Page 77 of The Desire

Rem is already leaving the room, and the guys are up and following him toward the study. I assume it’s to get to a computer and take this conversation to a more private place.

“Holy shit, this is bad.” Tori holds her phone up to me, showing the Google alerts on Flynn and his sex tape.

My heart sinks for him and the woman he was with. How can someone be so cruel as to invade their privacy and then use it for personal profit?

“Can they stop it?” I ask Tori quietly, but I already know the answer. Once something hits the internet, it has been screenshot so many times that it will never go away. It’s there for life, no matter how hard you try to have it taken down.

“Not now. All we can do is start damage control and hope it doesn’t blow back too hard on Darby Hotels, or Flynn. At the end of the day, Nic will always put his friends before money, and Flynn will be his number one priority here.”

I sink down onto the couch next to my best friend, and no matter how much I want to kill her right now, I pull her into a hug, knowing she is going to need it. It’s going to be tough few weeks, maybe months, in front of them all.

“Well, that put a sour note on a fun night, didn’t it?” Tori lays her head on my shoulder, and I can’t help but laugh out loud.

“That is an understatement.” We both giggle together, her thinking it’s just about Flynn, but for me, the whole night went exactly like I was imagining it would. Like a massive shit show.

It’s then I look across and spot Blaise sitting next to the side table, with chocolate on his fingers and all over his mouth. Oblivious to what is going on, he’s just happily devouring the desserts and watching the football that has started again. Lord knows how many of the mangled messes he has eaten, but I have a feeling I’m in for a hell of a night trying to get him to sleep with that much sugar in him.

Why can’t life be simple? I thought I wanted a change, something exciting, on those long days in the classroom with my kids that were climbing the walls and weren’t listening to one thing I was saying.

Tonight, I would take that complete chaos over the stress and anxiety I have brought on myself. They always say be careful what you wish for, and now I understand.

Lying in bed, the house is so eerily quiet. The guys left for the office hours ago, and I haven’t heard a thing from them, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.

After Tori left, it took me a while to calm Blaise down, and in the end, I went through our normal routine of giving him a bath, reading books in bed, and then just sitting with him until he finally closed his eyes and started to slow his breathing down. I mean, there is nothing wrong with two baths a night, and to be honest, with the amount of chocolate on him, it was probably a good idea.

It's one in the morning, and I can’t keep my eyes open any longer waiting for Rem. We need to talk, and I know now is not the time, but I just need to make sure he understands that it won’t matter if I’m sitting next to another guy. Rem is still the only man I want. The one I want to cuddle up to at night, listening to him whisper dirty things in my ear and letting him leave his mark on me so I’m reminded every time I look in the mirror who I belong to. Just because no one else knows that, as long as he does, then we can get through anything.

I keep telling myself it will be okay, that once I feel his body crawl in against me when he gets home, I’ll wake, and we’ll talk then.

But waking up to my alarm and a cold bed beside me, I know he hasn’t been home. My logical brain tries to tell me it’s because he is working to protect Flynn, but my emotional brain is convinced it’s because he’s avoiding me.

But it’s morning, and I don’t have time to sort out my ridiculous head of crazy thoughts. I need to get Blaise up and ready for preschool. I hate being late, and it’s important to teach him the etiquette of turning up to places on time.

Continuing through our morning routine, Blaise isn’t even concerned that Rem isn’t here. Although he tries to have breakfast with us most mornings, there have been plenty of times that he has left early for a meeting or to sort out some problem somewhere. We even had a few days where he had to go to Paris to one of the hotels, and I still remember him coming home so proud of himself and how he got to use his new French-speaking skill. I tried not to laugh, picturing the staff in the hotel and the contractors he was working with, pretending that he was speaking perfectly, when the reality is that he was probably saying sentences that made no sense, but they managed to fill in the blanks to get the idea of what he meant. I mean, no one wants to tell the boss he is wrong.

Ready to leave, I pick up Blaise’s little Bluey backpack off the kitchen counter and hand it to him as he starts running to the front door. I hear it open.

“Rem,” I whisper to myself. Thank God. But the moment I walk into the hallway from the kitchen toward the two of them hugging, Rem looks up at me and his face is stone cold. Not an emotion to be seen, and now I know I’m in trouble.

I need to fix this.

“Hey.” As I walk slowly toward them, he stands up from his crouched position with Blaise. “Can we talk quickly?”

“You’ll be late, and I need to shower. We’ll talk later.” Without even touching me, he leans down, kisses Blaise on the top of his head, says goodbye, and walks straight past me up the stairs.

Standing there watching him go, Blaise takes my hand and pulls me toward the door to go to the car. He loves preschool day.

But by the time I get back to the house, Rem is standing next to the driver’s door of his Porsche, his gym bag in his hand, and he just looks at me as I get out of the car.

“I thought we were going to talk,” I asked, but he stares at me with that same cold look from before.

“I can’t do this now, I need to see Cherie.” And his words are final, not giving me a chance to reply.

Getting into his car, he drives out the gates, the tires screeching as he takes off down the road like I’ve never seen him do before.

“Who the fuck is Cherie!” And for the first time since last night, I’m not feeling weak.

My adrenaline is rushing, and I climb back into the car with my driver, Art.

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