It was just a dance. Besides, it was great practice for seeing her in someone else’s arms. Which was something I was destined to go through in a few years, after she gave me heirs and officially threw in the towel on my sociopathic ass.
We would turn into my parents.
Civilized strangers, linked by commitments, common interests, and social ties.
I was left alone with horsey Joelle and her unbearable twins.
It was Joelle’s turn to drape herself against the bar, a cunning smile smeared on her ill-fitted lipstick.
“She’s a darling.”
“She will do.”
I should peel my eyes away from Persephone in Andrew’s arms, but I was fascinated by what it did to me. To my insides. My head throbbed.
Mrs. Arrowsmith’s eyes ignited with curiosity.
“That’s not a glowing review for a wife you can’t seem to stop staring at. How’s being a newlywed treating you?”
My gaze glided down her face. No wonder Andrew couldn’t take his eyes off my wife. His looked inbred.
“I thought shotgun marriages were a thing of the past,” Joelle continued, tapping her lips, ignoring her children, who were off running between the legs of the couples on the dance floor. “Everyone is wondering if you two have a little bun in the oven.”
I wish.
Jackson Hayfield, an oil baron from Texas, caught my eye from the other side of the room and saluted me. I saluted back, treating Mrs. Arrowsmith as if she were air. For all I cared, that was exactly what she was.
“It is my understanding that this is Persephone’s second marriage.”
“Do you enjoy talking to yourself?” I wondered, checking my phone for emails. “You seem to be holding this one-sided conversation well. A telltale of your marriage dynamic?” I knitted my eyebrows together.
Her smile faltered, but she didn’t back down.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to come off as forward. I just think it’s so brave, what you’re doing. My husband told me about your condition, and well…” She trailed off, playing with the necklace on her neck.
“And what?” I turned, finally taking the bait.
“And it is clear she is still with her ex-husband. I mean, why else would she be visiting her grandmother-in-law at a retirement home every weekend?”
Joelle flipped her dyed, straw-like hair to one shoulder, going in for the kill.
“I mean, it makes sense. She was penniless with no prospects. And it was high time you got married. The pressure was on, I’m sure. If you ask me, arranged marriages have their merits. So how does it work, exactly? Are there three of you in this marriage, or does Mr. Veitch pop in every few weeks for a visit…?”
The look on my face must’ve told Joelle she needed to rewind. I had no idea how she knew about Persephone’s ex-husband. He wasn’t a society man. Sam told me Paxton was a D-list errand boy for Byrne.
Joelle read the question on my face, waving a hand around.
“Please, Cillian, people talk. The minute the country club folks in Back Bay heard about your nuptials, tongues started wagging. Paxton Veitch was my tennis mate’s student in high school, so she volunteered the information. Apparently, she still visits his grandmother, too. Poor thing has no other relatives in Boston, and she’s in quite a state. I’m told your wife hasn’t missed a visit in three years, not long after she started dating him. Familia primum, huh?”
Family firstin Latin.
So Joelle was one of those women.
Fluent in Latin, mingling, and designer brands.
Gently bred to become the wife of men like me.
“Here’s the thing.” I inclined my head toward her, bulldozing into her personal space as she did into my business. “My marriage may be a sham, but at least my wife and I are upfront about it. Your marriage is a farce, and I bet you’re dumb enough to believe it’s the real deal. Let me guess—you come from money, don’t you, Joelle? Never worked a day in your life. You have a nice, albeit useless bachelor’s degree from an Ivy League university, a prestigious lineage, and trust funds coming out of every hole in your body?” I arched an eyebrow. By the way she flinched, I’d hit a nerve. I plowed through it, gutting it with a pitchfork. “Everything Andrew Arrowsmith has done from the moment he was born was to try to make up for the fact he wasn’t born into the Fitzpatrick family. He ate from our plates, played in our backyard, and attended the same extracurricular classes I took part in. His family went as far as to send him to the same schools as me. But make no mistakes—the Arrowsmiths never sliced through the airtight seal of Boston’s upper crust. He is our hang-on, and you, my dear, are his meal ticket. While it is true that I, too, stand in your position of feeding an ambitious, good-looking go-getter of the world, at least I married a woman I’d like to take to bed every night. You married a social climber who wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole given the chance. When was the last time he ate you out?” I leaned down, my lips brushing her ear. Her body responded with an excited shiver. “Ravaged you like you were a precious prize and not a check he needed to deposit? Your husband is cheating on you, isn’t he, Mrs. Arrowsmith?”
She paled under her makeup, staggering backward. I shot out a hand to clasp her arm and help her to her feet, a polite smirk on my lips.
“That’s what I thought. Tell anyone about my wife visiting her former grandmother-in-law, and I will make sure everyone in America knows your husband has side pieces. Enjoy the rest of your evening, Mrs. Arrowsmith.”
“Mrs. Fitzpatrick will be spending the night at my place. There’s no need to stop at her apartment,” I announced to my driver when we slid into the back seat of the Escalade.
Persephone took off her heels with a joyous sigh, dropping her head to the cool leather, too exhausted to discuss this new development.
She’d danced with every man worth knowing in the ballroom tonight. Was handed from one pair of arms to the next. A dazzling, shiny toy that belonged to the most closed-off man in New England. Everyone wanted to see who had managed to tame The Villain, and since most people had long given up on approaching me directly, Flower Girl was the next best thing.
“I see I’m growing on you.” She rubbed her swollen, red foot, propping it on my knee in hopes I’d give her a massage.
“You might be needing glasses.” I patted her wiggling toes, ignoring her pleas.
“How can you be so unhappy when everything went smoothly tonight?” She blinked at me. “Are you programmed to be miserable or something?”
I paid my dues in this marriage and with a healthy interest rate. Not only keeping my wife alive—which turned out more challenging than I’d expected—but also showering her with everything a twenty-first century woman could dream of.
If Persephone thought she was going to run around, visiting her ex-husband’s family, and keeping in touch with the Veitch clan—maybe even with Paxton himself—she was sorely mistaken. She was mine now, and if I had to close the deal by impregnating her this week, I was up for the job.
Once we arrived at my house, Petar dashed from his room to see if I needed anything.
A loyal wife would be nice.
“Out of my way.” I waved him off. Persephone and I headed to my study on the second floor, ascending the Tuscan staircase.
I closed the door behind us, strolled over to my desk, retrieved the stupid contract from my breast pocket, and slapped it on the table. Producing my own pen from a nearby drawer—one without a goddamn plumbing company’s name—I signed the contract, handing my soul over to my wife, then held the paper between my index and middle fingers in the air.
She lifted her arm to snatch it. I tilted my arm up, shaking my head slowly.
“I found a price for my soul.”
“Let’s hear it.” She folded her arms over her chest.
“Stop visiting your ex-husband’s grandmother. It is inappropriate, ungrateful, and sends the wrong message.”
There was a beat of silence in which she tried to digest how I’d known about this to begin with.
“No,” she said, point-blank. “She has no one. She is senile, and lonely, and in desperate need of companionship. She doesn’t have much longer to live. I’m not going to turn my back on her.”
It surprised me she didn’t deny visiting her ex-relative.
Although it shouldn’t have. I was always under the impression Persephone was easier to handle than her friends and sister—aka the PMS Brigade. In practice, my wife simply had an unconventional approach to things. Instead of standing her ground, she perched on it cutely with a sweet smile on her face.
But she was still, technically, on her ground, not moving an inch.
“She’s not your responsibility anymore.” Bracing my knuckles over my desk to stop myself from popping them, I leaned forward, feeling the threads of my cool unraveling.
“I’m not buying your soul for the price of tarnishing mine.” She erected her spine. “Sorry, hubs, you’ll have to think of something else.”
“I’ll hire a nurse for her.”
Was I really negotiating with this woman? Again?
“No,” she said flatly.
“Two nurses,” I gritted out.
She shook her head.
“The woman is senile.” I bared my teeth. “She is not going to know the difference between you and a professional.”
“But I will.” She unfastened her hair clip, her golden locks spilling like waterfalls on her shoulders. “And I’ll know I turned my back on someone helpless just because of my husband’s whim.”
I wanted to…wanted to…what the fuck did I want to do to this woman?
And why the fuck did I think the word fuck in my head just now?
I did it again.
God-fucking-dammit.
She ambled toward me, putting her hand on mine from across the desk.
“Cillian,” she whispered. “Listen to me. The two most important decisions in our lives are not ours to make. Our creation and our death. We don’t choose to be born, and we don’t choose when or how we die. But everything in-between? That’s our jurisdiction. We can fill in the blanks as we please. And I choose to fill mine by doing the right thing. By being a good friend—a good human—according to my standards.”
Calmly, I retrieved the contract between us and shoved it into my office drawer. I locked it, disposing the key in my front pocket. I wasn’t going to get my way—not tonight, anyway—but negotiations were my playground, and the small print was where I thrived.
She was going to stop seeing the old hag, if I had to work full-time at making it happen.
I rounded the desk, leaning against it and crossing my ankles.
“Come here.”
She closed the space between us without hesitation, willing and responsive. Perfect. I’d never met someone so agreeable yet so stubborn.
We were flush against each other, her flowery scent invading my nostrils.
“Seen your Aunt Tilda recently?” My hand slid to her cheek, palming it. She took a ragged breath, her entire body trembling to my briefest touch.
I wondered how receptive she was to her ex-husband.
How hard she quivered when pressed against someone she’d actually chosen.
Someone whose arms I sent her directly to.
“Yeah, I did, in fact, the other day…” She stammered, letting me tug her into position. Her thighs straddled my right leg. I angled her so her clit pressed against my muscled quads. “Uhm, which, I guess, was Tuesday?”
She wasn’t thinking straight.
Unfortunately, neither was I.
I dipped my head down at the same time she tilted hers up, her lips parting for me. I took her mouth in mine, pressing my knee between her thighs, feeling her muscles sealing against me. A moan fell from her mouth. She pushed her breasts to my chest, rubbing against me everywhere, craving friction. My tongue danced with hers, and I gathered her face in my hands, deepening the kiss, trailing my mouth down her chin, then her neck, stopping to draw a lazy circle around her racing pulse with the tip of my tongue when I reached the sensitive part of her throat.
Her fingernails dug into my shoulders. She was close to climaxing from kissing alone. We were electric together, and I wondered when she was going to draw the line. To realize the things I wanted from her weren’t things she was willing to offer.
“Oh my God, Kill,” she yelped.