Page 89 of Games We Play
At the end of the day, she still used me.Maybe not in any way she intended to use Leah, but Leah was completely in the right to say it wasn’t okay. She may have been more reserved than the average woman she knew, but she still knew how to say no. She wasn’t a doormat. She wasn’t a therapy doll.
She was Leah Vaughn, and she had a life to live.
The grass crunched beneath her feet when she stood and wandered back to work.I’m only thirty. I have my whole life ahead of me.She spent so much time obsessing over Karlie’s potential future, that she barely took the time to realize that she still had a long, fulfilling life ahead of her as well.
***
A million reasons lay between Sloan and Aaron to never, ever ride in the back of a car together again. The petition for a divorce had been filed. Their lawyers were already at each other’s throats.
Except they had adinnerto go to, and with traffic the way it was after five, it simply made good business sense to take a car together.
They didn’t speak, although Aaron stewed on his side of the seat like a toddler in timeout. The man was so pissed that his wifedaredto file for divorce, that Sloan was half-afraid that him opening his mouth would result in a demonic scream of death. She had forgotten her earplugs.
“New wig for a new you?” he finally grunted.
Sloan laughed, because what anidiot!“This is my real hair, nimrod. I haven’t shaved it in a few weeks.”
“I see.” He crossed his arms in a huff. “You look ridiculous. Could you possibly try to lookgayer?”
“Sorry if you’re intimidated by a woman with a buzzcut. I know you’re concerned for the temperature of my scalp, but I assure you that I have grown back enough hair to keep it warm.”
“Jesus, Mags.” Aaron slammed his elbow against the car door. “Do youhaveto dress like this for Mrs. Kingsley’s dinner? Half of Chicago’s social elite will be there. It’s bad enough they all know we’re getting a divorce. Is now really the time to declare how big of a dyke you are?”
“What better time is there than now?” The best way to ignore looking at his ugly face was for Sloan to pull out her compact and spruce up her makeup. She had gone heavy on the eyeliner and bold with the lipstick. A woman had to do what she must when she had no hair to distract someone’s eye.Eventually, I’ll lay off the makeup andreallyscare people.She looked forward to that day. Right now, she was more concerned with looking her magazine cover best when next to the man she would soon call herex-husband. “I’m officially back on the market. The young and sexually available women of Chicago need to know what they can look forward to when they bang your wife.”
“I take it that Ms. Vaughn is no longer responding to your calls, then.”
Sloan didn’t dare look in his direction. “For your information, I haven’t been calling her. She’s made her decision. She’s free to do as she pleases.”
“Her running back to Portland hadnothingto do with you lying about your marital status?” He’d keep pressing those buttons until he received the reaction he desired. The more dramatic on his wife’s part, the better. That’s how he had been ever since Sloan declared their marriage over.Years ago. This has been going on for years.“I always knew that would come back to bite you in the ass. The moment you got the hots for some poor woman who knew nothing about you…” He clicked his tongue. “At least I’ve always been open with my lovers. They could expect nothing from me as long as I was married to you.”
Sloan put her compact away. “Must have been nice to be guaranteed no-strings-attached sex thanks to being married to me. Not only were you off the marriage market, but I’msucha frightening woman! Why, if I decided to go after one of your little ladies, they wouldn’t have stood a chance, huh?” She snorted. “Please. You loved it. Still being married to me, that is.”
His eyes lingered on her. Although Sloan did not dare look over, she could feel them, like she could feel his aura growing in strength.Don’t you dare succumb to it, Margaret.She wasn’t in danger of ever falling into Aaron’s bed again, but he still had his tricks to get into her head. Usually, she didn’t give him the chance to fuck with her brain, but there were times when she was most vulnerable – like now, fresh from a breakup – when he knew how to push those fucking buttons.
“I always hoped,” he said with a soft voice, “that we might be able to reconcile one day. That’s why I never pushed for a divorce. Why go through that when it was easy enough to stay married?”
“You hoped we would reconcile?” Sloan nearly sputtered. “You’ve got to be kidding. Not after what happened.” She couldn’t believe she was bringing this up, but here they were, trapped in the back of a car with only their moods to keep them company. “I’mgay,Aaron. It was never going to happen.”
“It happened once, didn’t it?”
“That was… that’s…” Sloan was in therapy for multiple reasons, and one of them was deciphering what aboutthisman made him that cursed exception to her sexuality.Every time I think about it, I want to hurl.The only time Sloan courted the term bisexual was when she dated and married Aaron, but it never felt right. She only did it for political reasons. The thought of being attracted to any other man for the rest of her life was preposterous. So why? Whyhim?What did he do to make her turn on her nature and become someone she was never meant to be? “That was a fluke.”
“A seven-year fluke, huh?”
“You ever hear of a phase, Aaron? Some phases last for years.” He wasn’t the only person she had sex with when they were still together. Oh, no. He had taken full advantage of her attraction to women, hadn’t he? Because it wasn’t bad enough that a lesbian fell into bed with a mananddecided to marry him. Now they were “that” couple, inviting young women into their chambers for fun and God knew what else. Those were the nights Sloan expunged from her brain first. Hopefully, none of those women hated them.
“Still, is it so wrong for a man to hope that his wife comes back to him?”
“Stop it. I don’t want to talk about it.”
This could’ve gone one of two ways. Either Aaron would drop it and let her stew in her uncomfortable silence, or he would egg her on. That’s how it had always been. She often couldn’t believe it took her seven damned years to realize what an insufferable asshole he was.
“We could’ve had so much, Maggie,” he said with that agonizingly soft voice. To think, Sloan once foundcomfortin that tone. This was the man who taught her how to deal with the more emotional side to kink, after all.He’s why I am not good enough for someone like Leah.Leah needed genuine tenderness and an innate sense of what to do when a submissive partner pushed too far. Sloan could never be that woman. She was too fucked up by this bastard to know the difference between healthy support and good old-fashioned manipulation. “Could you imagine us with a family? We could’ve destroyed every stereotype that said couples like us couldn’t have good kids. Maybe the universe was trying to tell us that it was time to take our marriage to the next phase.”
Something tasted like spoiled milk in the back of Sloan’s throat. “You knew my stance on having kids.” This was a woman who now had an IUD, though she had zero plans to touch another dick in her life. “I never had anything more to say on the matter.”
“Still, I would’ve thought that maybe…”
