I stared down the hallway that led to the master suite. I knew which door was his bedroom because it was damn near straight across from the personal gym we were in this morning, which was ten times better than the gym I belonged to at home.
Pulling in a deep cleansing breath, I headed down the hall. Checking the gym, it was empty. Turning, I passed a long table that had a beautiful sculpture on it, which I had admired this morning. They were in a small niche that was on the wall opposite Malcolm’s bedroom. Lifting my hand, I went to knock when I heard voices.
I held my breath as I leaned in closer. It was a female voice.
Did she just moan?
I slammed my hand over my mouth to keep from throwing up.
Oh. My. God.
He was fucking someone? It felt as if someone had kicked me right in the stomach as I quickly took a few steps back, bumping right into the table. Before I could stop it, the sculpture rocked and tipped right over, smashing against the travertine floor.
Fuck!
I dropped to my knees and started quickly picking up the pieces. Tears pooled in my eyes as I prayed for the strength to keep them at bay. Please, God. Please don’t let him come out here. Please don’t let me see who he is with. How stupid could I be to think this would work? How stupid was I to think I could work him up into a frenzy and then just walk away and he would be totally fine? He was a man. They only thought with their dicks.
The door opened and I trained my eyes onto the broken pieces of clay.
“Paislie, are you okay?”
I tried desperately to keep the sob from escaping, but failed. He reached down and placed his hand on my shoulder, causing me to pull away.
“Don’t touch me!” I cried out a little too loudly. Not wanting to look at him, I reached for another piece and felt my finger slice open.
“Jesus Christ, Paislie, just leave it be and I’ll get someone to clean it up.”
Standing, I tried not to look at him. When I saw the towel wrapped around his waist, my mouth fell open. “I . . . I didn’t . . .”
The overwhelming feeling of hurt fell over my body like a blanket. “Your finger is bleeding,” Malcolm said as he reached for my hand. I shook my head and pulled it back.
“This was a mistake. I’m leaving.”
His eyes widened in fear. “W-what do you mean you’re leaving?”
A single tear fell from my eye as I brushed it away with my fingertips. “I can’t do this. I’m so sorry.”
A woman came walking around the corner and smacked right into me. She was holding a tray full of something that fell to the floor. She was dressed in all white.
“Oh crap! I’m so sorry,” I mumbled as the woman cursed softly.
“Jessica is going to be pissed now. She likes to have the rocks heated up to the right temperature.”
I reached for a rock and yelped as I fell back onto my ass. “What in the hell! Why is that rock hot?” I exclaimed.
“For Mr. Wallace’s massage. Great. You go back there and tell her what you did, because she will be very upset.”
“She already interrupted the zen we had, so don’t worry about it, Natalie. Mr. Wallace has asked us to leave.”
I sat there on the floor looking up at an older woman also dressed in white. She placed her fingers to her temple and let out a long, drawn out moan. Kind of like the one I heard in Malcolm’s . . . bedroom.
Oh holy shit.
Fuck. My. Life.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
Her eyes shot down to mine and said, “Trying to find the inner peace. The quiet that makes everything okay. Mr. Wallace was in need of finding it and now you’ve just brought all this negative energy.”