Chapter 5
Conner was downright morose during lunch. But at least Eve had bounced back from our rocky morning.
“Then Leah said she liked Toby, but Toby and his stupid friends found out. The boys were so mean to her!” She glared at Conner. “I’ll never like boys. Gross.”
He glared right back, and that warning glint in his blue eyes sent a chill down my spine. He certainly had the best of Gage in him—his fierce loyalty, for one—but every now and again I glimpsed the same dominant curve to that boy’s smile.
But Conner was far from smiling now. He hadn’t said a word since we’d all sat down for lunch. To say he was unhappy at losing video game privileges was an understatement. Eve either didn’t care, or she was oblivious. She continued her hundred-mile-per-hour chatter.
“I’m sooo glad Leah isn’t a boy,” she said. “Or we couldn’t be friends.” Eve scrunched her nose. “But she likes boys!” she said, rolling her eyes. “Why do girls like boys, Mom?” She’d stopped calling me “Mommy” at the start of first grade, because apparently, Leah said it was a baby thing to do.
“That’s a good question.” Why did we put up with men? We not only liked them, but we fucking loved them—even when they left our asses tender from obscene punishments. It was insanity.
“Is Simone still your best friend?” Eve asked me.
The girl had a sharp memory. Before I could answer, Gage interjected.
“Actually, your mom is spending the day with Simone on Monday.”
I turned a stunned gaze on him. He shot me a grin, the tilt of his mouth hinting at how happy my submission earlier in the bedroom had made him.
“Your mom works hard around here to take care of us,” he told Eve. “I think it’s time she had a day to herself. What do you think, kids?”
“Can I go, too? Pleeease?” Eve whined.
“Sorry, princess. You’ve got school.”
Conner shoved his plate away. “Can I be done? I wanna go to my room.”
I thought Gage was going to object, but the dejected sigh he let out instead pricked at my heart. He was trying so hard to connect with Conner.
“Go ahead.”
The legs of Conner’s chair scraped the floor, and he left the room without ceremony. The boy spent most of the day in his room until Gage made him join us for a board game.
And that was how the weekend passed—uneventful and unbearably slow.
Normally, it wouldn’t bother me so much, but I had plans for the first time in months, set in stone later that night after Gage programmed Simone’s number into my cell and gave me permission to call her.
For whatever reason, he was giving me a reprieve from the monotony of my life for a day.
My fingers clutched my cell, but I didn’t move to make the call. No, my first instinct was to question him on his unexpected generosity, but upon his eyebrow quirk, I shoved my reservations aside and dialed Simone.
Permission was permission. And hell, I was excited at the prospect of a girls’ day out.
Regardless, I couldn’t help but dissect the implications.
Either aliens had taken over Gage’s body, or punishing me in the ass had put him in a damn good mood.
It was the only explanation I could come up with because Simone had been a sore spot in our recent history ever since she’d come to me about Ian’s cancer.
Not that Gage had cared for her to begin with, but this was the first time in…
ever that he’d given me the go-ahead—on his prerogative, for that matter—without so much as a sideways glance.
And that made me the suspicious one. It made the stubborn part of my mind latch right onto Katherine again, agonizing over the what-ifs. By the time Monday arrived, I’d given in to the poisonous doubts plaguing me. I was in full-on paranoid mode.
Simone was unusually quiet from across the small table for two at our favorite bistro.
Tilting my head, I tried catching her gaze.
She’d barely said two words since we’d given the waitress our lunch orders.
I knew she wasn’t happy with the way I’d gone MIA for the last few months, but I’d naively thought we could pick up where we’d left off.
I’d naively thought she’d understand. I should have known better.
“I’m kind of surprised you called,” she said, breaking the silence.
“I’m sorry, Simone.”
I didn’t have a choice.
She’d disagree. Everyone had a choice, she’d say in that indignant tone of hers. The rational part of my brain—the part that wasn’t led around by Gage’s cock—would agree with her.
“That’s all you’re going to say after giving me radio silence for so long?”
The waitress arrived with our orders, which gave me a few moments to figure out how to go forward with this tricky conversation. Spilling my guts to her used to be easy, but now tension simmered between us, and I hated every second of it.
“You know I have certain…rules to follow. Things got complicated after…”
After Ian.
So much to discuss, but I couldn’t even bring myself to say his name. She shifted, tilted her head, and I recognized the signs. Go on, she silently told me.
“After everything that happened, Gage and I had a lot of issues to work through.” What a fucking understatement.
She didn’t know the half of it. She knew more than most people did about my fucked up arrangement with my husband, but I wasn’t about to speak of those torturous months spent in his cage, bound and gagged for my sins.
If I opened that can of disturbingly wrong, I’d have to justify his actions, and somehow, they only sounded justifiable in my poisoned mind.
There was just no way of explaining that to her.
“I didn’t mean to shut you out, Simone.”
She took in a breath, then blew it out, ruffling her blond hair. “I get it. You obviously have baggage you don’t want to get into. I’m just glad you’re finally back.” Her brows furrowed over deep brown eyes. “You are back, right? No more disappearing on me for months at a time?”
A weak smile took hold of my lips. “I think things are starting to settle down again.”
“So you worked shit out?”
I heard so much more in that question—all the ones she didn’t ask. The ones she would probably never ask because she respected my boundaries too much to pry. Hell, she respected my boundaries better than my husband did.
“We’re getting there,” I hedged.
“I’ve got a nosy ear, you know.” She fit her palm behind her right ear, and I had to laugh. But then the image of Gage and Katherine whirled through my head and blew that small amount of joy to the next county over.
“I’m scared he’s fucking her.” The words tore from my mouth before I could stop them. And damn, they weren’t even true…entirely. I believed him when he said he wouldn’t touch her…didn’t I?
“Who?” Simone bit into her BLT sandwich.
“Katherine.”
She halted her chewing long enough to raise a brow, then a few moments later, she wiped her mouth with a napkin. “She’s still an issue?”
Hell, Katherine had been an issue since the day Gage had first hired me on as his personal assistant. She was the weed that refused to go away. Her presence just spread and spread until the bitch sprang up in the cracks of our marriage.
“I don’t know. He swears nothing is going on with her.”
“You think he’s lying?”
“I…” I replayed his words in my mind, and deep down I knew he’d meant them. “No. Not really. But she just has a way of getting to me. She touches him every chance she gets, shows up at his hotel room—”
“She what?”
I nodded, feeling even more miserable. “He said he slammed the door in her face.” I wondered what Simone’s reaction would be if I told her the rest—how he’d jacked off while imagining his cock in my throat. I parted my lips and drew in a thready breath.
“It really boils down to one thing. Do you trust him?”
She made it sound so easy, but as I examined my feelings and tore apart his words, dissected his actions, I realized that I did.
Mostly. There were plenty of things not to trust him about—anytime he came near me with his cock at the ready and a belt or whip in his fist, for instance—but on a fundamental level, I did trust him.
If I didn’t, why would I keep putting myself through this? Why keep bending and bending and bending?
“I do trust him,” I said, swiping my bangs to the side. “I love him. More than I could ever say. More than even makes sense.”
“Then I’d put the baby mama out of your head. He married you, and though I won’t begin to understand or approve of your…weird relationship, he has always come across as pretty fucking whipped.”
I almost spluttered my tea all over the table at her words.
Gage, whipped? But the more I thought about it, the more it clicked, because when you got down to the nitty-gritty, we had each other wrapped.
“I guess you’re right. I just wish I could get that woman out of my head.
The way she touches him, and the way she glares at me…
God, Simone, she makes me see red and green at the same time. ”
“You need a fucking hobby.” Simone’s mouth twisted into a scowl, but her gaze softened as she said it to take out some of the sting.
“A hobby?” I asked, absently picking at my half-eaten quiche. Apparently, the subject of Katherine made me lose my appetite. Or maybe it was the smell of overcooked cheese. I pushed the plate away, scrunching my nose. “Why do you say that?”
Simone made a scoffing sound, and I glanced up to find her reclined in her seat, arms crossed. “To hear you talk, it sounds like your whole life revolves around Gage and what he may or may not be doing with Katherine.”
A hobby might not be a bad idea. Maybe I could start collecting trinkets, like dolphins or dragons.
Or elephants.
Definitely elephants. Lord knew I had plenty of those in my life. Gigantic ones that ate up too much space and sucked up all the air. One stood between Gage and me in the form of Katherine. But the biggest one sat smack in the middle of Simone and me.
This elephant’s name was Ian, and he’d grown too secure in his comfy spot since that damn note had magically appeared on my door. But it was easier, safer, to focus on my marriage and the interloper named Katherine. The subject of Ian was too dangerous. Too painful.
Simone must have agreed because she didn’t bring him up once. Not to tell me he was okay—the note had already done that—and certainly not to tell me whether or not she’d spoken to him or seen him.
And maybe it was better this way.
“If you’re really worried about Katherine,” Simone said, “then talk to Gage. Just be honest with him. Tell him how you’re feeling.”
She made it sound simple. If only it were that easy.