But even as I asked it, I had a pretty good idea.
“Your mother gave me a key,” Claudia said, confirming my suspicions. “She thought it would be a sweet surprise for me to be waiting for you when you got home.”
Of course. It all made sense now. I should have known my mother was up to something when she had been so insistent that I make her a copy of my apartment key while I was in Chicago. I had thought she was being way over the top, even for her, especially since my parents didn’t have a place in New York and rarely left Chicago, but now it was clear that she’d fully intended to give the key to Claudia all along.
“There’s nothing less sexy than my mom being involved with this,” I said. Not that I had found anything sexy about my ex for a long time. “Did she choose your outfit, too?”
“Oh, come on,” Claudia stood and walked down the hall toward me, grabbing my shirt and trying to pull me close to her.
I peeled her hands off me and put some distance between us.
Claudia pouted. “Tell me what you want, then. We used to communicate well, Ford.”
“Did we?”
She wasn’t entirely wrong. We used to communicate well. And we used to have a “good” relationship, the kind where we both had our wants and needs met. But that’s because our wants and needs back then wereshallow. The whole relationship was shallow. There’d never been much to communicate about beyond which parties we’d go to, where to take our next vacation, who to invite out to dinner at some place we’d all brag later about being able to secure a VIP reservation for.
I tried to remember what it had felt like to be with Claudia, if we’d ever talked about anything of substance, or discussed a future that involved something more important than which bougie neighborhood in Chicago we saw ourselves living in or how many figures we thought our salaries would be in ten years. The only memory that stood out to me was how upsetting it was when things didn’t work out in the end, but now that I really thought about it, I couldn’t recapture that feeling.
Compared to how I felt about Emzee and our unborn child, everything I’d ever had with Claudia seemed dim and small. I think some part of me had always felt that way—that Emzee was the center of my universe. It just took me way too long to figure it out. And now I’d have to make it clear to her as soon as fucking possible.
“You need to go,” I told Claudia. “I have somewhere to be.”
She frowned. “We don’thaveto have sex,” she said. “That was a bonus. You want this to be an appearance-only marriage? Fine with me.”
“Claudia—”
“Though that would be a shame,” she interrupted, lowering herself back to her knees in front of me. “We did have some good times, didn’t we, Ford? All those sexy little encounters we had on our trips around the world? The times we’d sneak a quickie in the hotel hot tub or hurry back to our room to ravage each other after a night of drinking nothing but champagne?”
I almost laughed at the way she was talking about our sex life. Because those anecdotes all seemed ridiculously boring now that she was going on about them. And they paled in comparison to everything I’d done with Emzee. If my wife was all soft curves and sweet gasps and hot dirty talk, then being with Claudia was like fucking a silicone sex doll. All painted up and flashy, but with no life or emotion underneath.
Sex with Emzee? Mind-blowing. Every time.
Screwing her on the roof of that art gallery for one, when anyone could have caught us. Or the time we’d hate-fucked on the desk I’d bought with Claudia in Paris. Or the night Em had seduced me to try to get me to sign the divorce papers, ramming her from behind up against the sliding glass doors, the city lights of Manhattan glowing at us across the river. All of it was hotter than anything Claudia and I had ever done. Hotter than anything I’d ever even imagined.
Unfortunately, Claudia was still talking. I got the feeling that a satisfying sex life wasn’t high on her list of priorities for a good marriage.
“We have so much in common,” she was saying. “And we have history. Our lives are already so intermingled—our parents are friends, we have the same social circle—getting married would make everyone happy. And if we combine our personal and professional networks, we’ll be unstoppable. Plus you know how well we work together.”
I didn’t want to listen, but she was making some valid points. Our relationship hadn’t been full of the same heat and passion I had with Emzee, but it had also been free of the nonstop drama. Em and I fought constantly, and even though we usually made up in a spectacularly hot fashion, it was exhausting. When Claudia and I fought, which was rarely, all I had to do was buy her some jewelry that she could wear and show off to her friends, and all would be forgiven.
Claudia was still listing all the pros our marriage would have: “We both know how to be important, we’re ambitious, we have compatible goals, we’ve already agreed on where we’ll live and what we’ll do until we retire. Come on, Ford, how does this not make sense to you?”
It did make sense. Our families got along great—and admittedly, it would be nice not having to fight with my parents all the time because I was married to someone they didn’t like. And theylovedClaudia. If I married her, I’d probably earn enough Good Son points to last the rest of my life. They might even trust me to completely take over Malone Real Estate Holdings. With Claudia on my arm, I’d be able to go anywhere, do anything I wanted. Every opportunity I desired would be available to me. We’d be the envy of Chicago.
“Come on, Ford,” Claudia begged, reaching her hands out to me. “Say yes.”
I imagined—for a second—what my life would be like if I submitted to the future that my parents and Claudia wanted for me. How much easier it would be to let Emzee walk out of my life. I didn’t have to chase after her. I could let the divorce be finalized and see my baby on weekends and during the summer.
It would certainly make my parents happy.
But that future I imagined was fleeting, because when I thought about a life without Emzee, I ached.
Being with Claudia was easy. There were no blow-ups. But that also meant there were no challenges to be had. No rewards. No sense that we were pushing each other to greater heights, that the sum of us together was greater than what we could be separately. Those were all things I had with Emzee. Emzee who was also my best friend.
I didn’t want to marry Claudia and go back to the life I used to have. I needed the passion I had with Emzee, and if that came with drama, then so be it.
I had to make things right. Starting with kicking Claudia out of my life for good.
