44
As soon as I woke up, I knew.
I could feel her tucked into my arm, the weight of her pressing against my body, and I closed my eyes and leaned back to let that hazy half-sleep take me once more. I just wanted to lie here with her all day long, to go over in my head every single moment that had happened the night before and how damn good it had been, but my stomach was grumbling. I needed something hot and greasy to help stave off the effects of the few glasses of champagne I’d had the night before.
I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened when we’d arrived back at the apartment. I’d desired her before, obviously—badly too—but nothing like what had happened between us then. I felt as though someone else had swung in to inhabit my body as I took her, as I touched her, but she seemed to enjoy it. I could still remember with a vividness the way she’d tipped her head back as she came, my face between her legs, the way her body shook and trembled as she guided me up on top of her and begged me and begged me to fuck her. Fuck, I was getting hard right then and there just thinking about it.
But she was fast asleep, and it had been a long night for the two of us, so the best I could do was let her sleep for a little longer. I was sure as hell going to lie here and enjoy her presence next to me. I slipped down the bed and looked at her as she slept, peaceful, and I felt the swell in my chest that told me precisely how I was feeling.
I loved her. It was that simple. And I knew it as clear as the bright sunlight pouring through the window next to us as I sat there and stared deeply into her sleeping face. Her makeup was smudged all over, her lipstick still staining her mouth and black rings around her eyes where she had failed to remove her eye makeup the night before. Her hair was a mess, but I desired her with a fierceness I had never felt before. Even sober, even lying here in bed the morning after, I still needed this woman in a way I would never be able to put into words. I closed my eyes and let them run around my head: I love you, I love you, I love you. I had never said them to anyone and meant them like that before, with that dark, deep intensity that throbbed somewhere deep in my very core at the thought.
I rolled away from her and sat up. I needed a minute to myself. It was the first time I’d even really allowed myself to think about those words, to consider them with regard to me and Amaya, but I knew they were true. Last night, every time she had drifted away from me, I had found myself pulling her back. I needed her next to me, always. By my side. My woman. My wife.
I went to the kitchen to make us both some breakfast, and I couldn’t stop smiling as I started cooking up some toast and eggs for the two of us. I really did do it backward, huh? I married a woman, slept with her, and then fell in love with her. It was a complete mess, but it was a complete mess that seemed to have wound up in me actually falling in love for the first time in my life, and I was more than happy with that.
I was in such a good mood, actually, that I didn’t even flinch when there came a knock on the door so loud, it made me jump. I had no idea who it could be. Maybe Amaya had ordered something for delivery, and this was it arriving? I wiped my hands with a towel and headed over to answer the door. As soon as I pulled it across, my father came tumbling into the apartment.
“She’s not here, is she?” he demanded, and I furrowed my brow at him.
“Who, Amaya?” I asked. “She’s sleeping. I was just making us breakfast.”
“No. Karen.” He shook his head, and my heart dropped. Shit, I had a feeling this was going to be some seriously bad news.
“No, it’s just the two of us in here,” I assured him. “What the hell happened?”
“She’s been cheating on me all this time, Kris.” He turned to me and used the nickname I hadn’t heard from him in nearly a decade. I knew this was bad.
“What the fuck?”
“All this time, and there was another man on the side.” He shook his head, and I could see he was close to crying. I had never seen him cry before in his life, and the real horror of the situation began to settle in as I realized I might have to deal with my bawling father first thing in the morning.
“Holy shit.” I ran my hands through my hair. I couldn’t believe this. After what he had been telling me just a few days ago, about how in love he was and how he wanted the same thing he had for me. And then, like that, the whole thing came apart at the seams. I couldn’t believe it. This was insane.
“I’m divorcing her, obviously,” he said, and he sank back against the door and stared off into space. “She’s going to go after half of everything, but still.”
“Can’t you throw it in that she’s been fucking someone else this whole time?” I suggested, and he flinched at my use of the word, and I cursed myself internally for not thinking about how badly it would hurt him. He shrugged and shook his head.
“I just want this done with as soon as possible,” he admitted. “I can’t handle this. I really thought, after your mother, I thought this was it, you know? She was so good with the family, and she seemed so happy.”
I thought back to those encounters I’d had with Karen, and I felt my blood boil in my veins. She had treated all of us like family right off the bat, and it had all been a lie. She hadn’t just hurt my father. She had hurt all of us, and she was going to pay. She wasn’t going to see a penny of my father’s money, no way in hell, no not if I had anything at all to do with it.
“Come on, my office.” I pulled the food off the stove and headed through to my workspace. “We’re going to figure this out. Right now.”
It was the best I could offer him in the face of what was happening. I had never much been one for dealing with high-level emotion, so I could at least make sure he wasn’t getting taken for a ride when it came to the divorce proceedings. I was silently fuming, already going through all the ways in my head that I could tear this woman apart for what she had done, but there was something else there too.
As we started going through the nitty-gritty details of what their divorce would look like, I found my mind straying back to Amaya, to the two of us in that bed this morning. How sure had I been that this was love? I had felt it with a burning certainty, but now that I looked back, I had no way to be sure. I had never been in love before, not really, and perhaps this was just lust, desire, possession. Everything that had happened between us had been so damn messy that maybe my feelings were just some culmination of that.
Even if it was love, look at where that had landed my father. Heartbroken. I had never seen him this way before, not truly. I had seen him hurt, sure, but not to this extent. For the most part, he was the one doing the breaking-up when it came to his relationships, and he had never been the one to have the trigger pulled on him. I had no idea how he’d found out, but it had only been the night before, and he still appeared to be in the process of reeling at the discovery. This was where loving someone properly had left him, trying to piece his life back together, so distraught that his usual bulldog business instincts weren’t even kicking in properly.
And it was turning my head. I could feel it. I hated it, but I couldn’t deny it. I wanted my father to be happy, and I wanted myself the same way, and that seemed to be shutting down anything close to love before it happened. Whatever I had with Amaya was dangerous, a ticking time-bomb waiting to explode and finish off the two of us at once. I could hardly breathe thinking about it.
I could hear Amaya moving around the living room, but she didn’t come to the office, much to my relief. Eventually, my father planted his hands on the table and let out a long sigh.
“I think I need some space.” He nodded, and then he slapped me on the shoulder. “Thanks, son. You’ve been a big help today.”
“Anytime,” I muttered, and I ushered him out of the apartment. Amaya had returned to the bedroom, probably understanding this was private and that she would do well to stay out of the way. She emerged when he was gone and found me leaning up against the door letting out a long sigh of disappointment.
“Is everything okay?” she asked nervously. I shook my head. I couldn’t even look at her at that moment. I couldn’t believe that only an hour or so before, I had lain in bed next to her and realized I loved her.
“I need to get out of here,” I muttered, and I turned to head out the door, grabbing my keys and my coat as I did so. I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew I couldn’t be around her any longer. It was too dangerous. My father had proven that. No matter what I felt for her, it wasn’t worth ending up like him, brokenhearted and alone. I was getting out while I still could, and I left Amaya standing in the apartment, looking after me, and tried to ignore the notion that leaving her behind was walking away from a piece of myself too.