There was no way I could stand another five minutes with Claudia, let alone the countless minutes it would take her to get a good enough photo. That’s how we’d spent all of our trips. Capturing the best-looking moments for Claudia to flaunt later. They were never planned around what we wanted to see, but where she wanted tobeseen.
“I’m not taking a picture with you,” I told her flatly, steering her into a semi-quiet corner near the club’s restrooms.
She pouted. She was still beautiful when she pouted (I had always theorized that it was something she’d perfected by practicing in the mirror), but I was immune to that now.
“Oh, come on,” she said. “Emzee’s not here. You don’t have to pretend with me.”
“Pretend what?”
“That you don’t like this.” She leaned in, her lips brushing my ear as her hand slid up over my chest.
“Claudia, you have to stop flirting with me,” I said, gently pushing her away.
She laughed. “Why? You love it when I’m all over you,” she said. “Especially in public, so everyone can see how good we look together.”
Once upon a time, she would have been correct. This was exactly how we used to act when we were out in public together. I’d liked people knowing that I was fucking someone as beautiful and well regarded as Claudia, and she liked people knowing that she was dating someone as wealthy and well-connected as me. It had been a mutually beneficial arrangement.
Until it wasn’t anymore.
“You and I aren’t together anymore, Claudia,” I chastised her. “I’m a married man. You need to respect that.”
Instead of taking me seriously, she put her hand back on my chest and let out a fake-sounding laugh, waving at Roxana across the club as if the two of us were having some great conversation, not an awkward argument. Typical Claudia. Again.
I pried her hand off me, huffing a sigh of annoyance. “I’m with mywifenow. Okay?”
“Are you, really?” She leaned back and narrowed her eyes at me, making true eye contact for the first time since we’d walked through the door of the club. “Because…you aren’t with your wife now. You’re withme.”
And for the first time, I saw exactly what Claudia was seeing.
She was right.
I’d fucked up.
I stood there, surrounded by loud music and overpriced cocktails and people I barely knew anymore—people I didn’t really like, if I was honest—and let the realization sink in.
Claudia had played me.
Or rather, I’d fucking played myself.
Yeah, I had hoped to make Emzee jealous, but maybe I had gone too far. In fact, now that I really thought about it, the look on her face in the lobby of the Peninsula had been a little too cheery to be real. And yeah, I’d better go home and fix this. Stat.
I looked at Claudia, took in the smug, self-satisfied smirk, the raised brow.
“You’re right,” I told her. “I should be with my wife. I’m leaving.”
“What?” My words were clearly not what she’d been expecting.
“See you around,” I said.
I strode out of the club, not even stopping by the table to say goodbye to anyone else.
Once the valet brought my car around, I took off, tires screeching. The entire drive home, I racked my brain for ways I could make this up to Emzee, for all the ways I could apologize. Flowers, maybe, definitely a nice dinner out. Maybe take Munchkin for a doggie spa day.
When I got back to the apartment, I took a deep breath, unlocked the front door, and…found the place dark and quiet.
I figured Emzee had just gone to bed, but I didn’t hear Munchkin either. Usually he would come out to greet me, tail wagging, no matter how late it was.
Nothing.
