Page 45 of His Wild Seduction

The same woman I’d been avoiding for the last seven days.

That little trip down memory lane I’d gone on during the flight home from Vegas was like tearing a scab off a raw wound.

I thought I left all the hurt and pain her betrayal had caused behind me years ago. All that angry indignation and insufferable despair from her rejecting me. The way I felt torn up and lost.

But I guess I wasn’t as over it as I’d pretended to be. But I couldn’t afford to allow all that emotion to divest me of my plan.

I was completely and totally dedicated to seducing my wife. To making her fall for me—for what? I wasn’t going to leave her.

Fuck. Okay, fine.

I’d lost sight of what the hell I’d even started doing this for the second I saw her, never mind touched her.

And not touching her since our ceremony had been pure hell. Just ask my team. I’d been one ornery motherfucker the last seven days.

But working myself to death wasn’t helping. I wanted her now more than ever. Hell, I wanted her so badly, I could taste it.

I’d had her stuff moved into the penthouse condominium located beneath Marat’s, even though he was currently staying more and more at the house he’d bought next door to his brother’s in Long Island.

Meredith hadn’t commented on the penthouse, or on the fact her things were already there waiting for her when we arrived.

The day after we returned from our wedding, we held the private funeral for Franklin Gray. Meredith and I went alone.

Well, it was us along with a team of my men whose sole job was to ensure we were undisturbed.

I watched my wife as she sat silently throughout the mass.

She’d been raised Catholic, and while I wasn’t particularly religious, I’d been to my fair share of funerals. The priest was perfunctory. The ceremony was brief.

None of that surprised me.

What did surprise me was that Meredith did not shed one single, solitary tear for the man.

Also, she’d refused to place a rose on her stepfather’s casket before he was sealed inside the mausoleum.

I wasn’t judging.

I just didn’t understand.

Meredith was the most compassionate person I knew. Well, once upon a time she was. The girl I’d known was a bleeding heart.

I supposed this just solidified the fact we were sort of strangers now.

Married. But strangers.

Fuck.

The night of the funeral, she went to bed early.

I slept in the guest room. Working the hours I’d started to keep, I continued to sleep there every night since. It was easier that way.

Until it wasn’t.

Not touching her. Or smelling her. Or talking to her was driving me mad.

It was torture. Hell. I was in actual Hell.

Without her, it felt like I’d been thrust back into the cold, dark void after only the briefest, sweetest glimpse of the sun.

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