11. Astrid
Theo let the valet take the Range Rover, and we stepped into the restaurant, the place covered in black wallpaper, with chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. The lobby had waiters presenting hors d’oeuvres and flutes of champagne like it was an event rather than a restaurant.
Theo walked up to the host stand. “Table for two, please.”
“Do you have a reservation?” the hostess asked.
“No.” Theo looked at her like that didn’t matter.
“I’m sorry, sir,” she said. “We’re fully committed.”
“Trust me, it’s fine.”
Did he own this place too?
“Sir,” she repeated with more attitude. “I said we’re fully committed.”
“Anna, it’s fine.” The woman I’d met at the restaurant a couple weeks ago came to the front, dressed in all black with heels, looking like a supermodel once again. “Hey, Theo.” She smirked as she looked at him. “No reservation, huh?”
He smirked back. “Thought my sister could help me out.”
She did a quick scan in the computer. “Are you fine with a small table?”
“You know I’m not picky.”
She spoke to the hostess. “I’ll have the guys grab a table and chairs from the back. Seat them in section twelve.”
“Sure thing,” the hostess said without a hint of attitude now.
“It’ll be just a few minutes,” Scarlett said before she stepped aside at the counter and opened a binder. She snuck a look at me, and when I caught her stare, she smiled. “Nice to see you again.”
“You too.” I smiled back.
Theo put his hand on the small of my back and guided me away from the congestion of the entry. A few moments later, our table was ready, and Theo took the lead and pulled out my chair when we arrived.
The table was small and tucked into a corner, but it was definitely quieter.
Theo glanced at his menu for two seconds, as if that was all it took to find what he wanted.
“You like this place?”
“I love it.”
“This is the first restaurant you’ve taken me to that you don’t own.”
“Guess it’s time I stop being cheap.” He gave a slight smirk before it disappeared.
The waitress came over, and he ordered an old fashioned.
I ordered a glass of wine.
Then it was just the two of us again. “You know what you’re getting?”
“The chicken. I had it a couple nights ago and haven’t stopped thinking about it.”
I immediately pictured him at dinner with some other woman he’d taken out to eat. She wore a skintight black dress like Scarlett and drank scotch like a man. But then I remembered he said he didn’t take women out to dinner, and I realized my jealousy had reared its ugly head out of nowhere. “I’ll have to try it.”
“Get something else, and we’ll share.”
“What do you recommend?”
“Axel almost ordered everything on the menu, so I’d say you’re safe with anything.”
“Is that who you came here with?”
He nodded. “Scarlett was the head chef for the night, so he wanted to eat here.”
“Doesn’t she cook at home?”
“I asked the same thing, but I guess she doesn’t cook a lot these days with two kids running around. Best time to get some of her cooking is when she’s at the restaurant. He got one entrée to eat in the restaurant and one to go.”
I smiled. “That’s cute.”
“He’s definitely her biggest fan.”
“I love that.”
The waitress returned with our drinks then asked for our orders. Theo stuck to his decision with the chicken, so I opted for a pasta. Then we were left alone again, the two of us in the back corner, the sound of chitchat coming from behind me.
When he removed the glass cover from his drink, a billow of smoke rose toward the ceiling. He breathed in the smoke like it was air then took a drink. “It’s a drink and a cigar in one.”
“Two bullets, one heart.”
He cocked his head slightly.
“Something my husband says.” I wished I’d just lied and said I’d heard it somewhere else, but I wasn’t the kind of person who could just bullshit off the cuff. “Two birds, one stone. Basically the same thing.”
He grabbed his glass and took another drink, letting my words settle into the silence.
I waited for the awkwardness to dissipate like the cloud of smoke had. It took a long time for it to move, but eventually, it did. “You like this place, then?”
“Scarlett is a talented chef.”
“Did she train anywhere?”
“No. She’s a natural. Just how you’re a natural painter.”
A flush of heat entered my neck and cheeks. “You’ve barely seen my work.”
“But I can see what you’re trying to capture.”
“What am I trying to capture?” I asked.
He stared at me across the table for a long time, his fingers around the cool glass. “Grief.”
A pain shot through my chest and both arms, like I’d been caught with one hand in the candy jar. My face remained as stoic as ever, but I felt a sudden panic deep inside me. Like my lies had been spilled. My truth had been told. “Why do you think that?”
“Because I can see it.” He hadn’t blinked since the start of this conversation. “You said you paint moments. I think I know what moment you painted.”
After Bolton had asked for an open marriage, I’d ended up at a coffee shop on my lunch break. For some reason, it hit me there, sitting by myself, that I would probably die alone…even if I were still married. My world had been shattered by Bolton’s request, and even though I loved him with all my heart, I knew it would never be the same.
Theo continued to see right through me with a discerning gaze, seeing my flesh and bone and the blood in between. He should be just a good lay, a warm body next to mine in a cold bed, a distraction from my loneliness, a form of revenge against the man who crushed me, but he somehow felt like more than that. “I’m sorry.”
My eyes flicked down to my drink.
“But I’m not sorry that you’re here with me.”
When we finished dinner, our plates were totally clean.
“Damn, that was good.”
He smiled slightly. “Don’t tell George.”
“She really knows her way around a kitchen.”
“And the bedroom, according to Axel.”
I chuckled. “He tells you stuff like that?”
“Not the details, but the incidents.”
“Have you…told him about me?” When we ran into them at the restaurant, there was definite tension in the air. Axel seemed particularly interested that I was there.
It took a while for him to answer. “The incidents. But not the details.”
“You really are a gentleman.”
“I’m not a gentleman,” he said quickly. “Just not an asshole. To women, at least.”
“So he knows that I have an open marriage?”
“Yes.”
“Does he have an opinion on that?” I’m sure most people would burn me at the stake.
“Like me, he’s not the judgmental type. He’s a one-woman kind of guy, so he doesn’t understand how a man could ever let his wife be fucked by somebody else. But that’s just his personal opinion.”
I didn’t understand how Bolton could stand it either. Whenever I thought about him with someone else—let alone multiple people—it made me sick. It still made me sick. The longer I spent with Theo, the more I disassociated from Bolton and our marriage. I wasn’t sure where we would end up, but happily ever after seemed less realistic with every passing week.
Theo continued to watch me. “And even if he were the judgmental type, you wouldn’t be the one he’d judge.” He grabbed his glass and drank what remained of the contents. It was his second drink of the night, and despite the fact that it was hard alcohol, he seemed in complete control of his faculties.
Heels sounded from behind me, and then Scarlett appeared, tall and lean in her sky-high heels, the big diamond on her left hand. “How was dinner?”
“Amazing,” Theo said. “As always.”
“It’s the first time he’s taken me somewhere he doesn’t own, so I knew it would be good,” I said.
“Sounds like he takes you out a lot.” She glanced back at him.
I realized I’d shoved my foot into my mouth. “Not a lot, just here and there.”
“Well, I’m glad you liked the food,” Scarlett said. “We opened the restaurant a couple years ago, but it still feels like my baby. The restaurant business is hard, and the last thing I want is to lose something I care so much about.”
“You’ll never lose this place,” Theo said. “You can’t get in unless you make a reservation a month in advance.”
“Unless the owner tried to sleep with you once upon a time,” she teased.
My eyes immediately darted to Theo.
He smirked like it was an inside joke only the two of them knew about.
“Enjoy the rest of your evening.” Her hand squeezed his shoulder before she walked away.
His eyes immediately moved back to me instead of staring at her ass. The waitress never brought the tab, so it seemed like it wasn’t coming. And Theo didn’t wait for it because he rose from his seat. “Ready?”
“Yeah, sure.”
When we returned to his bedroom, I reached for my bag.
He grabbed my hand and steadied it. “Stay.”
I inhaled his scent when he stood this close to me. It smelled like a cold forest, the mist a cleanse on the soil. But when I turned to look at him, I saw a blazing fireplace that heated the entire room. My eyes took in his dark midnight gaze as he stared down at me.
“Can you stay?”
Bolton would be back tomorrow evening, so I did have some time. Now, my life was divided between two homes, between two men. My identity was in limbo. “Yes.”
With his iron grip, Theo forced me to turn toward him, and then like a bullet coming out of the barrel at the speed of sound, his mouth was on mine, his hand deep in my hair, his other hand making itself at home on my ass.
He kissed me with the passion he always showed when we were behind closed doors. At restaurants and in the car, his affection was restrained and discreet, but once it was just the two of us, he was at me like a hungry wolf. He lifted me into his arms and carried me toward the bed, holding me with my thighs around his waist.
He kissed me there for a while, until he suddenly threw me onto the bed.
My back hit the mattress, and I bounced, my hair flying from the motion.
Then he was on me like a bear crawling over its prey. His shirt was already off because he’d yanked it off while my hair covered my face like a mask. His hands pulled up my dress to expose my bottom as he crushed his mouth to mine, swallowing my moans with his demanding lips.
Just when I thought this man couldn’t be sexier.
“Theo…” I was lost in the passion, and he wasn’t even inside me yet. My nails clawed at his muscles and his hot skin, and my knees squeezed his hips.
He unbuttoned the top of his jeans and yanked down the front so his cock could come free. My dress was left on, pushed up so the bottoms of my tits were exposed. He pulled a condom out of his pocket, probably having those foil packets in all of his jeans and jackets so he was always prepared for the women who wanted to whisper his name the way I did.
He had to stop everything to roll on the condom, his big dick requiring the use of two hands. Our world came to a grinding halt, and while it built up the anticipation, I’d prefer no pause at all, just the two of us together.
When he was secured, he moved over me again, his tip sinking into my entrance with little resistance because I’d been wet since dinner, wet since the moment I’d seen him. All he had to do was sit there and look at me, and I melted like butter over a warm baguette. His dark hair, his dark eyes, the way he seemed not to give a shit about anything.
He sank fully inside me, the plunge slow and easy so my body could accept his gift. A low growl left his lips when he plunged inside me, like it was the first time he’d had me, even though he’d already had all of me more than once. He took me in the same position almost every time, his heavy mass on top of me, his mountain a shadow over my river. But he seemed to like it this way, to have our eyes locked together like lovers in another night of passion. He did all the work most of the time, but he seemed not to mind it, like he was grateful just to have me, like whatever he could have was taken with gratitude.
When I was the one who should be grateful.
Bolton had ripped the foundation from underneath me, and I’d been in free fall ever since. The only moments I ever stopped were the instances when Theo caught me with his big hands and paused time for a night or days in a row. The chaos and turmoil quieted, the world stopped spinning, and all I could see was this gorgeous man who looked at me like I was his equal…and sometimes his superior.
I lay in his big bed under the soft sheets while he showered. The water ran in the bathroom, audible through the crack he’d left in the door. It almost sounded like rain, soft enough that it acted like a lullaby. My eyes grew heavy and started to close more than once, but I stayed awake, waiting for him to join me.
Minutes later, he came to bed in a new pair of boxers, his skin smelling like soap, some of his hair still slightly damp. He pulled back the sheets and brought heat to the bed the way a fire warmed a room. He didn’t hesitate to cuddle with me, to hook his big arm around me and pull me close, to bring me right up against his flames without catching me on fire.
I stared at his hard face, his jaw covered in a distinct shadow from his thick hair. He hadn’t combed his hair, so it was a little messy, and some of the ends were still damp because he’d rushed it with a quick towel dry.
His eyes closed for a while, but they opened again, like he felt my stare.
I met his look, seeing those brown eyes turn still like the earth, quiet and confident. He asked a question without moving his lips.
“I swear I’m not trying to be nosy?—”
“I didn’t sleep with her.”
“But she tried to sleep with you…?”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“Is it?” I asked, eyebrow raised. “Someone either tries to sleep with you, or they don’t.”
“Why does it matter?”
“It doesn’t matter.” He wasn’t mine, so I couldn’t be jealous of anyone for any reason. I had no idea what he did when we were apart, if another woman occupied this bed in my absence. “But I guess I’m curious. You said Axel was your brother.”
“He is.”
“Then did you know Scarlett before he did?”
He gave a quiet sigh like he just wanted to go to sleep. “No. You want the full story or just the headlines?”
“Whole story, always.”
“Alright.” His eyes shifted away as he collected his thoughts. “Scarlett is the daughter of a drug kingpin. A psychotic one who’s thrown a fat wrench in my plans. He forbade Scarlett from seeing Axel, so naturally, Axel did whatever he could to have her. He fell hard right off the bat, but then her father tore them apart. Threatened to kill Axel’s parents if he came near his daughter again. They broke up for six months.”
“Jesus, this guy sounds like a jackass.”
“Jackass is too generous,” he said coldly. “He tried to make a deal with me and cut Axel out of the business. But he’s a fucking idiot who doesn’t know how his shit, so he was unaware of my relationship with Axel. We don’t exactly broadcast it, but if you have a business partner, you should know where he eats, sleeps, and fucks. But that worked in Axel’s favor, so we crossed him when he thought he was crossing Axel.”
“As interesting as this is, I don’t understand what it has to do with you and Scarlett.”
“You said you wanted the whole story, right?”
I nodded.
“Dante—that’s his name—asked me to marry his daughter.”
Both of my eyebrows jumped up my face. “What?”
“He thought it would be a good business move.”
“For him. But what about her? Had she even met you yet?”
“No, she hadn’t. So, I asked her out like he wanted me to, and we went on a couple dates.”
“She didn’t know you and Axel were brothers?”
“No.” He shook his head. “She was depressed and bitter. Not interested in intimacy, only sex. She made several moves to get me into bed, but I stayed on my best behavior for Axel. Even if they weren’t together anymore, he would have been devastated. Our relationship wouldn’t have been the same. Some would argue she was fair game, but I knew he loved her. So she wasn’t fair game to me.”
I listened to the story and felt an ugly burst of jealousy. “So…that means you wanted to?”
He didn’t avoid my gaze or look uncomfortable at the question. “When a woman wants to fuck, I don’t say no.”
“I mean, you wanted to, even though she used to be with Axel?”
“It’d been six months, and they’d both been with other people. Besides, she laid it on really thick.”
“You think she would have done that if she knew who you were?”
“After what Axel did to her, she probably would have tried harder.”
“What did he do to her?” I asked.
“Dante made him pretend to cheat. It was the only way Axel could get Scarlett to walk away.”
“So he basically had to break her heart irreparably?”
“Yes.”
The jealousy disappeared, and pity replaced it. “That’s horrible.”
“It all worked out in the end.” His warm arm hooked around my waist, his skin warm like a pan left on the stove. His fingers gently caressed me as he held me under the sheets, his heavy mass making the mattress dip farther in his direction.
“Does Axel know all of this?”
“She told him.”
“You didn’t?”
“I’m not cruel. I’m not going to tell my brother that his woman cooked for me and tried to fuck me afterward.”
I’d liked Scarlett the moment I met her, and even if I had the right to feel jealous, I shouldn’t. Every woman who set her eyes on this man fell under his spell. She wanted him—and not just for a night, but for as many nights as she could get.
My fingers traced the lines of his arm, feeling the mountains of muscle and the valleys in between.
His eyes didn’t close to go to sleep. He continued his stare.
I felt the heat of his intrusion, felt the question he failed to voice.
“Does he know about me?”
Bolton had never asked me about how I spent my nights when he was away. It became an unspoken agreement between us, to pretend we were faithful to each other even though we were sleeping in other places with other people. “No.”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “This has been going on a while now.”
“Honestly, he’s never asked. Nor have I.”
His eyes continued to absorb my stare. “He said something that pushed you into my arms. What was it?”
“I-I said I didn’t want to talk about him.”
“I’m not asking about him. I’m asking how he made you feel.”
Whenever I thought about Bolton, it was always with a cloud of gloom over my head. Whenever he came home, it took days to get back into normalcy. Every touch and kiss felt foreign until they finally felt familiar again. But even then, it was with a note of bitterness, the sweetness sucked out of the fruit, dried and desiccated while it was ravaged by fruit flies.
“What did he say, sweetheart?”
I’d pried into his personal life and pursued a comment I probably shouldn’t have heard in the first place, so I felt obligated to reciprocate. “He’d already been with multiple women…and I hadn’t even been with one man.”
His dark eyes took me in with a note of sympathy.
“It was hard for me, but it didn’t seem hard for him.”
A heavy silence passed, his hard stare burning into my face. “This is one of those moments…”
“One of the moments, what?”
“Where you have to decide whether the truth is worth cruelty.”
I was in his soft bed that felt like a cloud, and whenever I was in the presence of this man, I was cocooned in safety. But now, I was in free fall once again. “What truth do you speak of?” My voice had been strong a moment ago, but now it wavered…like I didn’t want him to hear me.
His eyes shifted back and forth between mine, but he didn’t answer.
I didn’t ask the question again because I didn’t have the spine. A small part of me wanted the truth, but a bigger part of me wanted the lies if they were preferable. I was already broken…and another hit or bruise might make me irreparable.
He seemed to read the fear in my eyes because he didn’t pursue it. Instead, he pulled me close, my face planted into the top of his chest, and released a breath as he prepared to fall asleep.
Despite the weight in my heart, I drifted away into sleep, lighter than air.
After I finished work, I headed home to our villa in the city. I grabbed some groceries along the way then turned my key in the door and headed inside to the kitchen island. The two paper bags were set on the granite countertop, and I placed my purse beside them. I hadn’t been home in almost three days, and I couldn’t even remember what we had to eat around here.
“What did you get?”
“Jesus.” I nearly jumped out of my skin because I jolted so hard. I’d assumed the house was empty because Bolton didn’t usually come home until the evening. My hand immediately flew to my heart as if that was about to jump out of my skin too. “I-I didn’t expect you to be home so early.”
He came to my side. “I’ll give you a hand.” He pulled the items out of the bags and put them in the refrigerator and the cabinets.
It gave me a moment to compose myself, to accept the fact that I was in Bolton’s presence…and not Theo’s. I swore I could still smell Theo on me since my clothes had been at his place for almost three days. His scent was in my hair, on my skin. I wondered if Bolton could smell it too.
“How was the gallery?”
“Fine. How was…” How was killing someone? “How was work?”
“Fine.” He shut the fridge and looked at me head on for the first time. It was a long stare, not the intense one of longing he used to give me. This one felt perverse, like there was a secret behind my eyes that he wanted to dig for with a shovel. “What’s for dinner?”
“Citrus chicken and risotto,” I said automatically.
He nodded slowly but seemed disappointed, like he’d asked a different question that I hadn’t answered.
I waited for that hug, that embrace, but it never came. “Is something wrong?”
His stare continued with its sharp edges, plowing deep into my earth to prepare the soil for a new season.
I wasn’t sure why I asked the question because everything was wrong. Everything had been wrong for a while now. Ever since that horrible night when he’d punched the air right out of my lungs.
“No.” He leaned in and gave me a quick kiss on the lips.
All I could think about was the last woman he’d kissed…if it was someone new…another name to add to the list.
And Theo…the man I’d kissed goodbye before I went to work. He’d asked me to stay again, but I told him I couldn’t. He never showed his disappointment, but it was heavy in the air around him, the way an oven raised the temperature of the whole house by a few degrees.
“I need to finish some things in the study.” Bolton left the kitchen, left me to make dinner alone like the good little wife I was, and disappeared.
When he was gone, I stared at the fridge, thinking about all the things I did to make him happy. I went for a run every day to stay fit, I cooked all his favorite things, I wore the sluttiest lingerie to surprise him in the bedroom—but he still desired other women.
What could I have done differently? What could I have done better?
Nothing.
Fucking nothing.
He came down when dinner was ready, probably smelling the food once I pulled it out of the oven. I set the table with the dishes and flatware, along with an arrangement of flowers I’d put together myself. I didn’t expect a man to care about those things, but I hoped he would appreciate it.
It was becoming clear to me that Bolton didn’t appreciate anything.
Bolton took a few bites of his food. “Excellent, as always.”
“Thanks.” I pushed my food around more often than I actually ate it, thinking about my dinner with Theo one second and then thinking about this moment with Bolton the next. I lived two very different lives, and now the separation between them had become thinner than a sheet of paper.
Bolton lifted his chin and looked at me.
I concentrated on my food and waited for him to look away, but as the seconds passed and the heat of his stare felt like a laser on my face, I knew that look was here to stay. I scooped my fork into the risotto and took a bite before I met his stare.
The second he had my attention, he spoke. “The security system said no one came or went for two and a half days.” He spoke in a normal tone, but there was more to his statement, a veiled threat that was inaudible but ever-present.
My fork returned to the food, and I did my best to act normal even though I felt like a deer in the headlights. My heart raced like I should be running from a predator, except I shouldn’t feel threatened by the person who’d broken our marital vows first. I’d done nothing wrong, but I felt like a liar and a cheat.
He continued to stare like he’d asked a question.
I held my fork and focused on my food.
“Were you sick?” he asked.
I could just say yes and make this go away, but I didn’t like to lie. It came easily to others, but it was the most unnatural thing to me. “No. I went to work.”
“Then why did the system say the doors never opened?” He left his fork on his plate and leaned back against the chair, arms crossed over his chest, his head slightly cocked like he was a detective about to complete an interrogation.
I stared at my food again, feeling the race of my anxious heart but also the fury in my soul. I’d never wanted any of this. None of it. “Because I wasn’t here the last two and a half days—and you already know that.” My strength came from my rage, the rage that had been boiling consistently for a month now, bubbling and spilling over the edge onto the stove. “You’re the one who asked for this, so don’t put me on the stand for a crime you asked me to commit.”
The tendons in his neck tightened as the indignation made his face go taut. His eyes dropped momentarily, the flash of anger like lightning across the clouds in his gaze. His arms crossed and he gripped his elbows as he sank into the chair, his jaw clenched harder than it’d been a moment ago. “I don’t disappear for two and a half days?—”
“You’re gone for three days at a time, Bolton. Sometimes more.”
“And ninety percent of the time is spent working—not with someone else. If you’re spending two and a half days with the same guy, that sounds more like a relationship than a quick fuck.”
I stared down at the dinner I’d made, the dinner that would grow cold. If Theo were here, he would have eaten his whole plate then gone for seconds. He would have complimented my cooking and not to be polite, because he wasn’t the type of guy to say things just to be polite. “You never stated the parameters of the arrangement. You just asked to fuck other people, and that was it.”
“So, you are fucking someone?” Now, his voice hardened like he was about to burst.
“What did you think was going to happen?” I snapped. “That you were going to fuck a line of beautiful women and I was just going to sit on my ass at home? Maybe you’ve forgotten that I’m a hot piece of ass that men are happy to throw down on the bed like a fucking rag doll, but that’s your damn fault, not mine.” I pushed my chair out from the table and threw my napkin right on my plate. “I didn’t want this. I never looked at another man from the moment you were mine. So don’t turn this around on me like I’m the one who crossed the line, when you crossed every line there is to cross.”
He got to his feet. “Baby?—”
“It’s done, Bolton. You failed to outline the terms of this arrangement when you signed on the dotted line of a contract you shoved in front of me. There’s no going back now. So, you do whatever the fuck you want, and I’ll do whatever the fuck I want, and we’ll come home and act like nothing fucking happened.” I pointed at him across the table, and my finger was as sharp as a knifepoint. “Because that’s what you wanted.”