17. Melody
Melody
S livers of sunlight assault my eyelids, and I groan, shoving the plush blanket up over my head. Fuck, my head is pounding. I let out a little whimper involuntarily, and I feel the bed dip.
"You're okay, love. Just a bad hangover.
I've got something for you," Dante's voice is low and soothing.
Weird. I vaguely remember him being really nice to me last night, after pampering me all day.
If he's trying to make me actually like him—nope.
I shove the thought out of my head. We're both means to an end for each other, and that's all it'll ever be.
Though, for some reason, that thought feels like a knife to my heart.
"No!" I grunt and burrow further into the blankets.
"Yes." He gently peels the blanket away from me, holding out a tall glass of water and a blister pack of painkillers.
"Fine. Thank you." I grab the blister pack from him and struggle with the foil. Finally releasing two of the pills, I pop them into my mouth and drink deeply from the glass. God, it's so good. All water should taste like this. Well, it doesn't taste like anything but hydration. Absolutely perfect.
Blinking into the morning light, I look around and notice we're not home.
Shit, that's right, we stayed at the fancy hotel out in the country.
It's shockingly luxe. It doesn't have the same sterile soulless feel of chain motels—it almost looks like some rich guy's summer home. I guess in all fairness, it is.
"That should kick in soon. Breakfast was delivered just a few minutes ago—hungry? Eggs, bacon, Belgian waffles. Get some carbs in that tummy," he chuckles. "If you'd prefer hair of the dog, I'm sure we can get some mimosas shortly."
"No," I groan with a gurgling stomach. "Fuck no. No alcohol. I'm done."
"Then you should definitely eat some of the waffles. I had one already—it's divine, as to be expected." Dante sits on the side of the bed and gently runs his fingers up and down my back. My stomach rolls again, and I squirm away from his touch.
Oh, fuck. I throw the blankets off of me and scurry towards the bathroom—thank god I remember where it is because the pills and water I just swallowed are coming right back up.
Bile burns in my throat and tears sting my eyes before I realize that Dante—rich as fuck, asshole dickhead Dante—is holding my hair back and kneeling on the tile beside me.
"I hate this," I whine and lean my forehead on the porcelain. It's cold and immaculately clean. I send up another silent thank you to the hangover gods for that.
"I know, love," Dante murmurs as he swirls my hair into a ponytail. I crack open an eye and tilt my head to watch him as he stands and fills up another glass of water for me. "Let's try again, hmm?"
I gulp the glass down and hold it back out to him. He refills it without another word exchanged. Weird. I can't believe this douchebag took me to a spa, let me drink myself silly, and now… now he's taking care of me. Super fucking weird. Did I get dropped into some alternate universe?
While I sip the second glass, Dante wets a white washcloth with steaming hot water and comes back down to my level.
Carefully, he wipes my chin and lips clean.
Even though my vision is still a little bleary from the tears, I study his face.
Those little freckles are really the only imperfection—if you could call them that.
He's carved out of fucking marble. And he's cleaning my puke off of me. I guess if I have to get knocked up by someone, I could do worse.
Just as I think the words, I realize my inner thighs feel warm and slightly wet. Daring to peek down, I see red and slam my eyes shut with another groan. My monthly friend is here and staining the robe that I took from the spa. "Fuuuuuck."
"What? Do you think you're going to throw up again?"
"No. Maybe. But that's not—I'm bleeding."
"What? Where? Did you hit something when you went down—oh." He falls silent, and I can't look at him. I can't look at anything, I just want to keep my eyes shut tight and maybe sleep for seventeen hours or so. I hear him stand up and turn on the shower for me.
"I'll be right back. The water should be a good temp shortly."
I listen to his footsteps disappear and the room door close.
Of course, I'd start my period today. Right on time, just like clockwork.
And I know that the doctor tested my urine so we'd know if I was already pregnant.
But I still had a tiny inkling of hope that maybe, just maybe, he'd already knocked me up, and I wouldn't have to think about all the logistics and tracking and at-home urine testing.
My eyes snap open. "Fuck. Did I really hope to be pregnant already?"
I heave myself up off the floor and stumble into the shower, scenarios running through my head.
I was, of course, very drunk last night.
But I distinctly remember him saying that he wanted someone like me to carry on his legacy.
Someone kind of broken. Someone violent.
I imagine myself swollen up, heavily pregnant.
For some reason, I can't imagine myself in the early stages. Only just about ready to pop.
Will my feet swell up? Will my sciatic nerve hurt all the time? What if I have morning sickness the whole time? What if… he gets what he needs and discards me?
The thought stabs through my gut as I lather up my hair. That's not what this is supposed to be. This is a means to an end. This is a transactional relationship. It's fine . And it'll keep being fine as long as I tell myself that.
It's fine. I'm fine. This is fine.
I repeat the mantra in my head and mouth the words to myself as I hear Dante re-enter the room, knocking gently on the bathroom door.
"I've got clean clothes for you, though they're not the haute couture you've been buying recently." I can practically hear the smirk on his face. "I wasn't, um, I wasn't sure what kind of menstrual supplies you prefer. So, I got all of them."
"All of them?" I question as I turn off the water and throw back the curtain.
My eyebrows nearly meet my hairline as I see he was not joking.
With a hotel-branded bag in his hand, he lays out the supplies on the counter.
Tampons, pads, two different menstrual cups, and even a sealed pair of period panties. "Where did you get all of this?"
"The hotel store," he replies. "We sell various toiletries for forgetful guests. Or emergency situations like this. Which leads me to the clothes."
He pulls out matching hotel-branded sweat pants and a massive T-shirt. "Like I said, not haute couture. But it'll do, I trust?"
"Yep," I say as I grab the fluffy towel from the warmer bar. "By the way, we need one of these in our bathroom."
"Consider it done."
After the scenic drive home, we burst in the door, and I kick off the hotel slippers.
While I appreciate the clean clothes, I miss my own comfort pajamas—the threadbare plaid flannel I bought from some crappy superstore out in Iowa.
I'll keep the T-shirt, though. Dante follows me up the stairs and strips out of his own rumpled suit.
Period or no, I can appreciate the defined V of his hips and abs.
The tight fabric of his boxer briefs perfectly outline his package, and when he turns to the dresser, I shamelessly ogle the curve of his ass.
How did I not know he has a perfect little bubble butt until now?
What have I been wasting my time staring at? His face?
A hot throbbing ache bubbles up from my ovaries, spiritually slapping me out of objectifying my husband. I grumble out a noise of distress and flop face-first onto the bed. "Hate this."
"There's a heating pad in the bedside table," Dante says, sounding muffled from the pillow around my ears.
"Can you get it?" I whine.
"Of course."
Moments later, he gently rocks me to my side and slips the heating pad under my aching belly. The heat hits me nearly instantly, and I let out a sigh of relief.
"Thank you."
"Happy to, love. Now take off your shirt."
My head rockets up from the pillow. "What? No—Dante, it's cool if you don't mind riding the crimson wave, but I very much prefer not to fuck right now."
"Understandable. That's not where I was going with this. Please, love. Take off your shirt." He chuckles and gently strokes my forearm.
Grumbling my complaints, I roll around enough to shimmy out of the hotel-branded T-shirt. "Fine."
The bed dips, and I feel him settle in beside me. Not lying down, though. I lift my head again to squint at him, but he shakes his head. He's got a bottle of something in his hands, though I can't quite tell what it is—but he squirts out an oily substance and rubs his hands together quickly.
"Lie down, Melody. I've heard this helps."
Warm, slippery hands knead into the muscles of my lower back. Exactly where the cramps originate from. How did he know? I mean, I'm not about to look another gift horse in the mouth, so I stay quiet and happily sigh into the crisp sheets of our bed.
He must have been paying attention at the spa. Moving from my lower back to my shoulder blades, I melt under his touch. The pressure is perfect. It's not so hard that it's painful, nor is it too soft to be relaxing. Every stroke of his deft fingers leaves me inching closer and closer to sleep.
Just as I'm in that twilight state, I swear I can hear him whisper something that sounds like "Sleep well, my love."
Three days. Three days of abdominal aches, three days of irritability, three days of shuffling to the bathroom when I think I've leaked through my tampon.
And, to my despair, one day of gnawing in the back of my skull.
I can't sit still. Helena looks at me like I'm going to wear a hole in the floor from my pacing.
"Got anyone that needs dead, Hel?" I ask as I flop into the overstuffed armchair in the living room.