I turned around, storming down the hallway, zipping past the master bedroom like a demon, continuing all the way down the hall, to the farthest room on the second floor. My fingertips itched. My eyelids ticked. I could no longer hold it inside.
Could no longer rein it in.
For the first time in years, I was going to let the beast come out.
I flung the door open.
It was an old study room I converted into a spa. Whatever BS excuse I could give the builders to soundproof the room and fill it with soft, unbreakable things.
I slammed the door behind me and let the monster in me take over.
Hoping the bruises and cuts it would surely leave would be gone by tomorrow.
On my seventh day of celibacy (but who the hell was counting?), we met for poker again.
Sam was watchful, Hunter was in his usual devil-may-care mood, and Devon looked like he was trying to work out what crawled up my ass.
Exactly one week from the moment I’d told Flower Girl she couldn’t tutor the Arrowsmith kids anymore, and she proceeded to piss all over my demands and continue about her life, banishing me from her bed in the process.
I’d been on edge all week, channeling my simmering anger toward Arrowsmith. Each day, I found a new way to poke him.
One time, I sent paparazzi cameramen to take pictures of Andrew picking his nose at a restaurant. The other, I had a PI sit in front of his house all night just to mess with his head, and on another occasion, I had an editor of one of the local newspapers run a story of that time Saint Andrew himself was caught in a three-way during his frat years at whatever community college he’d attended.
The issue with my secret was, revealing it would be damaging to Andrew, too. I wanted to push him to a point where he had nothing left to lose. To go to my father and tell him. Expose me. Turn me from the golden child to the fraud he thought I was.
Today, I was particularly sour. So much so I hadn’t even gone to the ranch to visit the horses. It started in the morning when it occurred to me that something was amiss. That something was the lack of cloud texts I’d been receiving (and ignoring) for months.
I couldn’t believe I missed Auntie Tilda.
The old hag never ceased to create problems for me.
Persephone was taking things too far.
I knew I had two choices—either I was going to back down and throw my wife a bone, tell her if she couldn’t get pregnant, or I was infertile, or both, that we could adopt—which I was genuinely open to.
OrI could flex my muscles and kick her out.
I had the decency to pretend to debate the two options for the sake of my ego as we played.
Hunter kept checking his phone. Sailor wasn’t anywhere near ready to pop—she wasn’t even half-close to delivery—but he acted like she was the first human to give birth to another one.
Earlier today, Sam’s spies had texted me at nine a.m. that Persephone had arrived at the Arrowsmith household. She spent a whooping six hours there before going straight to a nursing home on the outskirts of Boston to visit her former grandmother-in-law. She was still out, probably bathing and dressing Greta Veitch, putting her to bed.
My wife, I had to admit, was either the most naïve or disloyal person alive. Possibly both.
One thing was for sure: for all her traits, she wasn’t the pushover I expected her to be. Not by a long mile.
Snippets of conversation sliced through the air, unable to penetrate my thoughts.
“…ripping him a new one. You have to calm down, Kill. You’ve been going so hard at Arrowsmith. You’re lucky people haven’t noticed yet.”
“Kill thinks luck is just lazy math.”
“Kill is not thinking at all. Check out his face. He looks like he is about to kick all of us out again so he can have a snuggling session with Wifey Dearest.”
Speaking of the she-devil, the door to the entertainment room burst open, and Hurricane Persephone thundered in. Raindrops scattered about her face and lips like tiny diamonds, a telltale sign of the showers pouring outside.
Tiny diamonds.
One premium cunt and I was down for the count.
It had been getting warmer and nicer recently, but this week, it’d been pissing rain.
The strong resemblance to the scene of Persephone accepting my proposal in front of my friends licked my gut, and I grinned, watching her with an air of amusement.
Finally, she’d come to her senses.
My wife slowed to a stop. By the time I realized she was clutching something in her curled fist, she tossed it at my chest. A soaked, heavy cloth slithered down my dress shirt.
I could almost hear Sam’s, Devon’s, and Hunter’s jaws as they slammed against the floor in unison.
“You’ve been following me!” Persephone thumped her open palms on the table and in one movement, wiped it clean of cards, glasses, and ashtrays. The contents of the table flew to the floor. “I found your stupid soldiers waiting by my car when I left Mrs. Veitch’s nursing home, so I decided to chase them. Got one guy’s beanie. The other was too fast.”
“Which one did you manage to catch?” Sam asked conversationally. “So I’ll know who to fire.”
Her gaze bolted in his direction. She pointed at him. “Shut up, Brennan. Just shut the hell up!”
I removed the now identified beanie from my abs, dumping the thing on the floor with a sneer. I knew an apology wasn’t on the table right now.
A Fitzpatrick never bowed down or cowered to his wife.
He married an agreeable woman who sired other agreeable women, and sons who were as impossible as they were awestruck by their fathers.
That was what I’d been taught.
That was what I’d lived by.
That was how I was going to die, too.
Hunter might have been an exception marrying for love, but he wasn’t the eldest. The leader of the pack. The man who’d been burdened with the task of carrying on all the family traditions.
Besides, I had a reputation to uphold.
“Back to hysterics, I see,” I commented blandly, smoothing my shirt. “Care to tell me something I don’t know? I told you about my plans last week. One of them was to have you tailed. Did you think I wasn’t going to follow through with my threats? Did you think you were…special?” I pouted sarcastically, feigning sadness.
Her eyes widened. We were both thinking the same thing. My so-called plans also included visiting my mistresses and humiliating her publicly.
“You’re following through on all your threats,” she said hoarsely. There wasn’t a question mark after the sentence. I knew I should back down. Every bone in my body told me to, but I had to seize the opportunity to prove to myself she didn’t mean anything to me. That she was nothing but a toy.
I smiled cruelly. “All of them.”
“Following me was against the contract,” she reminded me, having too much pride to mention the other thing I promised not to do.
“Actually, I found a loophole. Sam did the following. I only gave the order.” I winked.
“The devil is in the details.” Sam slouched in his seat, thoroughly entertained.
“Now, that’s just bad manners, Brennan. Show some respect to the mistress of the house.” I snapped my fingers in Sam’s direction, still staring at my wife. “Apologize.”
“My sincere apologies.” Sam bowed his head theatrically, laughing, enjoying ridiculing her. He wasn’t capable of loving a woman and didn’t want me to, either. “My heart bleeds for you.”
It was a peculiar choice of words, considering I’d taunted Persephone about her bleeding heart. I’d never told Sam—nor any other living soul—about the time I’d spent in the bridal suite with her.
The day I couldn’t stop thinking about for years afterward.
But Flower Girl didn’t know that.
Her face reddened, and she clutched the sides of her dress in her fists.
Now was a good time to tell her I did not tell Sam what happened.
That he didn’t know she poisoned herself.