Page 66 of The Devious Husband

“What are you working on that’s keeping you so busy?” I ask, my voice trembling as I click through his documents without actually registering anything I’m seeing. I’m too nervous, too far out of my depth, and the longer he stays silent, the more I lose the confidence I barged in with. I really thought my actions today would make him snap out of his daze, but all I’m accomplishing is humiliating myself.

I draw a shaky breath, beginning to accept that I’m going to have to walk out of here with my pride in tatters. When we first got married he wouldn’t let me in either, but at least then, he let his body do the talking. I thought that if I tried to seduce him, maybe I could have at least that part of him back, but I was wrong. I overestimated my own appeal.

I begin to straighten, defeat washing over me, when his voice fills the air between us. “The Stanley project,” he growls, placing his hand on my lower back as he pushes me back down. I lean forward on my elbows, my heart pounding wildly as he grabs my thigh with his free hand, his thumb caressing the curve of my ass.

I gasp when he forces my legs apart with his feet, making my dress ride up further. His sharp intake of breath makes a thrill run down my spine, and I arch my spine when he grabs my ass, his thumbs so close to where I want them that I can’t help but squirm. I whimper when I feel his hot breath on my skin, and he chuckles before kissing my pussy softly before dragging his tongue down it.

I moan his name when he uses the tip of his tongue to circle my clit, using every single thing he’s learned about my body to get me close. “Please,” I beg. “I need you, Xavier.” I think we both know it isn’t just his body I’m talking about, and I’ve never felt more vulnerable. He responds to my words by pushing two fingers into me and curling them as he laps at me harder, his movements rougher. My moans fill his office as I begin to become lightheaded, and he groans when I come, my legs shaking and my forehead pressed to his hard wooden desk.

I’m still panting and trying to catch my breath when he pulls my dress back down. “You got what you wanted,” he says, his voice rough, devoid of the passion I’d expected. “So leave, Sierra. I’ve got work to do.”

My heart twists painfully as I push off his desk, taking a moment to lick my wounds before I straighten and turn to face him. “So have you,” I tell him, my voice breaking. “You wanted to hurt me, and you have. You didn’t have to go this far, Xavier. Just look me in the eye and tell me you don’t want me anymore.”

He doesn’t refute my words, and I draw a shaky breath, a lone tear running down my cheek. I’m learning the hard way that his silence cuts deeper than anything he could say to me, and God, it hurts. “I’ll be at home, waiting,” I tell him, my voice barely above a whisper as I step away from him. “I’ll wait a million years and a day, Xavier, if that’s what it takes.” I look over my shoulder when I reach his door, only to find him staring out the window, like I’m not even worth looking at. “I’ll wait, because I still want you, and I still love you. Not even the way you’re treating me right now will change that.”

Fifty-Eight

Sierra

I sigh as I pull up in front of Xavier’s parents’ house, my heart aching as I sit in my car for a few moments, trying my best to pull myself together when all I can think about is the interview Xavier did this morning, announcing our merger and heavily insinuating that it’s the only reason he married me. I’ve watched it over and over again, and each time, it hurts just a little more. I get why he did it — he’s sending a signal, telling the world he doesn’t care enough about me for me to be a viable target that can be used to get to him.

I draw a shaky breath and lean back, trying to convince myself to smile and put up an act, only to startle when the passenger door opens. My father-in-law smiles as he gets in, his three-piece suit vaguely familiar. “Mom liked the suit you bought for Xavier,” he explains when he finds me staring at it. “So she got matching ones for me, Elijah, Hunter, and Zach. I haven’t been able to tell her that the boys are all too old for matching outfits.”

I smile shakily. “What are you doing, Dad?”

“Sitting with my little girl,” he replies. “We don’t have to go in if you don’t want to, but I don’t want you to sit here by yourself.”

Tears begin to fill my eyes, and I bite down on my lip harshly as I try to suppress them. “I’m just so tired of hurting,” I tell him, burying my face in my hands. I’ve been coming over for dinner a few times a week, just so I wouldn’t have to be home alone in a house that used to be filled with happy memories — memories that are all slowly being replaced by loneliness and disappointment.

I’ve been wanting to go home to my siblings, but I know I can’t suddenly go back more often than I used to, or they’d just worry about me, and I haven’t been able to admit to anyone that my marriage is falling apart, and nothing I’ve tried is helping me keep it together.

Dad offers me a handkerchief that’s far too nice to actually use, and I just begin to cry even harder at the thought of everything I stand to lose. It isn’t just the love of my life, it’s the parents I never thought I’d have too. “Oh, Sierra,” he says, his voice soft, pained. “Tell me what you want to do, sweetheart. Should we just track that stupid son of mine down and force him to listen?”

“I’ve tried that,” I tell him, bawling. I tried talking to him a dozen times at home, before he left. Then again at his office, and countless times at my own office, after meetings I knew he would never miss. I’ve told him that I miss him, that I’m hurting, and it’s like he just isn’t hearing me. “He needs help, Dad. I can’t get through to him, but maybe someone else can.”

The way he looks at me tells me he’s tried too, and I avert my gaze, trying my best to compose myself. “Sweetheart, if I could force him to get help, I would. I’m not above locking him into a room with a psychologist, but that won’t make him talk.”

I wipe away my tears and draw a steadying breath, trying my best to stop my tears. I haven’t felt like myself in so long, and I’m tired of feeling weak, breakable. “Let’s go in,” I say eventually, my voice hoarse.

Dad simply smiles. “Are you sure? If you want to, I can make Elijah set up a big screen and a projector, so we can watch watch a movie from the car. We can sit here for as long as you need to, Sierra.”

“Would you actually do that for me?”

He grins and gently tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear. “Mom and I have done that countless times with Valeria, and we’ll happily do it for you too. For a long time, she’d get ready, determined to go somewhere, only to sit in the car, too overwhelmed to leave. So we’d just sit right here with her.”

I stare at my hands and shake my head. “Can we do that someday?” I ask him.

“Of course,” he replies instantly. “Whenever you want, sweetie.” For as long as I can remember, I’ve wondered what it’d have been like if I still had my parents, and now I no longer have to wonder — now I know what it’s like to be consoled by a father when a boy breaks my heart, even if the boy in this scenario is his son.

“Let’s go,” I say, sounding a little more determined, a little less broken.

“I actually came outside to pre-warn you,” he says as we walk to the front door together. “Mom prepared a little surprise for you. Something that I think is not exactly normal, but that she insists is going to make you feel better.” I raise a brow as I press my hand to the scanner at the front door, and the door swings open. “I… well, I don’t really know how to explain. You’ll have to see for yourself.”

I frown when I follow him to the kitchen, where Valeria is hand making fresh pasta, and my mother-in-law is cutting fresh herbs for the pasta I’ve come to love so much that she now makes it for me every single week. “Oh, Sierra, honey, there you are,” Mom says, smiling at me, before she grabs a handful of finely chopped parsley and throws it on the floor. She glances at the ground then, and I walk around the kitchen island to figure out what she’s doing, only to find Hannah, Raven’s older sister, on her hands and knees, a toothbrush in her hands. “You missed several spots,” Mom says, her tone much harsher than I’m used to. “Clean that up.”

I watch in shock as the woman who tormented Ares and Raven for years brushes the floor with a toothbrush, and I’d be lying if I said that it didn’t make me feel a whole lot better. Ares had mentioned that he forced her to work as a maid in retaliation for what she’d done to them, but I’d completely forgotten that it was the Kingstons she’d been sent to. I very rarely see any staff at any of our houses, and things always just seem to get done when I’m not looking, so it hadn’t occurred to me that I could’ve been making Hannah pay for what she put my brother and my sweet Raven through. If not for her, Ares and Raven wouldn’t have missed out on so many years of happiness, and Raven wouldn’t have had to watch her designs burn in the streets, when she never did anything to deserve that.

“Just can’t find competent staff these days,” Mom says, smiling at me sweetly.

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