Page 37 of Hush Money

“I’ve been thinking about our wedding since I got back home. That’s why I wanted the pictures.” Now looking teary, she sets her box on the desk, pops the lid and pulls out a shot of the two of us cutting the cake at our reception. She offers it to me, but I glance at it without taking it. “Remember how happy we were?”

I feel a distant tug of something. I don’t want to, but I do. Yeah, I remember. I thought I was the luckiest guy in the world. For about two seconds. Until she threw a stick of lit dynamite into the middle of my happiness and blew it up for the pleasure of making a fool out of me.

“Oh, I remember. That was before our wedding night. Remember that? When you told me you didn’t want kids even though you knew I did? It was also before our honeymoon, when you flirted with everyone in sight just to make me jealous. It’s like the real you came out as soon as the ring was on your finger. Like you wanted to see how many different ways you could rip my guts out. So don’t expect me to have any lingering good feelings for you. It’s too late. You destroyed them all.”

She leans closer, planting her hands on the desk and hunkering in. “Why would you say that when we were so happy together?”

Another laugh from me. Hollow. Disbelieving. Bitter. “You didn’t seem that happy when you were taking off to party with your friends and spend my money every chance you got.”

She’s got the audacity to look startled. No one does righteous shock like Ravenna. “That never happened.”

Yeah, okay. With that, I’ve hit the limit of my patience. “I’m not here to re-litigate the past with you. I’ve made my offer. You can stay here for a couple of weeks. Get your strength back. Get your memory back. All your things are up in the attic. We can have someone bring them down for you. We’ll put you in the green bedroom, like we discussed. Is there anything else?”

“Yes,” she says, her voice rising. “We can work this out.”

“No, we can’t.”

“Lucien.” She sounds so broken as she shakes her head and wipes a tear away from her shimmering green eyes. “I’m your wife. I plan to die as your wife.”

I would have believed her back in my younger days. Now I just feel disgust. “You’re delusional.”

She gets up and hurries over, dropping to her knees in front of me and planting her hands on the arms of my chair when I start to roll away from her. “Is this about kids? Because we can have kids. I’m ready now.”

There’s something about a beautiful woman on her knees in front of you, especially when she’s passionate and urgent. I feel another distant pang. I admit it. Luckily, an instant flood of revulsion wipes it out. I can remember. That doesn’t mean I want a resurrection. You know what’s also beautiful and urgent? A fire. That doesn’t mean you throw yourself into it.

I infuse my voice with steel, barbed wire and zero wiggle room. “The last thing I want is kids with you. Get up. You’re wasting your time.”

“It’s because of her, isn’t it? If she were out of the picture?—”

I don’t like the sound of that. “Tamsyn is in the picture. And this conversation is over.” I stand, forcing her to let go of my chair and pretending I don’t notice when she wobbles as she rises to her feet. “Like I said, we’ll bring your stuff down from the attic. Meanwhile, get some food. Get some rest. Get your strength back. Figure out what you want to do with your life. Something that doesn’t involve me. You’ve got two weeks.”

I walk off without giving her the chance to respond, far too agitated to be much good to myself or to the growing pile of work waiting for me in my study. Much as I want to go back to Tamsyn and check her mood after the encounter, I know it’s a bad idea right now. So I go for a quick swim, pushing myself through twenty hard and angry laps. A five-mile jog follows, at the end of which it crosses my mind that I should sign up for one of those iron man triathlons. But all the exercise has its desired effect, clearing my thoughts enough for me to tackle my work after I shower and gobble a quick, solitary dinner. I call it a night following a scotch nightcap or two, falling immediately into a dead sleep.

I’m not sure what wakes me. Whether it’s the way her naked body presses up against my naked body from behind, her silky leg gliding over the top of mine, or the scent she brings with her. Lilies of the valley. I smile into my pillow, groaning as her lips glide up the groove between my shoulder blades and press a hot kiss at the base of my neck. I feel the brush of her tongue. A hint of suction. A hum of pleasure.

That’s all it takes when Tamsyn touches me. I’m instantly ready, hard and straining for her slick little pussy even before she delves between my legs and strokes my heavy length. I groan, my hips beginning to thrust as I turn in the circle of her arms. Tamsyn and I always reached out and woke each other up while we were on the cruise. There’s something irresistible about the darkest part of the night and the way we surf the edge between sleeping and waking. I reach for her face, wanting her lips. Needing them. But she’s elusive tonight, slipping beneath the sheets and sliding lower before I can kiss her.

The next thing I know, she’s between my legs, right there. Those luscious lips run up and down my dick, making me croon and my hips jackknife as my flesh leaps for her. A muffled hum of pleasure from beneath the sheets answers me. She grips me firmly as I reach down to cup her head?—

It all goes nightmarishly wrong just as she takes me deep into her mouth.

Her hands are cold. And all this hair doesn’t belong on Tamsyn’s head. Probably because this isn’t Tamsyn at all. It’s Ravenna.

My entire body spasms, rejecting her in the split second it takes for full consciousness to slam into me. I don’t know how to describe the horror I feel in that moment. The disappointment. The revulsion. Imagine stepping into a perfect whirlpool bath only to discover, far too late, that it’s not water you’re stepping into at all. It’s vomit.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I roar, shoving her away from me and hauling ass out of bed. There’s no need to reach for a lamp. There’s enough moonlight streaming in from the windows for me to see her tousled hair and her pale body in all its nakedness. The perky and dark-tipped nipples. The bare cleft between her slender thighs. And I don’t need the light to hear the silky triumph in her voice.

“You’ve never been shy, Lucien. Don’t start now. I need you. I need that big dick inside me.”

“Get the fuck out.” Said dick is already shriveling like a rotten cucumber left in the sun as I find my shorts at the end of the bed and jerk them on. “What kind of stunt was that?”

“It’s no stunt, Lucien.”

“You’re wearing Tamsyn’s perfume? To trick me into fucking you? And you don’t call that a stunt?”

“I need you to fuck me. You can pretend I’m her if you want. I don’t mind.” She cups her breasts, offering them to me as she arches and lets her head fall back. “It turns me on, Lucien.”

That does not surprise me. “You’re sick.”

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