Page 15 of Yours Suddenly

He's lying on his back on the bed in nothing but white boxers, seemingly half asleep.

Oh no, he doesn't get to sleep. Not after what he said earlier.

Quietly, I get into the bathroom, a wide, pristine white-marble space where many an orgasm has been wrung from me in front of the ornate mirror, my hair being pulled back, my ass being slapped and groped, dark, low vicious growls of how good I feel being fed into my ear. The memories of those hot nights embolden me.

I take out new lingerie from my shopping earlier today. Victoria's Secret, simple yet sexy. I put the bodysuit on, removing my hair from its ponytail, spritz myself with some Chanel No. 5, and step back into the bedroom.

I get even more annoyed when I notice he's snoring, his mouth slightly open. Still doesn't take away from how fucking gorgeous he is. His tattoos snaking across his vast chest and muscular thighs, his dark hair slightly ruffled. Wetness gathers in my core as I recall his fingers roughly inside me before he brought them up to his lips to taste, and then giving me a taste of him tasting me.

Not knowing what else to do that would properly sate both my anger and hunger, I jump on him.

His eyes open slowly as if a feather dropped on his lap. No groan, no flinching, no look of alarm, just eyelids closed one second and then opened the next. He looks at my cleavage in his face, and I stare down at him. His hands wrap around my waist, and I'm about to tell him that he can't have any, I’m about to play hard to get, when he removes me gently from his lap.

“I don't need that right now,” he says impatiently.

I want to run out of the room in embarrassment.

Instead, I roll away from him and lie on the bed as he closes his eyes once more.

After a few awkward seconds of silence, I manage a snippy, “Well, goodnight then.”

“Goodnight,” he says in his bored voice, even more bored than usual, and I want to cry as I switch off my lamp.

Chapter 8

Alexandra

Three nights later, Roman slips into our bed at one a.m. smelling of another woman.

For the past three days, we've barely seen or said anything to each other. Just the occasional greeting and impersonal brush of his lips on my cheek or forehead.

Everything has been marred by my feelings of being rejected. The lingerie and perfume and all the sexy stuff I bought lie unused in a closet. A complete waste of money because it seems like he's getting action from someone else.

As I lie in the half-darkness, moonlight spilling in through the vast windows, I want to wake up and make a scene as blood boils through me. I'm in disbelief. Tears start streaming down my face and I clasp a hand over my mouth in case a sob escapes.

I listen to his breathing, and when it becomes even and slower, I get up and go to the bathroom. I walk to the mirror and stare at myself, noticing the inadequacies.

Maybe my lips are too thin, my boobs too small (impossible), my stomach not flat enough.

Or maybe I'm just overreacting.

Maybe a woman threw herself into his arms. Maybe he went to a bar to de-stress, and a woman jumped on him, not knowing he was married, not seeing the ring on his finger.

In the mirror, I look at my own ring, a large diamond shining on it. I get an urge to remove it and flush it down the toilet but I don't, of course.

I'm probably overreacting. I take three deep breaths and get back to bed.

I don't get any sleep, though. I keep tossing and turning and when morning approaches and it's time for him to get up, I pretend to be knocked out. I only wake after he's showered and left. Without him here, I feel an odd relief, but at the same time an emptiness. The smell of this other woman's perfume has dissipated but it still lingers in my mind, mocking me.

Throughout the day, as Adrianne and Mama and I redecorate rooms and suites of all the hotels and restaurants Roman owns, I am plagued with that smell. Sickly sweet, like roses. An image is forming in my mind of her. A taller, sexier, funner version of me.

“Are you okay?” Adrianne says when she notices my perpetually furrowed brow.

“All good,” I say. I look at the color palettes she’s examining on her phone as we stand in the middle of a massive pink bathroom, Matthew and Blake and Freddy all standing by the door playing rock, paper, scissors. “I think cream would be best.”

I have to see what he’s up to.I have to follow him.

The problem is I have no idea where he goes these days. I can ask Blake, but he obviously won't tell me, he's too loyal to my husband and it’ll sound suspicious. Men protect each other when they do shitty things like cheating.

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