Page 52 of The Devious Husband

In recent months we’ve both grown a lot as a couple, and we’ve slowly started to take baby steps toward each other. Each time I tell him funny stories about my childhood, he emails me a day later with a story of his own, and we’ve just been going back and forth like that, slowly getting to know each other in ways we didn’t before. He leaves me little notes around the house and sends me little gifts almost every day, just things that reminded him of me with a story attached.

Yesterday he sent licorice to my office with an accompanying note reminding me how I once ground up licorice and put it in his coffee machine at home and at his office, because we’d been competing for a candy factory acquisition, and he’d graciously bowed out after my little prank, stating I’d ruined licorice for him forever. His note told me that he thought of me every single time he saw licorice anywhere, and it made him smile every single time. He told I’d infiltrated his life in more way than he could count, more way than I could possibly know.

That new kind of intimacy between us and the vulnerability we’ve shown each other has brought us closer, and though I’m scared to admit it to him, I’ve started to see a real future with him, and I wonder if he does too.

“I never asked you, you know?” Xavier says eventually, looking up from my drawing again. “Why did you decide to go into real estate?”

“Because of my dad,” I admit, my heart constricting painfully. I rarely talk about my parents, because unlike my older brothers, I don’t really have any memories with them. All I have is countless regrets, memories I wish I’d made, photos I wish we’d taken together, and questions I wish I could’ve asked. “Remember the observatory that we held our reception in?”

“Zane’s observatory?”

I nod. “My dad had that built for my mom. It was one of Windsor Real Estate’s first projects. Before me, the company had an external CEO, with my grandmother being the chairwoman, but I always knew that I wanted to manage it myself one day. The idea of building places that people set their roots in, that they make memories in… that was what appealed to me. What about you?”

He smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “There was a time when things were incredibly tough for my family, and I felt like I was drowning. I needed a lifeline, and Enzo, the friend I just mentioned, gave me one. He’d asked me to manage some of his properties for him, and when it became clear I had a knack for it, he pushed me go into real estate myself. Dion wholeheartedly agreed, and the two of them helped me set things up and got me going. They both taught me a lot of practical things that I simply couldn’t have learned at school, and I fell in love with the process of watching things be built up from scratch. It reminded me that it’s possible to build almost anything, if you’re patient enough — even something as elusive as a better future.” He smirks at me then. “Then eventually, this girl came along that challenged me at every step, and I fell in love even more, harder than ever before. I became obsessed with competing with her, and she inadvertently helped me grow my company into more than what I ever thought possible. She became my lifeline. This incredibly beautiful, batshit crazy girl, became the highlight of my entire damn life. She gave me purpose, and she doesn’t even know it.”

I stare at him, scared to ask him the one question on my mind. Did he fall in love with the girl in his story, with me, or did he fall further in love with real estate? I know better than to ask questions I might not like the answer to, so instead, I reach for him, my hand cupping his face. “Maybe that girl was falling in love with you the whole time, through every battle, every prank, every single thing you did that ensured you’d be on her mind as much as she was on yours, and maybe she just didn’t realize it.”

He grins as his nose brushes against mine. “Maybe I did it on purpose. Maybe I just wanted her to think of me, even though I knew I didn’t deserve her attention.”

“I think she disagrees,” I tell him, my lips brushing against his and my hand wrapping into his hair. “I think you might just be uniquely perfect for that crazy girl.”

He groans when I tighten my grip on his hair and kiss him, losing myself in him, in this moment. God, I’m so in love with him, and I’m starting to think he feels the same way. We’ve come so far from where we started, all in a matter of months, and I just know… this story we’re writing together, it’s my favorite one of all time.

Forty-Six

Sierra

I sigh as I check my phone for the hundredth time today, only to still find no new text messages waiting for me. Xavier and I have begun to text each other throughout the day in the last couple of weeks, and the effort he’s been putting into our marriage has far exceeded my expectations. He now joins me for lunch with my grandma every week, and he even helped me out with a family incident involving Raya, no questions asked. Things have just been perfect, except, perhaps, for that one time when I found out the hard way that my brothers are all traitors.

I’d caught Xavier sneaking out of the house one night, and he’d been acting so incredibly suspicious that I thought he might’ve been cheating on me, so I followed him instead of hanging out with my sisters-in-law, like I’d planned to, only to find out he’d been going to poker night with my brothers for longer than I could’ve imagined. They all tried to deny he was there, only for all their lies to unravel when I walked into Lex’s house. I’ve forgiven my husband for secretly gathering intel on me throughout the years, but I’m definitely not going to make it easy for my brothers to earn my forgiveness. I’m going to milk that forever and make them suffer.

I sigh as I put my phone down, only to pick it back up straight away. Xavier has become someone I’ve come to rely and depend on, to the point where him not replying to his text messages for a few hours completely unsettles me.

I know he had a meeting today that required him to take his jet early in the morning, but he told me he’d be back in time for tonight’s charity fundraiser, and I can’t help but worry. I hesitate before ringing my Head of Security, and a dear friend of mine.

“Hi, sweetheart,” he says, picking up on the first ring. “Tell me. What can I do for you?”

I smile involuntarily. “Hi, Silas,” I reply, a little nervous. Xavier has his own robust security team, ran by Elijah, and I know that they’re on par with Silas, but it’s worth a try. It’s better than calling my brother-in-law with a ridiculous request. “I was just wondering… would you be able to tell me where my husband is?”

He laughs, and I can’t help but blush. “I can find out for you. Xavier recently consented to sharing some of his data with me, for your comfort, so it shouldn’t take me long to find out.”

I raise a brow. He did? The Kingstons are notoriously private, and now that I’ve married into the family, I understand why. Their security is far tighter than what I’m used to, and though Xavier has tried his best to ensure I don’t notice it, it’s hard to miss the cars that tail me everywhere I go, and the bodyguards that desperately try to blend in but fail miserably by virtue of their size.

“His jet is en route,” Silas tells me. “Should be another hour or so before he lands.”

I sigh as I thank Silas before ending the call, my eyes on my reflection in the mirror. I’m wearing a formfitting cream dress that I really wanted Xavier to see, and I paired it with one of the diamond Laurier necklaces he gave me when he stole mine. If he isn’t landing until an hour from now, he might be too tired to attend at all.

I’m a lot more crestfallen than I’d like to admit as I head to the fundraiser by myself thirty minutes later. I only attend a handful of them a year, and this is the first one I’d genuinely been looking forward to, because it’s the first one I thought Xavier and I would attend together as a couple.

I bite down on my lip as I walk into the ballroom, my thoughts beginning to take control of me. Did he schedule his meeting the way he did so he wouldn’t have to attend with me? Our marriage is still a secret, after all. It was my decision to keep it to ourselves, but the longer we’re married, the more I’m beginning to regret that choice.

“Sierra?”

I look up and smile when Graham walks toward me, a glass of champagne in his hands. “Graham!”

He wraps his arm around my waist in a quick side hug, and I swipe a glass of champagne off a tray as we stand together. “I’m surprised you’re alone,” he says.

“Xavier had a meeting that couldn’t be postponed,” I tell him, my mood souring all over again.

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