Chapter 27 #2
“It matters to me, Edward.” My eyes search his.
“You’re right, it is in the past, it doesn’t matter.
Whatever you tell me is not going to affect us and our relationship.
But if this woman ever approaches me at an event, and going by her actions today, she probably will, I want to be prepared and I need to know what the hell she’s going to say to me. ”
He rolls his lips as his eyes hold mine. “This isn’t going to affect us?”
“You have my word.”
He nods and takes another gulp of wine.
“How long ago did you sleep with her?”
“Three months.”
What?
I begin to hear my heartbeat in my ears as I stare at him. “You cheated on Hermione?”
Oh my god, he’s a fucking cheater.
“No.”
“I don’t understand. Explain this to me.”
“Umm….” He looks out over the restaurant. “I’ve gone over this conversation in my head all day and still it….” He shrugs. “It sounds bad every way I put it.”
“Just spit it out.”
“She used to join Hermione and me in bed.”
I blink, in surprise…in shock…in sheer fucking horror.
“What?” I whisper.
Wherever I thought this conversation was going…this is not it.
He clears his throat and refills his glass of wine.
“You and Hermione used to have orgies?”
“Not orgies, just the three of us.”
What?
“You would fuck her in front of Hermione?” I whisper.
He sips his wine and raises his eyebrows.
That’s a yes.
“How…. Did….” I frown as I try to collect a thought. “So you and Hermione had an open relationship?”
“No, well.” He shrugs. “It’s complicated.”
I put my fingers to my temple. “You need to explain this to me because my mind is completely blown right now.” Actually I need some wine too, hell, I might start drinking from the bottle. I pick up my glass and take a giant gulp. “How did this start?”
“She was Hermione’s friend.”
What?
“You fucked her friend in front of her?” I whisper, horrified.
“I told you it sounds bad.” He rolls his lips.
“Wait, go back to the beginning. So is this how you all started, like the three of you hooking up and then you sided with Hermione or….”
“I was with Hermione and we were.” He cracks his neck, seriously uncomfortable with this conversation. “Struggling.”
“Struggling how?”
“Sexually.”
I stare at him, my mind a clusterfuck of confusion. How the hell could you struggle with this man sexually? He’s the GOAT.
“So there was an attraction issue or….” I frown.
“I tried to end it because….” He stops himself.
“It’s okay, just tell me.”
“I feel bad giving out this information.”
”It’s just me and you know it won’t go anywhere.”
“Hermione isn’t a sexual being, she isn’t like you or me.”
I stare at him as I listen.
“We were perfect on paper and I adored her, but sexually it wasn’t there for me.”
“But you were attracted to her friend.”
He swallows the lump in his throat as his eyes hold mine. “Hermione was the one who suggested it.”
“How did this come up?”
“We were partying one night on my yacht and after everyone went home, Hermione asked me if she could join us in bed. She thought that it would reignite a spark between us.”
I listen intently as I get a vison of how it went down.
“The problem was….” He stops himself again.
“You liked it.” I finish his sentence.
He nods.
“So it happened a lot?”
“Yes.”
“How did Hermione….”
“Watch me with her?”
“Yeah.”
“Looking back, it isn’t my proudest achievement. Isadora and I both loved to fuck.”
I get a vision of them going hard at it as Hermione sat to the side and waited her turn.
Poor Hermione.
“So Hermione thought she was saving her relationship and all she really did was put herself through the heartbreak of watching you fuck her friend?”
He twists his lips and I know that I’m right.
“You cold bastard,” I whisper. “How the hell could you do that to her?”
“She was all for it. Trust me, I wouldn’t have done it if I knew it upset her at the time. Hindsight is a wonderful but sometimes upsetting thing to have because things are a lot clearer than they are at the time.”
“I don’t even know her and I know she wasn’t all for it.”
“You said that this wouldn’t affect us?” He grabs my hand over the table. “It isn’t like that with us. We are different, I’m in love with you and I would never even dream of doing that to you.”
I stare at him; the rose-colored glasses are well and truly off.
“What then?” I ask.
He sits back, unwilling to share more.
“I shouldn’t have judged you. I was just shocked,” I apologize. “Go on. From then to now, what happened?”
“There was one night when we were all fried that things got a little out of hand.”
“Like how?”
“Hermione asked us to stop. We couldn’t.”
I get another visual, I know how Edward gets when he’s fucking hard and in the moment. He’s like an animal.
“God,” I whisper.
“Anyway, the next day I was horrified by Hermione being upset and I called Isadora and I told her it was never happening again and that’s when things turned ugly.”
“Ugly how?”
“She told both me and Hermione that she was in love with me.”
Of course she did.
“When I told her that it was just a purely sexual thing for me she exploded and demanded I end it with Hermione for her.”
I stare at him, shocked to my core, what the ever-loving fuck is this story?
“Around this time I had already made my decision that Hermione and I needed to end. This was toxic for both of us, we were both trying to be something we couldn’t. But then Isadora threatened to go to the press and so I stayed to support Hermione through it.”
I blink, just when I think this story can’t escalate…. Up it goes.
“You must understand, Alora, Hermione is the Crown Princess of Switzerland, can you imagine the absolute fucking nightmare if this gets out?”
“My god,” I whisper.
“Hermione’s father, the king, has already threatened to kill me for hurting his daughter when I broke up with her. Can you imagine the carnage if he finds out what has actually gone on?”
“Fucking hell, Edward,” I whisper.
“So basically the story in a nutshell is, at the time I thought we were having harmless fun and that Hermione was enjoying it too. Looking back, though, that wasn’t the case, and I was absolutely in the wrong and that is why I have tried to protect Hermione from the press.
That is why I have kept you hidden. She has been through enough. ”
“Does anyone else know about this?” I ask.
“No. My closest friends. That’s it.”
“And your staff?”
“They don’t know the details, none of them were ever around and we were always very discreet.
“But they do know that Hermione and Isadora had a falling-out because she professed her love for me. The day Isadora lost it she was screaming the yacht down and everyone was there.”
I take a huge gulp of wine, unsure what to even make of this situation.
Just what the actual fuck?
“Here you are.” The server puts a big bowl of pasta down in front of me and I look down at it, I just lost my appetite.
He begins to eat while I sit and watch him.
“I feel so out of my depth here.”
“Do you not remember where we met?” He takes a mouthful of food. “You’re not exactly an angel, Alora. Like I said, if I had an inkling that this was ever going to hurt Hermione, I would never have done it. She’s a beautiful person, she doesn’t deserve to be blackmailed by a former friend.”
“I know, but….”
“But what?”
“Who is this Isadora anyway?”
“She’s the daughter of an oil tycoon and a very well-connected socialite around Monaco.”
“So I will run into her?”
“Yes.”
My shoulders slump. “Well, I’m on Hermione’s side…. For the record. Not yours.”
“Of course you are.” He shovels another mouthful of food in. “I feel better now that you know.”
“Well, that makes one of us.” I gulp my wine. “Fuck this shit, I need tequila.”
He smiles and keeps eating and I watch him in a detached state, halfway between hell and denial. The man that I’m in love with seems a million miles away from the story I just heard, and an uneasiness begins to crawl across my skin.
An eerie snapshot into my future rears its ugly head.
He glances up and smiles over at me. “I love you.”
Is that so….
Who even are you?