Page 36 of Dirty Rotten Cheating Husband

Clementine.

Stumbling to my feet, my heart still pounding through my chest, I headed into the kitchen to grab a glass of something. I had seen a bottle of wine. But I didn’t want to dull the pain I felt. I wanted to feel it searing through me, punishing me for what I had put Clementine through.

Just as I poured myself a glass of wine and put it to my lips, I felt Clementine brush by me and stand on tiptoe to reach a glass, her arm brushing by mine.

“So thirsty,” she said.

I jerked around, seeing how she was in a silky bathrobe, her cheeks flushed, her hair tied up in a loose bun.

I can do it better.

I can make her scream.

“I want another chance,” I said.

She stared at me, tightening those plush pink lips.

“Get out of my way,” she replied coldly, trying to step around me, but I grabbed her arm.

“Clementine, please. I want to start fresh.”

“Are you fucking drunk, Grayson?” she demanded. “How much of my wine have you had?”

“None yet,” I said, my throat dry as sandpaper. “I fucking screwed up with you. I’ve done so many undercover missions and I’ve always been able to leave them at the end without a single look back. But not you. I had to try to compartmentalize what happened, lie to myself that it was just another job. It wasn’t. I really cared for you. I loved you the whole time, Clementine. I just didn’t know it.”

“Loved me without knowing it, very convenient,” she scoffed as my heart plummeted. “Very convenient way to cheat, I’d say. And that might work on someone else, your whole, ‘I’m growly but I do the dishes’ persona, but it won’t work on me.”

She dropped a couple of fresh slices of lemon into her glass and then turned away.

“I—still love you,” I said, feeling desperate, unable to figure out how to make my shame and regret clearer.

But she didn’t even acknowledge it.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go in that room and have sex again with my boyfriend. And you’re free to leave. You can watch me from outside with a pair of binoculars if you want. But there’s no place in my life for you.”

And I had to sit back down on that goddamn couch and listen, cold and miserable, as she had sex with him again.

CHAPTER 15

Clementine

Grayson was still there the next morning.

He looked a little pale and his jaw was locked with grim severity, but he was there in the kitchen, cracking eggs to make an omelet.

“Damn, that smells good!” Liam said enthusiastically, running a hand through his wavy locks.

Without a word, Grayson handed me a plate. The omelet smelled delicious, like basil and dill, my mouth watering just to look at the unbeatably fluffy golden exterior.

I took it, then turned to Liam.

“Here,” I said, handing him the plate.

I stared at Grayson, daring him to object.

“I’ll make another,” he said.

Liam wolfed down the omelet and a cup of Grayson’s strong, perfectly-brewed coffee.

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