The Kiss Thief(88)

“She said you were going to pick her up. That you didn’t fly out to Springfield today. And I didn’t see your car in the garage in the morning, so I figured it was true.”

It was. I had two meetings downtown today. And, strangely, I was going to surprise Francesca at her school. I ran late because my second appointment—the one in which I purchased a Yamaha C-7 Grand Piano for my unhappy wife—ran late. It was supposed to be a surprise. Of course, my lovely wife beat me to it this round.

My phone buzzed in my hand. For a second, I thought it’d be Francesca, calling to tell me that it wasn’t what it looked like. I glanced at the caller ID. No. It was just Preston Bishop, eager for some blood sport.

Damn it, Francesca.

I sent the call to voicemail, along with the dozen other calls from Bishop, White, and Arthur Rossi, who were all keen to offer their two pennies about the situation, no doubt. I’d been humiliated beyond my worst nightmares after I’d sworn to never be put in this position again. Not after I got down on my knees to Rossi.

The only person who did not try and reach me—other than my cheating wife, of course—was Sterling, who wasn’t connected to social media and wasn’t privy to what her darling girl had done.

When I got home, I told Sterling to leave for the nearest hotel and gave her ten minutes to pack a bag while I called an Uber for her. I didn’t want her there when I faced Francesca. She did not deserve to see that ugly side of me.

“For how long?” Sterling grinned, flinging dresses and stockings into the open suitcase on her bed. As far as she was concerned, everything was still dandy between me and my wife. She probably thought we were planning a fuck-fest over every surface of the house. I glanced at my Rolex.

Two, maybe three years.

“A couple of days. I’ll call you when I’m done.”

Whenever my lawful wife takes her head out of her ass.

“Wonderful! You have fun, lovebirds.”

“Count on it.”

Calling her when she was with her lover in a hotel room would be redundant. And hysterical. No. I sat on my wife’s bed the remainder of the afternoon, replaying last night in my head. Aunt Flo my ass. She didn’t get her period. She didn’t want my dick inside her body, probably because she was too busy nurturing an affair with her college buddy.

I was consumed by guilt and self-hatred after the night I’d taken her here, on this bed, thinking that she’d spread her legs to Angelo. But really, my only error was chronological. Because she might have been a virgin when I took her that first time, but that public kiss she had shared with him? It was as real as ours, if not more.

She cheated on me with the man she’d loved since she was in diapers.

And I was the idiot who kept on taking her after all their discriminating evidence.

The Bishop’s wedding.

The engagement party.

The kiss.

No more.

I heard the door downstairs open some hours after I arrived. My wife always took off her shoes and arranged them neatly by the door before taking a glass of water from the kitchen and going upstairs. Today was no different. With the exception that when she climbed up the stairs and got into her bedroom, she found me sitting on her bed, holding my phone in my hand, the screen lit and showcasing her kissing Angelo.

Her glass slipped from between her fingers, hitting the floor. She turned around, about to run away. I stood up.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Nemesis.” My voice dripped ice and menace.

She stopped in her tracks, her back to me, her shoulders sagging, but her head was still high.

“Do what?” she asked.

“Turn your back on me when I’m in my current state.”

“And why is that? Are you going to stab me?” She twisted on her heel, her azure eyes shimmering with unshed tears. She was brave, but she was emotional. I mistook all her tears for weakness. No more. Francesca was definitely in the habit of going for what she wanted in life.

I cocked my head to the side. “Why must you Rossis always turn to violence? There are plenty of things I can do to hurt you beyond belief without laying a finger on your beautiful body.”

“Enlighten me.”

“I think I will, Nemesis. Tonight, in fact.”

Her throat bobbed. Her false fa?ade was collapsing inch by inch with each ragged breath and shiver. She scanned her surroundings. Nothing was different about the room. Other than my invisible pride, shattered on her floor, with her footmarks all over it.

“Where is Ms. Sterling?” Her eyes slid to the window, then to the door. She wanted to escape me.

Too late, darling.

“I sent her on a mini vacation for a few days to freshen up. She doesn’t need to be here for this.”

“For what?”

“For when I break you like you broke me. Humiliate you in the way you humiliated me. Punish you the exact same way you punished me.”

“You’ve read the notes.” She pointed at the wooden box on her nightstand. I smiled, sliding my wedding band from my finger with slow precision, watching her eyes drink in my movement. I placed it by the box on her nightstand.

“Why else would I send you chocolate when I couldn’t even stand your face?”

The truth felt like ash in my mouth. But the truth was also a weapon I’d used to wound her little soul. I couldn’t breathe without feeling my chest tightening, and I wanted to slice her open in the same way she cut me. Bone-deep.