Page 31 of Sinful Desires

Shaking her touch from my jacket, a grimace captured my lips. “I’m going to head home,” I decided. Facing Caroline seemed like a better alternative to whatever this was.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Aiden.”

Nodding, I took off in a jog, going the opposite direction toward my home. Caroline’s Porsche was in the driveway as expected, but I didn’t stop moving until I’d successfully made it inside.

“Care?” I called out, glancing around the empty living room.

I shrugged out of my jacket, depositing it on a hook beside the door. Everything appeared to be exactly as I’d left it earlier. Venturing into the kitchen that also happened to be empty, my eyebrows drew together in confusion.

“Caroline?” I questioned again as I inched toward our bedroom. She’d already attended a luncheon with her sister this week and she normally didn’t make a habit out of doing the same things repeatedly.

Carefully pushing the door open, my eyes slid over to the bed where a lump resided beneath the covers. Her shoulders moved up and down at a steady pace as small, even breaths escaped her.

I gently closed the door, not wanting to wake her, and then navigated my way back to the kitchen and fixed myself a glass of water. The liquid trickled down my throat with ease, cooling my insides.

As I turned to place my glass in the dishwasher, a bottle of chardonnay I hadn’t noticed before caught my attention. Frowning, I took the empty bottle in my hand and looked it over. Where the hell had she gotten this?

Frustration rippled through me, but I pushed the feeling down the best I could and threw the bottle in the trash where it already should have been. Hopefully, her sister was the one who bought this for her, since Caroline knew this wasn’t something we could afford. That bottle was around a hundred dollars. Why couldn’t she be like a normal woman and just stick to cheap wine or something?

How did my life get like this? How did I give my parents so much control over my future? I suppose it wasn’t all their fault. It wasn’t like I fought very hard on the matter, but it was them who practically pushed me in her direction.

I let out a sigh and pinched the bridge of my nose. There wasn’t anything I could do about it now. Caroline’s father warned me that she could be high maintenance before we even married, but I’d seriously underestimated that.

Now, because of my own stupidity, I was trapped in a loveless marriage, full of regrets and wrongdoings.

Chapter 8

Hunter

“Where’s Myles?” Foster demanded, meeting me and Collin out in the parking lot. He ran a frustrated hand through his hair as he swirled his tongue ring around in his mouth, something he did when he was anxious or lost to his thoughts.

We’d filled him in on what had happened in the hallway earlier with Aspen. He hadn’t said anything on the subject, just clenched his jaw expressionlessly.

“We haven’t seen him since the hallway,” Collin supplied.

I nodded in response to that. “There’s definitely some history between him and the new chick. There’s no way she had time to piss him off that much in a matter of twenty-four hours.”

“Fuck it,” Foster growled. “We’ll just have to go without him.”

“But we never go without him,” Collin intervened, a frown tugging at his mouth as he processed that.

It was true. We all did things as a team and made decisions as one. Leaving Myles behind would feel weird, but it didn’t look like he planned on showing up. If ignoring all our calls were any indication of that.

“We don’t have a choice. If Myles wants to be a little bitch, then that’s his prerogative. But we have to re-up. Those fuckers drained us of our stash the other day; we can’t just not go.”

Collin and I exchanged uneasy looks before we nodded simultaneously. Foster was right. Myles would come around once he cooled off or whatever. Just like he always did. Only…eight times out of ten while he was out on his little bender, he’d do something stupid that he couldn’t take back and that we had to clean up.

For the new girl’s sake, let’s just hope that didn’t happen this time.

Talissa Jacobs was perched on the edge of her desk once we entered—obviously waiting for us. Her dark hair was twisted in a clip, and she looked professional in her business attire. She looked like a classy woman. But that was far from the case. Talissa was a criminal through and through, and she enjoyed preying on barely-legal boys—such as Collin. Her brown eyes sparkled once they slid over to the guy in question. I watched in amusement as he shifted uncomfortably beneath her leering stare.

He was the one that got himself into this mess with her, so I didn’t feel sorry for him in the slightest. It got us discounts and was the only reason she even did business with us. If Collin had to pimp himself out for us to make some serious dough, then so be it.

“I knew you boys would be calling any day now,” she chirped arrogantly, pushing off her desk and planting her feet to the floor.

Foster rolled his eyes as he moved to stand on my other side. “Can we just get this over with? We’re busy people.”

“Oh, you—” she stopped her sentence short and playfully waved him off dismissively like he’d been joking. Her gaze traveled down the length of his body in a long deliberate manner.

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