Fake Empire(55)

Technically, Scarlett has a claim to this property. Our ironclad prenup distributes our substantial assets in the event we get divorced. As long as we’re married, they all belong to the other—with the exception of the magazine she asked me to sign away. Possessing something often causes it to lose its luster. It’s human nature to covet what we can’t or don’t have. Appreciating what we do own is much rarer.

I watch our driver stack the suitcases in the entryway, then turn back to Scarlett. She’s twisting her long brunette locks up into a bun, looking around like she’s stepped inside a museum and is observing its artifacts. Appreciative, yet detached.

“I’ll be back by six.”

She spins, paying attention to me for the first time since we arrived. “Where are you going?”

A question I didn’t ask her once in the past four days, most of which I spent in a hotel room in Paris, working remotely so as not to interrupt her business. “Out.”

“I came all this way and now you’re just leaving?”

“Sound familiar?”

Her eyes flash and her mouth drops. I walk out before she responds. A low blow. An admittance—that her absence and detachment the past few days bothered me. Annoyance—because I want to spend time with her, and rather than man up and admit that to her, I lied. And now I’m having to act like it wasn’t one.

I instruct the driver to leave me at a tiny café in town. Happy chatter fills the street in a smorgasbord of languages. I order a cappuccino from the waitress and take a seat at one of the tiny tables—Europe is the opposite of Texas, it seems—and look out at the stucco buildings and the expensive cars and the ocean sparkling in the sunshine.

My phone starts to ring. I debate answering, but it’s Asher. I haven’t talked to him since I left for Paris.

“Hey.”

“Why aren’t you answering my texts?”

“Why are you acting like a clingy ex?”

He chuckles. “Fuck, dude. I miss you. You coming over tonight?”

I blink, then realize. I was supposed to be back in New York hours ago. “No. I’m at the villa.”

“The villa? Does your dad know?”

Most of the time, I like the fact that my best friend’s office is right down the hall from mine. This is not one of those times. “He’s not my warden. If I want to go to Italy, I’ll fucking go to Italy.”

“I was just asking, man. He was pissed you left for Paris without warning, and the Lancaster acquisition is supposed to close Friday. We’re supposed to run through the final reports tomorrow. The whole team.”

“I’ll review the reports and send my feedback.”

There’s a beat of silence. “It was that bad, huh?”

“What?”

“Traveling with Scarlett. I knew it would be a disaster. You couldn’t even come back together.”

The insinuation chafes. For who knows what reason, I feel the need to defend her. “It wasn’t a disaster. She’s here with me.”

“She is?” Asher sounds shocked.

“We never went on a honeymoon. It’s just for a couple more days.”

“So you’re finally getting some? Must be good if you’re risking Arthur’s wrath.”

My molars grind. I’m not sure when, but my marriage to Scarlett became something I don’t want to discuss with anyone. More than just her, I’m protective of us. I’ve avoided committed relationships like the plague. Even if I’d developed feelings for Hannah Garner or any of the other women I’ve been with, I still would have married Scarlett. At the time, I couldn’t envision putting someone else through watching me marry someone else. Now, I can’t picture putting Scarlett through seeing a woman leave my bedroom. Cheating, because that’s what it would feel like.

The moments between us that felt like they mattered have been fleeting. The kiss before our wedding. Carrying her upstairs when I found her on the couch. Dancing at the Rutherford gala. The Fourth of July. Climbing the Eiffel Tower and exploring Versailles.

They’re like us. Messy and scorching and confusing and thrilling and consuming.

We’ve only been married for a little over a month. And yet, I can’t imagine my life without her in it. It would be like living with bad vision for years, getting glasses, and then losing them for good. Living with sharp clarity and then returning to dull blurs, knowing what you were missing out on. Scarlett makes me see things differently. Clearly. I can’t explain it to anyone, and I don’t want to. I’m different around her, and I’d like to think she’s different around me too.

Asher clearly doesn’t know what to make of my elongated silence. I’m not the passive aggressive type. I say what I mean. I told him my marriage to Scarlett wouldn’t change a thing, and I believed it. He believed it.

I was wrong.

“Did you call to discuss anything besides my sex life?” I ask.

“I heard you punched Camden Crane on the Fourth. Sebastian showed up at the office this week. Feel like discussing that?”

“No.”

Asher sighs. “You went to the Hamptons, man.”

“They’re my in-laws. It would have been rude to skip it.”

“She’s not worth it, Crew.”

I clench my cup.