1. Jules
— ? —
Jules
There are eight other people at this table, and my husband hates every single one of them.
Harry is sitting halfway down the long side of the table with his jaw tight and his shoulders stiff, giving one word answers to questions about golf courses and wine vintages.
He’s wearing the navy suit I picked out, the one that does unfair things for his shoulders, and his hair keeps falling across his forehead no matter how many times he pushes it back.
He’s cold and clipped with all of them, and he’s barely tolerating the evening. The only exception is me.
I’m on his right, close enough that his thigh presses against mine under the tablecloth.
He hasn’t looked at anyone else all night with anything more than surface politeness, but every few minutes his eyes slide to me and the corner of his mouth twitches, so slightly that no one else would notice.
It means he sees me, he’s bored, and he wishes we were anywhere else.
My phone buzzes in my lap.
Harry: You have your bored face on.
When I glance up, the guest of honor has turned away to argue with the man next to him about some golf resort, and Harry has his phone under the edge of the table and a professionally neutral expression on his face.
Me: I don’t have a bored face.
Harry: You absolutely do. You’re making it right now.
Me: I’m being a supportive wife.
Harry: You’re thinking about murdering his wife.
He means the guest of honor’s wife, who has been talking at me about Pilates for fifteen minutes. I didn’t know there were fifteen minutes’ worth of things to say about Pilates, but apparently there are, and she knows all of them.
Me: I’m fine. Focus on your deal.
Harry: I am focused on my deal. I’m also focused on you. I can do both.
He slides the phone into his pocket as the old man turns back to him, and his hand finds my thigh under the tablecloth.
His thumb starts tracing slow circles on my inner thigh, moving higher with each pass.
The old man is going on about his numbers for the year, and Harry is nodding along with his face completely neutral, and meanwhile his hand is inching up my dress and I have to press my thighs together to keep from making a sound.
My phone buzzes once more. He must have typed it one handed.
Harry: You’re very tense. I could help you relax.
Me: We’re at dinner.
Harry: I’m aware.
His fingers slide higher. I grab my wine glass and take a long drink, and beside me Harry’s mouth twitches again.
This is what our marriage is. He’s cold and sharp and ruthless with everyone else, and then he turns to me with that look in his eyes.
He scares grown men into doing what he wants at work, and then I come home to find him on the kitchen floor playing with our neighbor’s cat because he knows I miss having pets.
There’s Harry Winslow, the billionaire and asshole and control freak, and there’s Harry, my husband, who still looks at me as if I’m the most interesting person in any room.
“Don’t you think, Mrs. Winslow?”
I blink, and the Pilates wife is looking at me expectantly, but she isn’t the one who spoke.
It’s her husband who asked, and he’s leaning back in his chair with a glass of scotch in his hand and a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.
“Sorry, what was the question?”
“I was just saying how nice it must be for you.” His smile sharpens. “Landing someone like Harry. You were his assistant, weren’t you? Before?”
The table goes quiet, and Harry’s hand goes still on my thigh.
“I was his assistant,” I say evenly. “For about a year.”
“How romantic.” The old man swirls his scotch. “From the secretarial desk to the big house. You’ve done very well for yourself.”
Everyone at this table knows exactly what he’s suggesting, which is that I fucked my way here, and that I’m a gold digger who spread her legs for a ring and a black card.
Harry’s hand leaves my thigh.
“I’m sorry,” he says, and his voice has gone cold. “What did you just say to my wife?”
The old man falters. “I was just making conversation…”
“This deal is off.”
The table erupts, with the old man’s face going red, his wife making a small sound of surprise, and his golf buddy starting to stand across from me.
Harry ignores all of them. He takes my hand and pulls me to my feet.
“Harry,” I say. “This deal is worth…”
“I know what it’s worth.” He’s already moving toward the door with a firm grip on my hand. “You can keep your money,” he says to the old man without turning around.
We walk out of that restaurant without looking back.
***
The elevator doors close, and I turn on him.
“That was over a year of work, Harry.”
“I’m aware.”
“You just walked away because some asshole made a shitty comment about my job history?”
He crowds me against the elevator wall with his hands on either side of my head and his body warm against mine.
“Nobody talks to you like that,” he says. “Nobody. I don’t care if it’s the richest man in the world. You’re my wife. You’re everything. And anyone who disrespects you doesn’t get to be in the same room as me.”
“It was a huge deal.”
“It’s money. I can make more money. I can’t make another you.”
His jaw is tight and he’s furious, not at me but for me. Watching this controlled, calculated, careful man lose his composure over an insult to me makes my chest ache.
“You grew up with nothing,” I say softly. “I know what money means to you.”
“You mean more.”
He says it simply, with no hesitation at all.
I grab his tie and pull him down to me.
The kiss is not gentle, and it isn’t soft or sweet or romantic. I still want him so badly after all this time that I can’t see straight, and I’m grateful he defended me, and I also think he’s an idiot for throwing away that deal, and all of it goes into the kiss.
The elevator dings and we don’t stop kissing.
Somehow we make it to the car, and somehow we make it home, and then we’re through the front door with his hands already working on the zipper of my dress and my fingers fumbling with his buttons.
“Kitchen,” I gasp against his mouth.
He doesn’t argue, which is rare, because Harry argues about everything and has to have the last word in every conversation. He picks me up and carries me to the kitchen and sets me on the counter.
“This dress,” he says, dragging the zipper down. “I’ve been thinking about this dress all night.”
“You picked it out.”
“I know. I’ve regretted it every second since you walked out of the bedroom.” He pulls the fabric down my shoulders, and I’m sitting on our kitchen counter in nothing but my underwear, and the way he’s looking at me makes my skin heat. “Every man at that table was looking at you.”
“I didn’t notice.”
“I did.” He drops to his knees, and I know that look. “I always notice.”
His mouth finds my inner thigh, and I grip the edge of the counter so hard my knuckles go white.
“Harry…”
“I’ve been thinking about this all through dinner.” His breath is hot against my skin. “Sitting there talking about fucking golf while you were right next to me looking like this.” He pulls my underwear down, and I lift my hips to help, and then his mouth is on me and I stop thinking.
We’ve been together for three years and I still can’t breathe when he touches me. I know his hands and his mouth and the way he whispers my name, and I still fall apart in seconds.
He’s relentless in everything, but especially in this. He gives it the same focus he gives everything else, and he knows exactly when to speed up, when to slow down, and when to press his fingers inside me and curl them just right.
“Fuck,” I gasp. “Harry, fuck, I’m…”
“Come for me.”
I do, and he doesn’t stop.
He works me through it, and then he’s standing up and unbuckling his belt, and I’m reaching for him, pulling him free, wrapping my hand around his cock and watching his eyes go dark.
“Three years,” he says, and his voice is wrecked. “Three years and I still can’t get through a meeting without thinking about this, without thinking about you.”
“Then stop thinking and fuck me.”
He pushes inside me in one long stroke, and we both groan.
I’m still sensitive from before, still trembling, and the stretch of him is almost too much. He’s big, and I’ve never gotten used to it and never want to.
“Jules.” He’s braced against the counter with his forehead against mine and his breath coming in harsh pants. “Jules, fuck, you feel…”
“Move.”
He does, and it’s not gentle and it’s not slow.
We’ve been wanting each other all night, sitting at a table full of people and pretending to be civilized, and this is everything that pretending was holding back.
His hands grip my hips hard enough to leave marks, and I wrap my legs around him and pull him deeper, and the sounds filling the kitchen are obscene, skin against skin and my moans and his grunts and the slick wet noise of our bodies moving together.
“I love you,” he says, and it’s not sweet, it’s desperate. “I love you so fucking much.”
“Show me.”
He fucks me harder, and I’m right there with him, my nails raking down his back, my teeth on his shoulder, my body clenching around him as I climb toward another peak.
“Again,” he demands. “Come again.”
I do, and he follows me over the edge seconds later, his whole body shuddering and my name on his lips.
***
Afterward, we eat leftover Chinese on the kitchen floor.
I’m wearing his shirt. He’s wearing nothing, and I keep getting distracted by the lines of his body, the planes of his chest, the way his abs flex when he reaches for an egg roll.
“Stop staring at me,” he says without looking up.
“I’m not staring.”
“You’re definitely staring.”
“I’m admiring.”
He grins, and it transforms his whole face. Harry doesn’t smile in public. He smirks, or he does that polite thing with his mouth that passes for pleasant. But the real smiles, the ones that crinkle the corners of his eyes and make him look ten years younger, are mine.
“I booked dinner tomorrow,” he says. “For our anniversary.”
“You did?”
“Seven o’clock. That restaurant from our first date.”
It’s the one with the incredible pasta, where I ate spaghetti without caring about the sauce on my chin and he watched me with a soft expression I’d never seen on his face before. He proposed less than a year after that dinner, and tomorrow we’ll have been married for two years.
“You booked it yourself?”
“I wanted to do it myself.” He shrugs, and I know what it means. Harry delegates everything and has people for everything, so him picking up the phone to make a reservation himself, for me, is the equivalent of anyone else chartering a plane.
“I’ll meet you there,” he says. “Straight from work, like our first date.”
“You’re a romantic.”
“I’m a man who’s been in love with the same woman since she walked into my office and told me I was wrong about my own numbers.” He leans over and kisses me, and he tastes like soy sauce. “I’m the luckiest bastard alive.”
We finish eating and clean up the kitchen together, and then he checks the locks twice before we go upstairs, the way he always does.
He checks the stove even though we haven’t used it, and then he checks the windows.
I used to ask him about it, and he’d shrug and change the subject, and I stopped asking when I worked out that it has to do with growing up with nothing.
I love him, and I love the way he makes my coffee every morning, and I love the way he pulled me out of that dinner tonight without a second thought about the money.
Harry will go to war with anybody on earth for me, with exactly one exception.
I’m in bed when he gets out of the shower. He climbs in beside me and pulls me against him, his body warm and solid and his arms wrapped around me.
“I love you,” he murmurs against my hair.
“I love you too.”
I close my eyes and let myself believe that everything is perfect.
His phone lights up on the nightstand.
I wouldn’t normally look, because I’ve never had a reason to. But the screen is facing me, and the name is right there, and I can’t help reading it.
Avery: Heard dinner went badly because of her. You can always talk to me. ??
I stare at the message.
It’s almost midnight, and we’ve been home for nearly two hours. How does Avery already know what happened at dinner tonight? The only people who know are the people who were there.
Harry’s breathing has evened out. He’s already asleep, with his arm heavy across my waist.
I look at the message for a long time, and then I close my eyes and tell myself it doesn’t mean anything.