Arranged(23)

I tensed up. I’d literally signed my rights off to give away candid details about my marriage, but I wanted to spill my guts to this girl I’d only just met. It was stupid, and I made myself exercise caution.

“Hey listen,” she finally said when it was obvious I wasn’t going to answer the question. “Forget I asked. I’m way too self-absorbed to be all up in your business.”

I smiled because that was bullshit.

She proved me right a minute later when she just couldn’t help but pry more. “Is marriage how you always hear it is?” she asked.

“How do you always hear it is?” I couldn’t help myself either. I wanted to hear her fourteen-year-old take on it.

“You know. Mistresses, resentful blowjobs, and fights about serious shit that really doesn’t mean anything. Like grownup stuff.”

We laughed for a long time at that, and I never did have to answer the question.

I went to bed after midnight with a smile on my face. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had so much fun.

At about two a.m. there was a light knock on my bedroom door.

It was Jovie. She didn’t want to sleep alone, so I let her bunk with me. I didn’t mind. The big bed always felt too empty with just me in it.

Soon after she got settled, she started crying very quietly then louder until she’d worked herself into wrenching sobs.

I tapped her on the shoulder and she rolled over, burrowing her wet face into my neck.

I held her as she cried. She didn’t stop for hours, saying over and over, “He was supposed to be my family.”

“I don’t have a family, either,” I whispered to the night. “We’ll be okay though. We can lean on each other.”

“What about your husband?” she whispered back. “That’s a family.”

“Not for me, it’s not.”

“Well, then you can leave that asshole. We’ll figure it out. We both get plenty of work. We don’t need him. You could have any man you want.”

“Don’t worry about me,” I replied. “I have everything that I want.”

“Okay, okay,” she sniffled. “How long can I stay here? I never want to leave. I’m so lonely, Noura.”

“As long as you want.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she sobbed.

By the time she cried herself to sleep in my arms, my heart was a puddle of mush at her adorable, baby model feet.





CHAPTER





TEN





I didn’t hear directly from my husband again for weeks.

It bothered me more than I was comfortable with.

I’d walked into our marriage for reasons that had nothing to do with love or affection. I’d gone into it with my eyes wide open. My motives were money and security, and at one point, before I’d set eyes on him, there was nothing I’d have loved more than a wealthy husband who ignored me as much and as often as possible.

It bothered me how much that had changed with just a few brief exchanges. I didn’t want to be ignored. Not by him. I wanted the opposite. Mean and nasty as he was, I wanted his attention.

I wanted his fingers in me again. I wanted his cock in my hands, down my throat.

His insults after were still ringing in my ears, and still I wanted a repeat.

How messed up was that? I knew how much, and it didn’t matter. I wanted more destructive contact with him. Enough to think about it too much. Enough to fixate on it. Enough to do something about it.

Two weeks and two days after our one month anniversary and our first ‘date,’ I accidentally stumbled upon a way to get it.

Up to that point, I’d followed all of the trophy wife rules to a T.

They weren’t easy rules. And there were a lot of them. They were a consuming set of arbitrary commands designed to keep me in my place and blending in seamlessly with my new fake family.

I was bound to break one or two of the little ones at some point. And when I did, it gave me a powerful weapon against Calder, because I learned something valuable.

If I wanted his attention, all I had to do was misbehave.

It was simple, and honestly it came more naturally to me than what I’d been doing.

So far in our marriage I had, for all intents and purposes, been very well behaved. I went where I was told to go, wore what I was told to wear, and tried my best to keep quiet and out of trouble.

Through it all, I’d only seen my detached husband one obligatory time.

I found out, quite by accident, that a little bit of trouble was the quickest way to get a response out of him.

It started with one impulsive, racy Instagram post. It was uncharacteristic of me, and I can’t even explain what gave me the urge. Since the wedding, I didn’t run my own social media. I was signed in on my phone on every platform, but I’d never posted personally. My timelines were generally filled with professional shots shared directly from modeling jobs. There were no captions, just pictures tagging whatever clothing I was being paid to sell. I’d never given any of it much attention.

If I had a free moment, I spent it joking around with Chester and Vincent, or watching DramaFever on my phone, not stalking my own social media profiles.

It all began with a snag in the paper thin couture dress I was supposed to be modeling for an editorial in Vogue.