in my office until then.”
Having completely blown me off, he picked up his glass and walked out of the room.
I stared after him, ready to blow a fuse.
His behavior was maddening. And I hated when he walked away from me.
Hated it more than anything when he ignored me like this, completely disregarding my questions and feelings, as if running away from his wife when things got tough was a perfectly acceptable method of conflict resolution.
Following Stefan back through the foyer, down the hall, and into his office, I said, “Tell me. Tell me and I’ll never ask about her again.”
“What do you want me to say?” he asked, glancing up from his desk chair.
“I don’t want you to say anything. I want you to tell me the truth,” I said.
“There’s nothing to tell.”
He turned back toward the desk, opening his laptop.
“Why are you acting like this? I don’t understand why you won’t confide in me. I already know so much. I’m already in danger. Why not just lay it all out on the table?”
“We’re not having this discussion right now,” he said, tapping away at his computer.
Folding my arms, I said, “Then when are we having it? The secrets and the lying and the women are too much. I can’t take any more.”
“Remember what curiosity did to the cat,” he reminded me. “We’re done here.”
I was livid. But fine. If that was how he wanted to play the game, I was more than ready to play. It was time to pull out the big guns.
“You lied to me before, didn’t you?” I practically spat. “She is your mistress. Did she terminate a pregnancy? Is that what “all worked out”?
He froze, his shoulders tensing as if I had thrown something at him.
“Tori—”
“And I bet you paid for it,” I went on. “That’s why she was so grateful.”
I wasn’t completely convinced what I was saying was true—not at all convinced, actually—but I was trying to get a rise out of him. Get him to react. Back him into a corner, so he’d have to tell me something true in order to prove that my accusations were false.
“You think you know everything, but the reality is, you’re completely in the dark.”
He stood up from his chair, closing the gap between us, his eyes blazing with anger.
“So enlighten me,” I said, as calmly and slowly as I could manage.
“You know nothing about what’s really going on here. Not everything is as it seems.”
“Then talk to me. I’m on your team.”
I wanted to give him another chance. Wanted him to understand that I could help him, that I was here for him if only he’d let me be.
“I’ll say this one more time. It’s not. Your. Concern,” he said through gritted teeth.
And then he stood, and in two strides, he was in front of me. Without warning, he grabbed the front of my sweater, fisting the fabric in his fingers and pulling me hard against him. His mouth came crashing down on mine. Brutal. Intense. Perfect.
He kissed me as if he owned me, and I couldn’t resist. I never could resist him.
As I kissed him back, I put my whole heart and soul into it.
I wanted to show him that I was on his side, that we wanted the same things.
He had to realize that he could trust me—that he could tell me the truth.
About Irina. About KZM. About everything.
I could be exactly the wife he wanted me to be, if only he would let me in.
“Stefan,” I moaned.
His mouth plundered mine, cutting off my words, his hands rough on my body. I knew he was winning, that our conversation was effectively over for the time being. And I also knew that there was a good chance he was doing this on purpose.
Did he kiss me this way to distract me, to hide the truth from me?
Maybe the brutal way he treated me in bed wasn’t what it seemed, either.
Maybe his crudeness was a disguise for passion, a way to avoid the inherent risks of intimacy, a way to keep his true feelings buried.
Knowing what I did about Stefan, it all made sense.
That he would keep something vulnerable and tender protected by a coarse exterior.
Did he feel more for me than I realized?
He had just told me that not everything was as it seemed. Was he only alluding to the situation with Irina, with all the models, or did he mean his behavior in the bedroom as well?
I didn’t know what to think or how to feel as his hands gripped the back of my head, his fingers tight in my hair, forcing my head back as his tongue fucked my mouth. His hips were pressed hard against mine, and I could feel his cock, hard and throbbing against my hip.
There was no denying he wanted me—and I wanted him too.
I couldn’t pretend otherwise. The connection we had was so strong, the sex we had was so affirming, that I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to say no to him.
I was already wet as we grappled against the doorway of his office, ready and willing to do whatever he commanded of me.
But even though I couldn’t control the way my body felt toward him, I could still hear the voice in my head telling me that he was using sex as a way to hide something.
That all of this was an act, part of his master plan.
But regardless of his ulterior motives, I wouldn’t stop kissing him.
Scooping my ass into his hands, he lifted me against him, my legs wrapping around his waist. As I moaned softly into his mouth, losing myself in his kisses, he began walking us down the hall and toward the bedroom.
“I need you, Tori,” he growled.
Never had I heard him say those words to me before.
I was incredibly turned on, but I also felt powerful.
If he could admit that he needed me sexually, maybe it was only a matter of time before he realized that he needed me in other ways.
Emotionally, yes, but also as an intellectual partner. A life partner.
But as he carried me over the threshold into our room, throwing me down on the bed with anger and force, I knew that I couldn’t just let him get away with this.
As much as I wanted to lose myself in pleasure, to let him dominate my body, to take out all my stress and anger and betrayal on his cock, I had to get him to tell me about Irina. About all the women like her.
It wasn’t easy to focus with the way he hungrily made his way up my body, pressing hot, hard, biting kisses against my skin as he began to tug my clothes off me.
My body screamed out for his touch, for the release I knew would be coming if I let him continue.
He pulled my jeans down to my ankles and shoved my sweater up and over my head, leaving it there so it covered my face and left me in the dark, as if I was blindfolded.
I panted, unable to see him, only to feel his mouth, his skin, the heat of his breath.
My nipples were aching from the kisses he left there, nipping and licking through the sheer lace of my bra with his tongue.
I thrashed beneath him as he pinned my wrists over my head, wanting him so badly that I could barely maintain focus on the questions still burning in my mind.
That was how I knew I needed him to stop. Because if I let him continue to distract me with sex, then I’d never know the truth. I’d never learn who my husband really was, and what he was truly capable of.
And there was no way I could live with that.