Be a Doll(84)

“Mr. Grimes, maybe the car would be warmer,’’ Lucas said, interrupting us and drawing my husband’s attention to him.

I saw Mathis’ shoulders dropping slightly as if some of the tension left his body once I wasn’t in his line of sight. He nodded and without a look my way he took the last three steps needed to get to the car and let Lucas open the door for him. I watched his bulky body getting inside and sliding to the other side to let room for me to sit.

I stared at that empty space on the backseat and didn’t move. I didn’t want to sit beside Mathis, I didn’t want to spend more time with him than absolutely necessary, but most of all, I wanted to protect myself and it appeared that I had been doing a poor job of it so far in this marriage. And it’s only been a week.

One week.

I’m supposed to stay married to him at least five years before I get to renegotiate our arrangement. Five years. It meant roughly fifty-two weeks like the one I had spent. I bet more shit would get thrown my way in no time so things were bound to get worse and I was supposed to go on, smile and be a perfect little wife for outsiders.

“Mrs. Grimes?’’ Lucas asked me gently, and I heard the compassion in his voice. The man liked my husband, I knew it, but he was also aware of his shortcomings and how much he lacked good husband material. In fact, Mathis lacked most of what people thought when they talked about a good person.

I nodded and took a deep breath before I finally climbed inside the car to find Mathis staring out the window on his side, his body rigid and his hands without a doubt clenched into fists in his pockets.

Lucas quickly rounded the car and took his place behind the steering wheel and turned on the car and the heater. He stared at the inside mirror and I saw his eyes settle on Mathis who kept his eyes outside.

“Where to, Sir?’’

“Home.’’

His one-word answer sounded laconic, but Lucas didn’t question further. I took the liberty to settle against the door on my side and gazed at the city slowly passing by outside. Everything seemed gray, from my life to the city and my future. On a positive note, gray was better than black.

The silence stretched out until I started to relax, and let the hum of the motor of the car lull me back to a relaxed state while the traffic slowed down our path back to the ivory tower that was my home.

***





MATHIS


I couldn’t look at her. Not in that damn car while her perfume permeated the air and made me stiffen in my slacks. Not when Lucas was there to be a witness of the fucked up kind of relationship I had with her. Not when she was sitting so close to the door and away from me that if the door came to open she’d probably fall straight to the ground outside.

But I’d be damned if I didn’t want to look at her, to take in the way her hair flowed around her face and shoulders, the way her coat and scarf bundled her and the way her big cornflower blue eyes held so much inside them… I craved her sight, her gaze in mine just to silence everything else. I needed her body and her clenching pussy to make me forget Pandora’s box I had opened the night before.

After lunch with my mother and spending a few hours cooped up in my office, getting in a few meetings and other work related things to take care off, I had decided to leave early. I needed air before the onslaught of emotions got the better of me and instead of going somewhere where I would easily find a random woman to sate me and make me forget for a few hours, I tracked down Lila by using her bodyguard because even when she didn’t want me to touch her and she showed me her dislike, or maybe it was hatred, for me she still brought life to my lungs and some respite to my damn riling mind.

Now stuck in the car until we would reach the apartment, I didn’t know what it meant to seek her out when I felt out of control. How come she had become that person to me so fast?

Slowly, I turned to look at her, but she didn’t notice me. In fact, she had the same kind of relaxed look as she did in that coffee shop while reading on her e-reader. She was beautiful, so beautiful in fact that it never ceased to steal my breath when I looked at her and now that she didn’t look my way, I didn’t have to hide it. I didn’t have to lie to myself as to think that I had any control over what was happening with her and how I saw her.

“Your birthday is coming soon,’’ I said quietly, my voice rough.

She blinked while looking at a young couple kissing on the sidewalk where we were bumper to bumper and then she turned her head to stare at me. I couldn’t read her then, not when annoyance took precedence to any other feelings she might have when looking at me.

“It is.’’ She took off her scarf then and placed it on her knees and clasped her hands on top of it. “Why?’’

I briefly looked down as if it’d give me an idea of how to manage small talk. Before Max passed away, I was the cool kid, the one who always had things to say and ways to make people laugh or cut through tension. Now, I was the master at making tension, but breaking through it was not my forte.

“Don’t you want a party to celebrate? Twenty-five is a milestone,’’ I finally said and caught the amusement on Lucas’ face through the interior mirror. Heat climbed up the nape of my neck and onto my face as if I was starting to blush. I frowned at my body’s reaction and instead focused on the erection that was hidden by my coat, but quite uncomfortable when sitting like I was.