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“Is it already happening?” she asked him one night as they returned from one of the social events he insisted they attend. Because his appearance was always necessary. He left her to handle whatever social niceties were called for and closed business deals over drinks. It would have felt like a partnership, she supposed, if he didn’t treat her like a questionable employee. And if she didn’t have this regrettable need to torture herself like this, dashing herself against the sullen stone of his new indifference to her. “Are you already cheating on me?”
“I would not consider it cheating if I were,” he replied from the other side of the car, his voice sounding gravelly. She glanced at him, watching the lights from the Manhattan street outside the windows wash over his hard face. Harder these days. “You were as blackmailed into this marriage as I was. There was nothing in your father’s will about fidelity, Annika. I think you know this.”
“Yes or no?”
“And if I say yes?”
It cost her something to shrug then, with such unconcern. Such blasé sophistication. That was what she’d learned, night after night, out swimming with these sharks she liked so little. That was what he wanted, wasn’t it?
And it wasn’t truly killing her. It only felt like it might.
“Then I will congratulate you and wish you well. The tabloids are certain to make sure the whole world knows if you’re cheating, and that would reflect badly on both of us. I was hoping you and I could come to an arrangement before that happens, but not if there’s already other women in the mix. That seems entirely too unsavory.”
She felt the heat of his gaze on the side of her face. “An arrangement?”
“You’re not the only one with needs, Ranieri.”
He sighed, managing to make it sound withering. “Amore.Please. You are only embarrassing yourself.”
She wanted to hurt him then. She actually feltbloodthirsty. But she wanted this more. Even if he kept calling heramore, which seemed more mocking and pointed each time.
Annika was sure he meant it to feel that way, like a blade beneath her skin. Because he was banking on the possibility that he could win that way.
Because that was the game. Hadn’t she thought of it as a game, long ago? And now there was nothing left but to play it.
“I don’t feel the slightest bit embarrassed,” she told him, still managing to keep her voice cool. “You introduced me to sex. I’d like more of it. If we decide that stepping outside the marriage isn’t cheating, then I suppose that opens doors. It just sounds a bit inconvenient, that’s all.”
And she would never know how she sounded so bored. All the many polished and poisonous society events she’d been forced to attend had finally paid off, apparently. Because she sounded like the rest of them now.
Ranieri let out another one of those sighs. “Forgive me, Annika, but surely what happened in Italy has proven that you cannot handle having sex with me. You become too emotional. You want it to mean things that it cannot.”
Yes, she thought balefully.I am the emotional one here.
“We live together, I like orgasms, and I thought you could help,” she said, impatiently. “But believe me, this conversation makes me wish I was dead. So by all means, find yourself the emotionless mistress of your dreams. I will handle my own needs however I see fit.”
He didn’t say anything, but when they stepped into his elevator, she was sure she could feel a kind of edgy heat emanating from him. And when the doors opened and let them into his apartment, she’d taken all of three angry strides when he was on her.
And it wasn’t like Italy. It wasn’t languorous. It wasn’t an endless, rolling delight, or feeling as if the two of them were one.
It was hot. Furious. He lifted her up, dug beneath her dress, and dragged her legs around his waist. Then he held her there, pressing her back against the nearest wall, as he reached between them to free himself, ripped off her panties, then plunged deep.
It was a mad gallop to a blistering finish, and when he was done, when she was limp and wheezing, he stepped back and fixed himself while she clung to the wall and pretended she really believed her legs could hold her.
“Sleep well,amore,” he said, his voice dark, then he left her there.
And for some time in those darkest days of the year, that was what it was like between them. They lived separate lives. They came together for the usual social events. And there was sex, but it was always about the goal, not the journey.
There was nothing wrong with that, necessarily. It was still mind-blowing. It was still Ranieri.
But she knew the shift was deliberate.
And, yes, when it was done she would sob out her love, her loneliness into her shower, but surely as long as no one knew that but her it didn’t count. It swirled its way down the drain and was gone again by morning.
Annika just kept telling herself that she could live with it. One way or another, shewouldlive with it.
Not because you want to win this, that voice would whisper as she lay in her bed, alone, her eyes swollen from tears.But because you cannot bear to leave him, even now.
It was obvious to her that she’d missed something that day with his parents. Not everybody was lucky enough to have family they admired, the way she had admired and loved her father, and the memories of her mother. Not everyone had even a family they liked. If anything, meeting Ranieri’s parents had made her love who he’d made himself even more.
